Page 13 of Eat, Slay, Love

“Yes.”

I swallow.

“But most importantly, he’s no longer filled with ‘rot,’” he quickly adds on. “He is, in the most basic of terms, a ‘good person’ now. He’s going to realize and acknowledge his sins, and he will leave them alone.”

I frown. “So you’ve just changed the entire makeup of what makes him human, against his will. Even if it’s the bad parts.”

Jonah vigorously shakes his head. “The core and the inner layers remain intact.” He shakes the onion-half still in his hand. “Their identity, will, personality traits don’t change. And that’s not to say that rot can’t accumulate again. After all, the core of someone’s soul determines the layers that come after it.”

“So you’re putting a band-aid over the problem,” I retort.

He raises his eyebrows. “Would you rather I let him walk around with rot in perpetuity? Would you rather I took it all?”

“I’d rather you didn’t feed at all.”

He scoffs. “Please, Mayari, you’re smarter than that. Demons exist whether you like it or not, and demons have to feed to survive.”

I chew on my lip.

“Rot-feeding,” Jonah continues quietly, “requires proximity, focus, and restraint.” A beat. “It also requires a conscious decision not to take more.”

“So, ‘taking it all?’” I repeat his words.

He frowns, ever so slightly. “Yes. That’s the second way demons can feed. Full consumption.” His tone goes flat. “Core and all.”

I don’t like how easily he says it. “The person dies?” I ask.

“Or disappears,” he replies. “Depending on how clean the extraction is.”

A chill creeps up my spine.

“It’s easier. But more importantly, it’s addictive,” he adds. “Once a demon feeds on a core, the distinction blurs. Rot and essence stop feeling separate. Everything tastes the same. After that…” He shakes his head faintly. “There’s no moderation.”

My mouth goes dry.

“Most demons cross that line very early in their lives,” Jonah says, and for the first time there’s disgust in his voice. “They don’t bother distinguishing anymore.”

“And you,” I say slowly. “You’ve never⁠—”

His jaw tightens. “I had a choice. I made it, in the end.”

My magic hums again, unsettled and searching, as if it’s trying to reconcile what it knows with what it’s hearing. “Why,” I ask carefully, “would any demon choose restraint?”

Jonah’s eyes flicker—something else there now, something that doesn’t feel like flirtation. “That,” he says softly, “is a longer story.”

For some inexplicable reason, I find myself taking pity on a demon. “Fine,” I say briskly, as if I’m doing him a favor. “What about the rest of it? The half part.”

His attention resharpens, zeroing in on me. “Like what?”

“The biological part?”

The dimple on his right cheek reappears. “Must I explain basic procreation to you, Mayari? When a human loves a demon very much, or, in fact, even if they don’t⁠—”

“I didn’t realize they could.”

He shrugs, looking away for a moment, but his expression is still soft. “In an ugly world,” he says eventually, “creatures have a way of connecting with the ones who can live inside it with them.”

Huh. The philosophical musings of demons. I clear my throat. “Okay. How about your powers? Your magic?”