Page 34 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

It rings only once before a wry voice comes over the speaker. “Well, look who’s decided I exist again.”

“Mmmmnnnn!!! Wren! I’m sorry okay?” I say.

“Girl, it’s been like ten months since I heard from you. Bastion and I could have a LOVE CHILD right now and you would have NO idea.”

“Okay, firstly, you would never fuck Bastion. It’s my thing to be a stupid glutton for punishment. You would never take that from me.”

“I just think it’s wrong for a man to smell better than me at all times,” she says by way of agreement.

“Secondly, need I point out that you could have called me?”

“Uhhhhm, no, bitch. Don’t even try that. I did. You didn’t call me back.”

“You could have also just kicked down my door,” I say. “You know—with one of the portals that gets you out of The Buried City?”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and I allow the moment to stretch. The truth is, I know why she hasn’t come. It’s the same reason I haven’t left. Nan is gone, and it feels wrong.

“Do you hate me?” she asks, her previous firmness weakening to a bit of a plaintive whine.

“No,” I say, mirroring the tone. “Do you hate me?”

“No, you stupid bitch, I could never hate you. I just—like, it’s so weird to go there with Nan being gone. I swear I keep meaning to, but it gives me a tummyache every time,” she says.

“I know,” I say. “I feel the same way going down there. It just feels strange to go without her. And... I mean I just don’t want people asking me about her yet. I still... I still spring leaks from my eyeballs every time I have to talk about her in anything but abstract terms.”

“I know. I totally get it,” Wren says. “I mean, Nan was just... She was a powerhouse, you know? It’s hard to think of her as someone who could ever be taken out by something as small as pneumonia.”

I nod, though she can’t see it. “Yeah. She was. Tough as nails and just as sharp. But man, could she love as hard and fiercely as she held a grudge.”

“Yeah,” Wren says, and I think I can hear the soft warble of emotion through the phone. After a moment of silence there’s a gust of air into the receiver. “Well. I know you’re calling me about a boy, but that’s all source would give me. Spill, girl.”

Despite the lull into heavy territory, I give a warm laugh. “Of course you had a vision,” I say before sighing. “You see anything about the boy?”

“Not really,” she says. “Just fire. Like twin flame shit, girl. Karmic bond shit.”

“Yeah, well... You know that band I tried to get you into before you told me you didn’t like ‘all the screaming’?”

A pause.

So I continue.

“Remember that Instagram I sent you with all that hand porn?”

There’s another pause but this one is much more pregnant. I bite onto my lower lip as I can almost feel the way she’s percolating. Then, like the whistle of a kettle, she suddenly bursts out, “LILLITH. FUCKING. NIGHTINGALE,” she shouts. “WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU LITTLE SLUT? You know what? No. Never mind. I’m coming over. I want to talk about this in person.”

“Wait,” I say quickly. “There’s something you should know first. It’s the actual reason I called.”

“Oh?” Wren says, her tone shifting a little more concerned. “Lilipad, what happened?”

“Well—Damien and I had a really lovely night last night. Like—one of the dreamiest dates ever. And I’m not going to lie to you, I think I’m catching feelings hard and fast. Well—I don’t know if it’s that or this other thing I did but, the demon who cast the curse confronted me.”

“What? Are you serious? In the flesh?”

“I think so? It’s hard to say. I was somewhere else but he was able to destroy the Nightingale Pearl.”

“Why? I don’t get it. Every other Nightingale has been able to fuck as freely as hell, and it’s not like you haven’t been nursing hopeless on again off again feelings for Bastion since—”

“Okay, don’t finish that sentence,” I say.