A long silence. The city hummed sixty-six floors below.
“It was a very long time ago.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”
He collected his briefcase. Straightened papers that didn’t need straightening.
“We should go home.”
Home. His penthouse. The guest room with the lock she never used.
“Victor—”
“Tomorrow.” His voice was gentle but final. “Ask me tomorrow, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But tonight, I need to not think about the past.”
She nodded. It wasn’t enough, wasn’t close to enough. But it was something.
Forty-nine days.
And now she had questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answered.
CHAPTER 6
The subway ride to Queens had never felt so long.
Victor stood close in the crowded car, one hand on the rail above her head, his body forming a barrier between her and the press of commuters. The position put his chest inches from her face. She could smell cedar and smoke.
Saturday night crashed back unbidden: his couch, his hands in her hair, the rough edge in his voice.In about thirty seconds, I’m going to forget this is fake.
She’d spent two days trying not to think about it. Two days of careful distance and safer topics and pretending her body didn’t remember exactly how he’d felt pressed against her.
“You’re nervous,” he said.
“My best friend is about to interrogate my fake demon boyfriend.” Ava adjusted her bag on her shoulder, using the movement as an excuse to create space between them. “Of course I’m nervous.”
“We handled the senior partners this morning. Lilith’s suspicions. Grimm’s questions.” His voice was low enough that only she could hear. “How much worse can your roommate be?”
She thought about Mia’s text from lunch:Bringing wine. And holy water. And possibly a priest. The cute one from St. Anthony’s who did that blessing last Easter.
“You have no idea.”
The train lurched. Victor’s free hand caught her elbow, steadying her without thought. His fingers lingered a beat too long before he let go.
They climbed the stairs into the September evening, the city noise swallowing them whole. Queens spread out in its familiar patchwork of bodegas and brownstones, fire escapes and corner delis. Ava had walked these streets a thousand times. They’d never looked quite like this before.
That bodega on the corner, the one where Mr. Navarro had been selling lottery tickets since before she moved here, did he know about the supernatural? That woman walking her Pomeranian, was the Pomeranian actually a Pomeranian, or something wearing a Pomeranian like a suit?
“Your face,” Victor said. “You’re wondering if everyone’s secretly supernatural.”
“Are they?”
“Most humans live their entire lives without knowing we exist.” He didn’t look at her, his gaze tracking the street with the casual alertness of someone who’d survived centuries by noticing threats before they noticed him. “It’s safer that way.”
“Safer for who?”
He didn’t answer.
