She didn’t, but she shook hands anyway. He was youngerthan her mother, maybe in his forties, and moved with the easy grace of someone who had some kind of movement training. She was willing to bet martial arts or military over dance.
“How did you even get badges?” Morgan asked. “Did you just…” She waved her hand like she was magicking them up.
“Oh, your mother knows people, you know that,” Fiona smiled. But her eyes were wary and scanning around them. She was in work mode now.
Morgan gulped a breath. Her mother always knew people. The cavalry was here to save the day. And she was grateful, she really was. But it emphasized once again that, even when she was in the center of the story, the story would never be about her. Steve could probably cast lightning bolts or fireballs or something, and her mother could stake a vampire while side-kicking a zombie, and Morgan could make a social media post with the tradeshow hashtag and order more popcorn.
“We’re going to split up and look for ripples from Infernal magic. We can’t see anything directly but we’ll be looking for any effects that can’t be explained,” Steve said, pulling out his phone. “Your mom gave me your number, I’m texting you mine now. We’re only a text away if you notice something we haven’t, OK?”
She nodded mechanically as her phone buzzed and added him to her contacts. Then he took off, grabbing a custom logo cookie from one of the stands. It was nice to know even powerful Council mages weren’t immune to the lure of free sugar.
“You OK, pumpkin?” Fiona looked at her with concern, like she was likely to break down and confess her concernsabout her demonic boyfriend in between the booths for AI personal assistants and actual drink-making robots.
“I’m fine,” Morgan insisted. At least Fiona couldn’t tell what she wanted. This wasn’t the time to deal with any of it. In any case, her mother had been bad at heart-to-hearts when she’d been in high school and she hadn’t gotten any better since.
“All right. Your booth thing is over that way?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have to stop by. I know you worked hard on it.” It was the tone people used for complimenting a kindergartener on her handmade glittery macaroni necklace.
Morgan snapped. Quietly and politely because she was in the middle of a trade show floor and she did want to continue to work in the industry, but still. “This is my job, Mother. I realize it’s not as important as your work, but it’s important to me. And Iamdoing a good job. And you won’t even know from looking at it, because the things I’m good at have nothing to do with what you do, so why don’t we both skip that part. You don’t care, I’ve made peace with that, and we don’t have to keep pretending.”
Fiona’s eyes flashed. “Have I ever criticized you for choosing a different path from me? I’m glad you chose a different path from me. You have a nice little life. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy and safe.”
“That’s what you say, but that’s never been what you meant. You always say the things like I can’t hear the disappointment behind every word. I’m sorry my life is little; I’m sorry I’m not more like you. But I’m not.” Her throat was tightening. “You know what? I’m sorry, this was a mistake. I brought it up, it’s my fault, but I can’t have this conversation here and now.”
“So you’re going to dump this on me and then shut it down?” Fiona’s hands were balled into fists. Her mother would never hit her, she knew, but she wasn’t so sure about the hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of exhibitry around them.
“Yeah, I am.” Morgan took a shaky breath. “You have things to do. I think you should go do them now.”
Fiona’s lips compressed into a line. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now, we have demons to stop.”
They wouldn’t discuss this again if Morgan could help it. She gave a short, sharp nod to end the conversation.
Fiona blew out a breath and very deliberately relaxed her hands. She turned, walking off with only a brief glance over her shoulder.
Morgan took another breath, trying to get her equilibrium back. Right now was not the time to be off-balance.
“Your mom?” asked a familiar voice.
28
She nearly leapt out of her skin.
Brad cocked an eyebrow. How long had he been there, and how much had he overheard? She wanted to wipe that smarmy grin right off his face, which would have been very satisfying but undermined everything they’d done in the last few weeks. She settled for a tight, “Yeah.”
His snort was surprisingly sympathetic. “Thought I recognized that tone. My old man’s a banking bigwig, he gets the same way. Walk with me.”
She didn’t want to walk with him. She needed to get back and check on the popcorn. But he seemed to be walking in the general direction of the booth, so she reluctantly fell in next to him.
“You want to show her, don’t you,” he continued. “Prove you didn’t have to follow the little life plan she’d decided on before you were born, that you didn’t make terrible choices by going your own way?”
She glanced at him in surprise. “Something like that.”
“You’ve got a chance to get in on the ground floor of something huge here,” Brad said. “You do good work, Morgan, but I sense you’re not all in.”
She blinked in surprise. First, that he’d noticed she was doing good work. And second, that he’d gotten her name right. She hadn’t thought he’d even known it.
