Cosmo raised a delicate eyebrow. “And?”
Raya looked down at the table. “And … I helped him draw from it.”
“You what?” Cosmo’s raised voice attracted the attention of the demons at a nearby table.
“I didn’t know what he was planning to do!”
“You didn’t think to ask?”
Phoenix looked back and forth between the woman and the woman-shaped demon, ready to dive under the table if things got dicey.
Raya swirled the liquid in her glass. “I didn’t think it was my business, any more than it was his business to ask me what I planned to do with my share.” She glanced at Phoenix. “I’m sorry. I was in over my head, and I was blind to the consequences.”
Raya had admitted she did something wrong. Phoenix could have been knocked over with a feather.
George tapped the table and snapped Phoenix out of his temporary trance. “How did you find out what he was planning? Does this have something to do with why you ended up here in a tizzy the other night?”
“The other way around, really. I only found out because I ended up here ‘in a tizzy,’ as you say. I went after Nathan in his sleep, thinking I could have a bit of fun, you know—”
George and Cosmo nodded knowingly.
“Thinking he was the typical helpless mortal in his dreams, but”—Phoenix winced—“he wasn’t.”
Cosmo’s eyes got wide. “What did he do?”
“He turned him into a cat,” said Raya.
George leaned back, thunderstruck. “No!”
“And it stuck?” said Cosmo.
Phoenix nodded. “It stuck. He wanted to bind me outright, but it wouldn’t work in the dream, and he didn’t want me to escape, so he transformed me and stuck some sort of witchy tracking collar on me.” He rubbed his neck and shuddered at the memory.
Cosmo set down her glass. “Why didn’t you go for help?”
“I couldn’t fly, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t do anything. I came here straightaway but couldn’t even get past the front door. So I went to her.” He tilted his glass toward Raya.
Cosmo looked at Raya with obvious respect. “You figured it out and freed him?”
Raya’s color, always easy to bring out, flushed her cheekbones instantly. She drank from her glass and nodded rather than respond verbally.
He assumed she was thinking of the pajamas and the snuggling and the “little dark prince” endearments. Time to move on before anyone got interested in the details. “Anyway, we think Nathan has a bead on this place. I think you all need to scatter for a while, at least until we figure this out.”
George wrapped his clawed hands protectively around his drink. “I don’t want to scatter. I want to stay here and drink with my friends.”
“I’m not running from some power-mad witch.” Cosmo cracked her knuckles loudly.
Several demons glanced up at the sound and scooted their chairs farther away.
20
When Cosmo cracked her knuckles, any demon with sense stayed out of her way. Phoenix didn’t have the luxury of backing down. “Not running, Cosmo. Outsmarting.”
“Don’t patronize me, Phoenix. We’ve been here for hundreds of years.” She placed her hand on the table in a proprietorial gesture. “Do you think I’m going to pull up stakes and run at the first sign of trouble?”
“Again—not running. This witch has to be brought under control.” He glanced at Raya. “We can’t do that if we’re worrying about protecting this place simultaneously. Be reasonable. Please.”
Cosmo downed the last of her drink. “What do you think, George?”
