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“You’re already boring.” He waved a hand at my head. “Just switch up your hair color.”

“Hm . . . yeah okay, but also, uh . . . no?”

“Why not?” He genuinely didn’t understand. A touch of glamor for him was as easy as breathing. He’d used it all the time to hide any marks left over from Razorsedge. But mine was a little more . . . complicated.

“It won’t change,” I admitted. “It’s stuck like this.”

“Huh?”

“So uhm . . . you know that curse I mentioned? Yeah, well. That, on top of the glamor, kind of means it’s all stuck like it is. Like I am. Like this. As me.”

“You can’t remove it?”

“No.” I swallowed. Not without a blood sacrifice and a whole lot of suspiciously telling rituals. But Zee didn’t need to know that part right now. That was all part of The Talk that would come later, when I was ready.

“Okay, fine. We won’t change your look. You’re so boring, you’re basically invisible anyway. I got this.” He flicked out his hands. “Imma flex. Stand back.” He took a step away, rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and swept both hands up his body, then spread out his fingers and pushed at the air. His appearance, already slightly altered, shimmered and fizzled. His clothes blurred, changing into pressed gray pants and a severe-looking suit jacket. When the shimmer got to his face his jaw softened, rounding out, and his eyes turned brown. His hair, typically a floppy, two-tone black and purple mess, became clipped close to his skull—and turned brown.

He’d become a completely different person.

He shivered all over, then sighed out. “How do I look?” His brown eyebrows jumped.

Like every other person marching up and down the street. “Wow.”

“Now I’m even more boring than you. We can be brothers. Kinky stepbrothers who fuck.”

“That’s . . . impressive.” Glamor-changing your whole appearance and species, was also illegal. But who was I to argue?

“Kinda hot too, right? All that family angst but not actually related, so morally and genetically, it’s fucking fine⁠—”

“What? No, not the brother thing, the glamor.” Glamor was used for minor adjustments, tweaking things, but rarely to change a whole person into another person. Few had the power required to fuel that level of transformation. I had it, and clearly, so did Zee. Proving he was a lot more powerful than he let on—or knew.

“Yeah, but I can’t hold it for long. It chafes like crazy. Let’s go be boring before it wears off and all my fabulous spills out.”

We returned to Cain Technologies, entered through the door, and strode by the splashing fountain.

“It’s all about confidence, Kitten,” Zee muttered through his smile. “Walk like you’re the boss and nobody will doubt you.”

Zee was right. We walked right on in, toward the elevators, and nobody batted an eye. Even Cranberry Crush was preoccupied with another visitor and didn’t see us. Zee usually turned heads the second he entered a room. Not this time. Nobody looked over. It had to be killing him.

The elevator doors glided open, depositing its load of suit-clad employees and making way for Zee and me. We stepped in, then I flashed the card and hit the button for the basement level, where Victor’s office was.

Zee fidgeted beside me as the music tinkled. “Dunno how you live like this. It’s fucking suffocating.” His tail popped out and lashed. “Oops.”

A grumpy looking man entered moments before the doors slammed closed. He jabbed the level-three button.

“Oh, erm, we’re going down,” I warned.

“It’s fine,” he grouched, then pulled his phone from his pocket and buried his face in it.

Zee stood very still in the corner, trying to be boring and normal, while his tail swished his frustration. All he had to do was hold his glamor together for a few more minutes.

He pinched his lips, eyes widening, and as I watched, the base of his horns emerged from his brown hair that was now turning purple.

The grumpy man tapped away on his phone, oblivious to the gradual appearance of a demon behind his left shoulder.

The glamor peeled from the rest of Zee’s horns then down his face, like a mask falling away. Zee closed his eyes, willing the glamor back, and for a few seconds it held, then dropped down his shoulders. Underneath, his original, near-transparent shirt emerged, then the glamor fell from his hips, where his pants clung low. Seconds later he was Zee again, missing only his wings. Although, from the look on his face, those wings might have been about to make an unscheduled appearance.

“Hold it,” I silently mouthed.