Page 30 of Eat, Slay, Love

The blond demon’s last words slam back into me. Belvedere is coming. Halloween.

“Hundreds?” I repeat faintly. “Ancient, undefeated, and arm-severing.”

Ma pushes back from the island so abruptly that the stool legs scrape against the floor. “We need to prepare for Tribunal,” she says to Papa, already shifting into commander mode at the impending formal “staff meeting” with all five of the city’s slayer families. “They’ll be here in an hour.”

My pulse spikes.

They’re talking now, about logistics, seating, whether the Baptistes will insist on setting ancestral wards and if they’ll bring doubles, whether the Riveras will show up with pastelillos—but their voices blur together.

Hundreds a year. Undefeated against the most powerful demon slayer in the city. And he’s coming to Manhattan. To the kitchen.

To Jonah.

I’m moving before I consciously decide to.

“Where are you going?” Gabriel calls.

“Out,” I throw over my shoulder.

“Mayari—” my mother warns.

But I’m already halfway down the hallway.

Behind me, the Magdangals descend into their usual Tribunal chaos—arguments about territory lines, about whether Ridgewood counts as Brooklyn or Queens, about which borough always shows up late and which one always overcompensates. The Chen–Moretti marriage is being debated—where does the couple live and slay after their union?

None of it matters.

Belvedere kills hundreds.

And Jonah is there.

I sprint out the front door, down the limestone steps, past Central Park gleaming and serene like nothing terrible has ever happened inside it.

And I run straight toward the soup kitchen.

To Jonah.

12

Who am I kidding?

I haven’t exercised with intention in years and subsist primarily on a diet of cheese. I sprint two blocks, almost vomit, and decide to take the subway instead.

Three stops later, I haul myself up the stairs out of the station and power-walk to the soup kitchen.

It’s later than the other night—well past closing. The building is dark, metal gates pulled down, the side entrance locked.

“Shit,” I mutter. Panic starts to bloom in my chest. I don’t have his phone number. I don’t even know his last name. I know his horns and his abs and the way his dick curves u⁠—

Suddenly, my magic stirs. At first, it's only the faintest hum beneath my ribs, a quiet vibration that unfurls through my body like the first note of a familiar song. Recognition blooms before thought can catch up to it, and when it does, it only says one thing.

Mine.

I close my eyes and let it settle into me, warm beneath my skin, every pulse answering the next until I can no longer tell where I end and it begins. It reaches outward, catching on something invisible, a silken thread drawn taut across pavement, through crisp autumn air.

I follow its pull. West.

I walk a block. The vibration strengthens. North one more, stronger still.