His eyes narrowed. “Then what’s your plan?”
“Look, my mother doesn’t have a subtle bone in her body. If she knew you were a demon and intended to do anything, she would have cast a binding spell or kicked you in the teeth right then,” she said. “We’re going to get on the train and we’re going to go back to my apartment, which is the last place in the world she would look for you. As far as she’s concerned, any evil worth stopping comes from the magical world, so that rules out me. She thinks you’re the nice young mage I’m dating and if she’s very lucky maybe her grand children will have a little magical ability after all.”
Grudgingly, he stepped away from the wall. He glanced around. She tried to remember her first impression of the subway when she moved to the city for college. Overwhelmed, for sure. Grossed out by the rats scurrying down at the track level and the mystery drips from the ceiling. Enchanted by the completely unmagical magic of a train that never stopped running and would take you anywhere in the unimaginablysprawling city, where you might get sandwiched between a Broadway star and someone carrying a live chicken.
“But your mother is part of the…” he said, still trying to put things together.
“Yeah.” That was an understatement. And she’d just effectively lied to her mother to protect him.She’d lied to her mother.She forced herself to stop grinding her teeth: she couldn’t afford the dental co-pay.
Their train pulled up and she gestured them on. The door shut without Fiona bursting onto the platform, and they both sighed with relief.
“Then why is your apartment safe?” he persisted once she’d wedged them into the corner, on the far side of the bench from a seated businessman with his eyes resolutely closed and across from a teenager fully absorbed in his phone.
“Same reason I couldn’t help you in the office.” She glanced at the businessman meaningfully, willing him to be cautious. Social conventions required at least pretending to ignore other people’s conversations in the subway, and if people did listen, they viewed it more as performance art than actionable information. But that didn’t mean they should be stupid. “I grew up with it, but I’m not any good at it.”
The doors opened and a ratty-looking man with white-dude dreads staggered on at the far side of the car. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to bother you.”
Everyone in the car abruptly became even more absorbed into their phones or their shoes.
“I’m not the kind of guy who would lie to you,” he started. The teenager snorted audibly. “But I got evicted ’cause last week my girlfriend stabbed me three times. I just need a little help getting something to eat.”
Next to her, the demon perked up.
“Don’t you dare,” she muttered.
“I haven’t been able to work for two years because I have cancer,” the beggar continued when no one made eye contact. “It’s spread to my liver, spleen, groin, and gums, and my last job fired me because my breath was too bad and was scaring customers.”
Stabbingandcancer seemed like narrative overkill. But Lucareoth was staring, fascinated. On one hand, she had doubts about the guy’s sob story; on the other hand, even if he were a grifter, that didn’t mean she was OK with him losing his immortal soul. She elbowed the demon in the ribs and hissed, “No. Absolutely not. You’re not picking up some poor guy on the subway who can’t possibly know what he’s consenting to.” She tried to get back on topic. “The point is, I don’t have the skill set you’re looking for.”
“You don’t have to—” he glanced around at the rest of the car, resolutely ignoring the panhandler slowly making his way toward them. “You don’t have to be inherently gifted to make this sort of thing work.”
“But you do need to know what you’re doing, and most of the time, if you’re not inherently gifted, no one will teach you,” she said bitterly.
“But I thought most humans could, with the right teaching?”
“Sure, like most people can sight-read music, if someone teaches them,” she answered. “And then there’s people like me. You know how some people are tone deaf?”
“I have no idea what that is,” he confessed.
“Some brains can’t process musical notes.”
His eyebrows creased. “Human brains are weird.”
“Human brains are weird,” she agreed. If only her parents had rolled with that statement as easily.
“Can you spare a dollar?” The panhandler had made it up to them. He smelled heavily of body odor and stale alcohol.
“What would you do for a dollar?” Lucareoth cocked his head.
“Nope, stop it, that’s super creepy,” Morgan snapped. She fumbled out a dollar she hadn’t intended to give, just to keep the poor guy moving and away from the demon. “Here.”
He took the dollar and, to her relief, moved back down the car to harass other passengers.
She tried to recapture Lucareoth’s attention. “Anyway, I’m the tone deaf one in a family of opera singers.”
He pulled his gaze away from the panhandler reluctantly. “So now instead of being… that, you’re doing what?”
The doors opened again, and a group of Black teenagers got on carrying a Bluetooth speaker.
