“Maybe. Eventually. I think I need some kind of expertise in either world first.” Morgan sighed and reached down to scratch Rix’s ears. The hardware store bills were adding up.
“What do you want to do?” Gisele leaned back.
“Same thing as always, I guess. What someone will hire me to do.” She tried not to sound bitter, but she was. Here she was, back where she started. “Only I think I’m kind of burned out on tech startups. Which is a problem, since it’s the only thing on my resume at the moment.”
“If they offered?”
“I guess I’d take it,” she sighed. “I’d like to be all idealistic and declare that I’ve learned my lesson and I only want to work for the good of humanity and all, but the good of humanity isn’t going to pay my frigging student loans. I still don’t have a great passion project or something, if that’s what you’re asking. Although I’ve been liking the volunteer work with the youth program, at least.”
It was the one advantage of unemployment. She’d started volunteering at the library to have something to do. Turned out that most teenagers felt every bit as isolated as she had when she was a teenager, even if they hadn’t failed to matriculate to an elite wizard school. Adolescence just sucked for everyone.
“Cultivating your own garden, then?”
“Shut up, Voltaire. I don’t wanna hear your thoughts on capitalism anymore.”
“Morgan? Are you ready?” Luke padded out of the bedroom in bare feet, buttoning up his shirt. Her mother had helped them buy a Fae talisman he wore in place of his old bracelet. It maintained the glamour now that he didn’t have a sales budget to pull from.
“No,” she admitted and went to him.
He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head. “Neither am I.”
She sighed. “But we have to.”
He nodded, which wasn’t the best idea, since she could hear his teeth click against her skull. “Oww. I guess that’s one advantage of your weirdo flat teeth.”
“That you don’t bite through your tongue?”
“I’m still getting used to it.”
“You have all the time you want.” She pressed her hands against the planes of his chest. “Are you all right with this? Being Luke instead of Lucareoth?”
“Luke’s a happier person,” he said. “Although it would be nice to still be Lucareoth from time to time.”
Especially in private, especially at night, she thought. He caught the desire, and gave her a wicked grin.
After a moment, she sighed. “We have to go do this.”
“I know.”
“I’m out of here,” Gisele announced. “Rix, you come with me.”
“You keep complaining about him, but I saw the bolt bucket next to your bed,” Morgan called. Stavrula had given them all a few lessons in dog training. He’d gotten much better at following commands.
“His farts are like literal death, but he keeps my feet warm,” Gisele said over her shoulder. “Not all of us came out of this with a hunky demon.”
Her door swung shut, and Morgan took a steadying breath. “I think the butcher guy at Whole Foods will miss us buying all the chicken hearts.”
“Hey, I like the mollejitas en escabeche recipe Gisele’s abuelita sent her,” Lucareoth protested as he took off the talisman and his scales shimmered back into place. “I’d keep eating that.”
“Yeah, I like it, too. And I’d kinda miss Javier the butcher guy.”
“We’re delaying, aren’t we.”
“Yeah. We are.”
Lucareoth took a deep breath and opened the scrying portal.
“Your visual isn’t working,” Bel’aliol growled, his voice appearing out of nowhere.
