You’re losing it, she told herself.You’re exhausted and you’re losing it.
The whole ride home, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching her back.
Mia was waitingon the couch with wine and takeout containers.
“Finally!” She set down her phone, studied Ava’s face, and her smile faltered. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost.” Ava collapsed beside her, grabbed the wine glass from Mia’s hand, and drained it in three long swallows. “Demons. My boss is a demon.”
“Metaphorically?”
“Literally. Actually. Historically.” She held out the empty glass. “More, please.”
Mia laughed, but her eyes were worried. “Okay, we definitely need the whole bottle for this story.”
She went to the kitchen. Ava watched her go and felt the distance between them like a physical thing. Mia didn’t know. Couldn’t know. If Ava told her everything, really everything, what would happen? Would they make Mia forget too? Would they consider her a liability?
Don’t speak of this to anyone, Victor had said.
She thought of Mia’s smile, Mia’s worry, Mia covering rent when the temp jobs didn’t pay enough. Her best friend since freshman year. The only person in New York who felt like home.
She couldn’t risk that. Couldn’t risk her.
“Okay.” Mia returned with the bottle, topped off both glasses. “Spill. What happened?”
“My boss…” Ava took a breath. Let Mia think it was a joke. What else could she do? “My boss is literally a demon. Like, ancient evil, sold-souls-for-profit demon. And he wants me to keep working for him.”
“Sounds like every law firm in Manhattan.” Mia clinked their glasses together. “What’s really going on?”
“That’s really what’s going on.”
“Ava.”
“Mia.”
They looked at each other. Mia’s eyes were worried, searching. She knew something was wrong, Mia always knew, but she couldn’t see the shape of it. Couldn’t see the truth Ava was choking on.
“Just work stress,” Ava said finally. “First-week stuff. You know how it is.”
Mia didn’t believe her. But she let it go, because that’s what best friends did.
The wine was cheap and a little too sweet. They ate congealed pad thai and watched a reality show neither of them cared about. Normal Friday night stuff. Ordinary.
“You’d tell me if something was really wrong, right?” Mia asked during a commercial break. “Like, actually wrong?”
Ava thought about the archives. The impossible room. Victor’s eyes with their distant fire.
“Yeah,” she lied. “Of course.”
Mia squeezed her hand. “Good. Because you’re my person, and if some evil law firm is actually eating your soul, I need to know so I can stage an intervention.”
Ava’s laugh came out wrong. Too sharp. Too close to a sob.
“Just tired,” she said. “Really tired.”
Except she couldn’t stop watching shadows. Couldn’t stop noticing how Mia’s reflection sometimes lagged behind her movements.
Later, alone in her room, she pulled out her laptop and searched forMalphas.Grimm demon.Azrael.Lilith.
