“It’s enough to make me cautious, more cautious,” I said. “It might be different if he were willing to give your soul back. But no matter how many times I’ve asked him, no matter how many times I’ve told him that he’s hurting you by keeping your soul, he refuses to do anything to change it.
“And I’ve heard his excuses. I know the scissors will change the one who uses them. I know that only another demon can use the scissors and not cause your soul more harm.
“So I have very limited room for what my heart wants. And I have very little patience for someone who is willingly doing my sister harm.”
“Maybe him keeping my soul is for the better.”
“You believe that?”
“Maybe a part of me being that close to the demon will help us figure out how to stop any more vortexes from opening.”
“I don’t think so.”
She shrugged. “One of us has to look on the bright side.”
“Naw,” I said, “Jean does that enough for the both of us.”
She grinned. “Then let me be the reasonable voice. Love doesn’t just happen every day, Myra. It’s worth following. It’s worth fighting for.”
There is nothing more I want than to keep her soul.
A burst of smoke and flame flashed in the middle of the kitchen. When the smoke lifted, a very irate pink unicorn stood in the center of the room, and a very satisfied dragon pig was curled on Delaney’s lap.
“Hello, Xtelle,” I said. “I have a deal for you.”
Chapter 21
“What doyou think you’re doing?” Xtelle demanded. “Deal? What deal?”
The dragon pig growled and wagged its curly tail.
“Nice job. Good dragon.” Delaney reached behind her and offered the pig a metal napkin holder that must have come from the thrift shop.
The dragon pig’s eyes lit up—and I mean literally glowed orange—and then the napkin holder was gone, eaten whole in one swift gulp.
Delaney scratched behind its perky little pink ears, and puffs of smoke floated up from its nostrils.
“How about you drop the unicorn thing and show us your real form?” I said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She took a step and stopped like she’d just run into a glass wall.
“That’s a demon trap,” I said. “If you were a unicorn, it wouldn’t hold you. We know you’re Bathin’s mother. We know you’re a demon.”
She held very still. “You believe him? Bathin? The demon who lied and cheated to get into Ordinary? The demon who is hiding behind a Reed soul like a tattered old security blanket so his father won’t find him?”
“I don’t believe anything any demon tells me,” I said. Except in that stone. That stone of truth.
She turned a circle in the confines of the trap. “What about you, Delaney? Aren’t you the sister who says who can and can’t be in Ordinary?”
“That’s part of what I do, sure,” she agreed easily. “But I need to know the truth of our supernatural citizens. And you’ve lied from the beginning.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do.”
“For starters?” Delaney hopped down from the counter and, careful not to break the lines of the trap, walked around the edge of the room to stand shoulder to shoulder next to me. “It would be great if you’d show us your real form.”
“This is my real form.”
“Your demon form,” I said.
