Page 26 of Inkpot Gods

Judy blinks. “Sometimes I forget how recently you manifested. I’ll do the ‘famous alchemists and why we hate them’ slideshow next time we have a get-together that’s not in my boyfriend’s library, okay?”

“Okay,” says David. “I really am sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” says Judy. She smiles, thin as a razor. “But you will be.” She walks past him to the door, clearly heading downstairs.

After a momentary hesitation, he follows.

Divination

TIMELINE: AUGUST 21, 2018.

They reach the bottom of the stairs to find the house awake all around them. The smell of curry wafts from the kitchen, and the sound of teenage voices arguing loudly about something that sounds like Mario Kart drifts out of the living room. Erin, the aforementioned creepy blonde, is waiting by the front door. She’s leaning against it, actually, blocking it from use, her arms folded over her chest and her unsettlingly blue eyes fixed on the ceiling, like she’s performing an oracular reading of the swirls in the plaster.

David slows, until he reaches the floor an easy eight feet behind Judy, who’s walking up to Erin like there’s nothing wrong with approaching the scariest woman in the world. (Dodger can manipulate the laws of physics like a champ, but Erin? Erin will just stab you. Over and over again. And then she’ll wash the blood out from under her fingernails. Worst of all, she’ll never stop smiling, not even when the police show up to cart your corpse away—and somehow, no matter how much blood winds up on her clothing, she’ll never get caught.)

Erin’s disinterested gaze flicks from the ceiling down to Judy as she approaches. “So you finally came downstairs.”

“I had to finish talking to my colleague before I could exactly walk away,” says Judy, voice calm and level. “Hello, Erin. You’re looking less homicidal than usual today.”

“Thus proving that looks can deceive, because I’m feeling more homicidal than usual,” says Erin. “Isn’t it funny how things sometimes work out that way? I wanted to have a word with you before you left.”

“I thought you might.”

“Roger’s…” Erin’s eyes flick to the kitchen doorway, then back to Judy. “He’s a special boy.”

“I knew that.”

“No, see, after today, I’m not so sure you did. Roger isn’t one of your little Lunars, who’s going to be all honored by you deciding to pay attention to him. He’s a basic function of the universe. We still don’t know what happens if you break half the Doctrine.”

“Good thing I wasn’t planning on breaking him.”

Erin lifts an eyebrow. “Really,” she says, voice becoming a flat drawl. It isn’t a question. It isn’t quite a statement, either. It’s a grammatical oddity, sarcasm made audible and painfully heavy.

“Really,” says Judy, with absolute conviction.

“Maybe you should tell Roger that,” says Erin. “He’s in his office right now, sulking like the enormous twit he’s occasionally determined to be. You two staying for dinner?”

“Depends on who’s cooking,” says Judy. She looks around. “I know where Roger is, and I can hear the kids. That just leaves—”

“Smita is cooking,” says Erin. “None of us want toast and botulism for dinner.”

Judy nods.

David has only experienced Dodger’s cooking once; usually when there’s company she just sets up assembly lines of sandwich fixings and lets people get on with things on their own. He doesn’t really remember the time she made dinner for them. He’s either blotted it out intentionally or one of the Doctrine helpfully edited his memories to make eating easier for him. Either way, he’s happy to join Judy in nodding his agreement with Erin’s statement.

“You two play nice,” says Judy, looking between the pair before she turns and walks down the short hall to Roger’s office. A quick knock later and she’s slipping through the door, out of sight.

David turns his attention back to Erin, smiling uneasily. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” she replies, sounding utterly disinterested. “Does this mean you’re staying for dinner?”

“It smells good, so yeah, if I’m invited, I’m down to stick around.”

She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t say you were invited, I just asked if you were staying.”

“In most houses, that would be the same thing.”

“Would it, really? Or do you just take it that way, and count on people being too polite to contradict you?”