Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Let’s go out.” Zara crossed her arms over her chest.
Ramona looked up from the floor, where she’d been reviewing their ritual notes for the third time that morning.
The new moon was tomorrow night. Everything was ready — the supplies, the incantation, the convergence point they’d identified in the woods forty minutes north of the city.
They’d practiced the pronunciation. They’d memorized the steps.
Everything was ready, and Ramona felt like she was going to throw up.
“What?” she said.
Zara was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching her with that expression — the one that suggested she’d been thinking about something for a while and had finally decided to say it out loud.
“Enjoyment. Fun. Something you did purely because it made you happy, with no practical purpose whatsoever.” Zara tilted her head. “When?”
Ramona opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. Thought about it. Really thought about it.
The last time she’d done something just for fun. Not work. Not survival. Not numbing herself with bad TV or scrolling her phone until her eyes burned.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Before the divorce, maybe? I don’t really have money for things like—”
“That’s unacceptable.”
“It’s fine—”
“It’s not fine. It’s been two years, Ramona.” Zara pushed off the counter, crossing the room with purpose. “The ritual is tomorrow. Tonight, we’re going out.”
Ramona’s pulse spiked. She had planned on a quiet evening in, checking and rechecking the ritual steps. “Out where? We should be—”
“We should be enjoying my last moments on this mortal coil.” Zara’s voice softened on that last part, just slightly. “Felix and Kashvi invited us to a show tonight. I already said yes.”
“You said yes without asking me?”
“I knew you’d say no if I asked. So I didn’t ask.” Zara held up her HellBerry, showing a message thread. “It’s a local band playing at a venue downtown. Small, intimate. Nothing overwhelming.”
Ramona stared at her in shock.
“I want to see the world. Enjoy my last night.” But Zara was smiling now — that slight, pleased curve of her mouth that made Ramona’s stomach flip. “Come on. When was the last time you danced?”
“I don’t dance.”
“Everyone dances.”
“I really don’t.”
Ramona looked up at Zara. Her expression was open and warm, and every last ounce of resolve melted from Ramona’s body. “How come I couldn’t summon a demon who didn’t specialize in temptation?”
Zara’s eyes darkened with mischief. “We all specialize in temptation, Mortal. Some of us just have so much natural talent and impressive work ethic, we get a title.”
Ramona sighed. She took Zara’s hand. “Fine. But if I have a terrible time—”
“You won’t.”
“If I do—”
“You won’t.” Zara squeezed her hand. “I promise.”
The problem started at seven o’clock, when Zara emerged from the bathroom looking murderous.
“What happened?” Ramona asked, finding Zara staring at her reflection with an expression of pure fury. Were shadows licking up the walls like flames?
Zara held up her blazer. The one she wore everywhere — dark, tailored, expensive-looking. A long tear ran down the sleeve, clean and precise, like something had sliced through it.
“Gerald,” Zara said flatly.
As if summoned, the pigeon fluttered down from Felix’s bedroom doorway, looking extremely pleased with himself. A single dark thread drifted down from his beak.
“He did that?” Ramona asked.
“He’s been eyeing it all week.” Zara examined the damage with the intensity of a forensic investigator. “I think he wants to nest in it.”
“Can’t you fix it with magic somehow?”
“I could, but I’d risk ruining the underlying energy without the proper preparation, and I’d rather set myself on fire.
” Zara held it up. Without the glamour, the blazer was clearly not a blazer at all.
It was something darker, something that shifted colors when it moved.
“And I’m trying to conserve my magical energy for tomorrow. ”
“Okay.” Ramona was already moving toward her closet. “Just… wear something of mine.”
Zara followed her, leaning in the doorway while Ramona rifled through her clothes. Which was, admittedly, not much to work with. Thrift-store finds and retail-worker practical clothes and a few sad remnants of her old wardrobe shoved in the back.
“Here.” Ramona pulled out a black top she’d bought on impulse months ago and never worn. “Try this.”
Zara took it, examined it, and held it against herself. The shirt was clearly too short — Zara had at least four inches on her, and the shirt had been cut for Ramona’s frame anyway.
“It could work,” Ramona said optimistically.
It did not work.
Zara emerged from the bathroom five minutes later wearing the black shirt and her own dark pants, and Ramona’s brain simply ceased functioning.
The shirt hit at Zara’s navel. Maybe an inch below it. Her stomach was bare — a strip of skin between the hem of the shirt and the waistband of her pants, smooth and warm-looking and completely, devastatingly exposed. Zara did a spin.
If she looked closely — and who could resist? — she could see what looked like a moving, flowing tattoo down Zara’s back, peeking out from under the fabric.
It wasn’t even that much skin. Ramona had seen more at the beach. At the pool. Literally anywhere.
But on Zara, in her apartment, at seven o’clock on a Friday evening with the golden light coming through the window, it was—
“Does it work?” Zara asked, looking down at herself and then back up at Ramona with a perfectly neutral expression.
Ramona’s mouth was open. She closed it. Opened it again.
“You can’t go out like that,” she managed.
“Like what?” Zara glanced down again, genuinely confused. “It’s a shirt and pants. It’s appropriate for a casual venue.”
“It’s—” Ramona gestured helplessly at Zara’s midsection. At the exposed skin. At the way the black fabric made her look impossibly sharp and elegant despite being Ramona’s thrift-store find. “You can’t just… show up like that. Looking like—”
Zara looked at her with one raised brow as if daring her to continue that sentence.
“Like…” Ramona’s face was on fire. Her entire face. Possibly her entire body. “Temptation. Do you know how many women would just be begging you to take their soul?”
Something shifted in Zara’s expression. The mask cracked, just slightly, and underneath was something knowing. Something very pleased.
“Begging, hmm?” Zara asked softly.
The air between them went thick. Charged. Electric in the way it had been in Ramona’s old bedroom, in the way it had been on the couch during movie night, in the way it was every single time they stood too close and neither of them moved away.
Zara’s eyes dropped to Ramona’s mouth. Lingered there. Came back up.
“I think,” Zara said, tilting her head with that slight, devastating smile, “that I’ll wear exactly this.”
Ramona made a sound that was not entirely human.
“Ramona!” Felix’s voice rang down the hallway. “Kashvi’s here! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s goooo!” he singsonged.
The moment shattered. Ramona took a step back, then another, smoothing down her own outfit with hands that were definitely not trembling.
“Fine,” she said. Her voice only cracked a little. “Fine. Wear that. It’s fine.”
“Great.” Zara grabbed one of Ramona’s jackets — a leather one that actually fit, thankfully — and headed for the door. As she passed Ramona, she leaned in close enough that her breath ghosted across Ramona’s ear.
“You might want to breathe,” Zara murmured, her voice velvet against Ramona’s skin. “You’ve gone a bit pale.”
Then she was gone, leaving Ramona standing in the hallway trying to remember how lungs worked.
The venue was small — a converted warehouse on the edge of downtown with exposed brick walls and string lights strung haphazardly across the ceiling.
The band was local, three women and a guy with a guitar, playing music that was somewhere between pop and indie rock with a distinctly witchy undertone.
Enchanted instruments, Ramona noticed — the drummer’s kit hummed with a faint blue light, and the guitar strings shimmered when they were struck.
It was intimate. Warm. Nothing like the sterile concert halls where Ramona had gone with Simone, dressed up and performing enjoyment for an audience of other academics.
This felt real.
“See?” Zara said, appearing beside her with two drinks. “Not overwhelming.”
“Not overwhelming,” Ramona agreed, accepting the glass. Their fingers brushed in the exchange. Neither of them pulled away.
Felix and Kashvi were already near the front, Felix dancing with absolutely zero self-consciousness while Kashvi filmed him on her phone. Gerald was snuggled somewhere deep inside Felix’s tote bag.
“Come on,” Zara said, nodding toward the crowd. “Let’s get closer.”
They pushed forward through the crowd, and immediately the space became about proximity.
Bodies pressed together, shoulders bumping, the collective warmth of dozens of people packed into a space meant for half as many.
Ramona felt the familiar flutter of anxiety — too many people, too close, too much.
Zara’s hand settled on the small of her back. Firm. Steady. A point of grounding in the press of bodies.
It wasn’t unusual. People touched each other in crowds all the time — a hand on a shoulder to navigate, an elbow to make space. But Zara’s hand stayed. Didn’t move, didn’t shift. Just rested there, warm through the fabric of Ramona’s dress, palm flat against her spine.
Ramona exhaled, letting her shoulders relax for what felt like the first time in ages.
The band launched into their next song — something up-tempo and driving, with lyrics about storms and magic and women who burned bright. The crowd surged forward. Zara’s hand slid down to Ramona’s hip as if bracketing her with her own body, keeping her steady and close.
“You okay?” Zara leaned in, near enough that Ramona could feel the words more than hear them over the music.