She flinched.
But shewasundeniably useful. After Zizi saved her, Rui discoveredhe’d lost his parents when he was young and had been adopted by his grandmother, who ran a bakery. He’d moved out early to run his own business, and soon, Rui found herself beta testing his possibly dangerous and very illegal talismans and magical items. In return, he paid her a pleasant sum of money that covered the living expenses her Academy scholarship did not.
Zizi wasn’t without his uses either. He had access to information sources that Rui lacked. It was purely transactional between them, or so she told herself in the beginning. Somewhere along the way, it felt like things had changed between them.
“Also,” Zizi was saying, “for reasons yet unknown, I do enjoy your company despite the fact that you’re so grumpy.”
Rui wasn’t very good at accepting compliments, especially ones that came unexpectedly from Zizi.Purely transactional, she reminded herself. He only wanted her around because she was useful, and she was only around because she needed money and information.
“Where’s the spell you want me to test?” she asked.
Zizi bobbed on his feet. “In due time. But first, coffee.”
Rui slid eagerly onto the barstool by the kitchen island. The Academy’s brew was a standard mild roast, practical and terribly boring. But it was convenient and free, and most cadets drank it before training to give themselves an extra push. But while caffeine sharpened the senses of those who could practice magic, their sensitivity to the ingredient meant that an over-caffeinated cadet or Exorcist was a danger to themselves and their comrades. The crash would hit too hard, and the drop could come at any time.
Crash or not, Rui never turned down a chance to drink Zizi’s coffee. It was special. Sometimes, it was mellow like a quiet dusk. Sometimes it was a vibrant dawn, full of promise. He could tease out exacting flavors from the beans and transform them into a feeling the drinker needed at that very moment. It was, frankly, kind of magical.
She was still feeling the effects of Ash’s test. Fatigue coursed throughher body, and her shoulder ached. Maybe she should have stayed in the infirmary as the healer advised, but with the boost from Zizi’s coffee, Rui was sure tonight’s patrol with the other cadets would be a breeze.
Zizi pottered around, scooping coffee beans into a grinder. The rings on his slender fingers sparkled, but Rui’s attention was drawn to the new silver bracelet next to the other fraying black and red threads he always wore around his wrist. Was it a present from someone else? Her stomach clenched. She wasn’t quite sure why the new piece of jewelry felt so offensive.
She wrenched her eyes away from him and stared at her phone.
Zizi glanced up. “Anything interesting in the news these days?”
Rui scanned the screen. There was an op-ed about how the Exorcist Guild needed to refocus on the central business district and the wealthy Tin Hill neighborhood instead of spreading its resources too thinly—and equally—across all areas. Rui dismissed it. Rich people liked to complain, and she didn’t think they ought to. There was also a report on a recent successful Night Hunt, which was countered by an article about the rising death toll in the city due to Revenant attacks. Tucked at the bottom of the page was an update about the long-delayed reconstruction of the Outram subway station.
“A gas pipe in Outram burst last night, right by the old subway station,” she summarized. “The explosion shattered half the ground-floor windows of the new office tower they’re building. Good thing it happened at night and the workers weren’t there.”
“The tower with the horrific spiral design?” Zizi said, barely paying attention. “That’s not very interesting.”
“Ithink the tower’s design is cool—it looks like some kind of stairway to heaven. Anyway, the incident’s pending an investigation. Do you know anything about that?”
Zizi gave her a blank look. “Nope. Why would I?”
“Really?” Rui said, skeptical. “Yourfriendshaven’t been using that subway station for something else?”
As the city grew, new subway lines and stations were built, and the old ones closed. Left unused, the underground magic community took over. The Guild left them alone because of the unspoken promise that they would keep the subterranean network of tunnels clear of Revenants and other undesirables.
“Really,” Zizi said. “Outram Station’s been abandoned for decades, but there was always talk of reconstruction, and with the new buildings coming up around it, the place is off-limits for us.”
Us... that makes me one of them, Rui couldn’t help but think, remembering again how she and Zizi were on different sides of the magical community divide.
She chewed on her lip. “Heard anything else lately about Hybrids?”
“Unfortunately not.”
Disappointment, painfully familiar, thickened in her chest. For four years, she’d trawled through public records of Night Hunts, reading every case file she could get her hands on. But there were no reports, no records of any Revenant that bore a resemblance to a human. Like the Guild said, Hybrids did not exist.
But no record meant no capture and no kill.
The Revenant that murdered her mother—the one that looked human—was still at large. Rui was sure of it. If she could find him, if she couldkillhim, maybe the hole in her chest would disappear. Maybe her father would be well again.
“Here you go.” Zizi set a cup of coffee in front of her, his fingers flicking the air.
Rui wasn’t sure if he was casting a secret flavoring spell or saying a dramaticvoilàin his head. Both were equally plausible. Closing her eyes, she took a long sip. As rich velvet glided over her taste buds, a cozy warmth spread through her limbs, like she was curling up on the couch with her favorite book on a rainy day.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Zizi adding spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his own drink. He preferred his coffee funeral style: tooblack and too sweet. It was the traditional coffee served at funeral wakes when descendants stayed up for consecutive nights as a sign of respect for their ancestors. The same coffee Rui had drunk at her mother’s funeral.
