“First, it is a good idea, but we just used to move,” Ally said gently. “I left the country for a century and lived in other countries. This is a problemnowwith technology. But you are a genius because it’s a smart plan. Even have them be invisible for a year with diplomatic immunity to help us as payment for completely transitioning their lives.”
“Yeah, but I thought give them time to…” I looked to Elijah to help.
Shock rocked him in a rare way. He chuckled when I flinched but leaned in and kissed my forehead. “I’m so proud of you, Angela. So damn proud. Never forget this moment and how you have grown. Truly, you are—so proud.”
He really was my dad in some ways because no one could make me flush like he did when he praised me.
13
“I’m very confused, but you are truly beaming with pride,” Rita whispered. “What just happened here?”
“Grieving,” Joshua muttered. “She wants demons to grieve their lives as humans if they didn’t know or the lives they had before they reinvent themselves like she did—or now has accepted as Jasmine.”
“Maybe,” I mumbled. “I wouldn’t recommend people taking as long as me, but… Maybe that’s not what I realized what I was doing, but there should be some type of decompression between lives. Closure. I thought of it like between my assignments and the team. Just—mental health stuff.”
“Because if it’s always go, go,goand surviving, how can they ever ask themselves what they want tothrive?” Natalia surmised, nodding when the others did. “Love it. Truly love it, Jasmine. And yes, these are the next steps and stages of what we never got to dream of, always focused on just making this work.”
“Agreed, sincerely,” Arthur praised, giving me a proud look. “They can have the calm time to look into education and different options. Differentcountriesand languages. Why limit themselves? We can be anyone. We should start pushing our people to be extraordinary instead of ashamed we feed onsin.”
I beamed at them, feeling like the child among them but also loved and seen. “Yeah, like that.” I cleared my throat and lookedback at my notes. “And the last of bureaucratic is portals. They’re everywhere and even the maps we have are outdated. Now that we’ve rescued so many—we have to formulate a program and fast.”
“Already in the works,” Ally promised, gesturing between herself and Elijah. “So I will take that bureaucratic piece under me for sure. We had the idea, something offhand your right hand said. The always amusing Lewis.”
I sat back with a chuckle. I could only imagine then. “Oh?”
She smirked at me. “Yes, he said he hoped we made it profitable and a lot of good jobs because it could be bigger than Uber Eats with tips. That we’re already looked down on enough as demons, so why not have pride demons on call to activate portals and get the feed from assholes?”
I burst out laughing and I wasn’t the only one. That was such a Lewis thing to say.
And a fucking genius idea.
“Last is risk assessment,” I told them. “And this was actually Aidan’s brainchild. Kind of.” I frowned and then sighed when they all looked at me in shock. “He made a comment about actuaries and almost needing insurance premiums with all the risks we take and how much we’ve undertaken.”
“He’s not wrong, but I think I see his logic too,” Elijah muttered, waving for me to continue.
“First, the lives of average demons,” I explained. “Not tojudge, but how are they feeding and yeah, that could be a problem or again, transferring their bank accounts or which portals are they using? Okay, well, do it this way. If we had teams—knowledgeable teams that could point out risks, then they could learn what to work on.
“The average demon might not even know what they’re doing wrong or maybe even that they’re not feeding enough. So it’s not like ‘big brother’ government, but a brothers and sistersprogram to help someone get on a better path. But also that no one is doing shady shit that could get us outed or cause trouble for us now that we are a council and that could be a goal.”
“Will absolutely be a goal to challenge us because we haven’t had that in a few months and that’s shocked all of us,” Rita drawled.
“I think the other ancients were shocked we shut down that first challenge so fast and easily,” Ally admitted. “Plus, we’re not just council and they still don’t know how much we have in place under their noses too. No matter how jealous they might be or want what we have, we’veallhad the dream at one point that we be a council and have this.”
“They might want our spots, but more than that, they don’t want to be the ones known to have ruined it for all demons,” Arthur added, clearly having discussed it with Ally on the side.
Fair enough.
“With risk management is expansions,” I continued. “We need more information before we expand. I’m gathering information while undercover, and we can go back. We can always go back or just take an area over. We need to be extra smart and we got lucky with Rome. We—we’ve all discussed this.”
“Yes, yes, we have,” Joshua sighed, rubbing his tired neck. “It was overdue to reorganize, but fuck is this going to be a lot to implement and I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Finding the right people—fitting the ones we’ve called in to help to make this work.”
“They’re not stuck there forever, and some might not be the right fit or will step down from director positions to be one of the deputy directors or however we label it,” I told him, channeling Ally a bit that not everything was written in stone. “I could totally see one helping Natalia in PR for the companyand then realizing that maybe they’d rather handle council PR or something.”
“She listens to us sometimes,” Elijah teased.
I was very mature and stuck my tongue out at him.
“And the last part of risk management?” Ally asked. “Leaks?”
