Chapter 16
Her mother snuck up behind her while she was arms-deep in the clearance rack at the big Macy’s.
“You never let me take you shopping,” Fiona complained as Morgan yelped.
For a moment, her heart nearly stopped. This was it.
Her mother was here to demand she turn over Luke.
No, her mother had already cut off Luke’s head and was here to inform after the fact.
No, her mother had brought Luke’s head here.
She turned in dread to find Fiona standing casually, lacking in either blood or head, fingering a green leopard-print top hanging between two beige sweater sets.
Her mother continued, “I had to trigger a locator spell. Seriously, this is where you buy your clothes?”
It wasn’t; the twelve floors of the flagship Macy’s, with their original wood escalators and all, intimidated the hell out of Morgan.
But she wasn’t going to find boardroom-appropriate wear at the fast fashion places she usually could afford.
She glanced at her mother’s black leather duster and tried to buy time for her pulse to come back down.
“Our tastes don’t match. Also, you hate shopping. ”
“I do,” Fiona admitted. “I guess it felt like something mothers and daughters are supposed to do.”
“Your work doesn’t exactly line up with most of what mothers and daughters are supposed to do,” Morgan pointed out.
She glanced at the silk shell in her hands.
She wasn’t even sure how to go about evaluating whether this would be enough to escape Brad’s criticism.
Her mother’s presence wasn’t making it easier.
She was glad she’d worn concealer on her eye again.
Fiona glanced around at the other shoppers.
Any eavesdropper would probably think her absentee parenting was due to touring with a rock band instead of hunting rogue mages.
But there was likely a reason she’d come to find her disappointment of a daughter: bonding over clothing selection wasn’t it. “Can I buy you a coffee or something?”
She didn’t really have time, given tomorrow’s meeting. But turning her mother away might encourage Fiona to poke in places Morgan didn’t want her looking. “Sure.”
“What kicked off the fashion spree?” Fiona asked as they headed down the zigzag of escalators to the street.
“I’ve got an investor meeting,” she said.
“That sounds important.” Her mother actually looked impressed. She couldn’t remember the last time Fiona had looked impressed with her. Ever?
Something made her add, “With Ravenfell.”
“Ravenfell?” her mother gave her a sharp look. “You know that they’re…?”
“A vampire venture capital firm?” Morgan filled in.
Sure, they were stepping off the escalator into the cosmetics floor, but she’d heard the term bandied about enough in the startup world to know no one would think she was being literal.
She waved off a salesperson bearing a perfume sample. “Yeah, I know.”
“Morgan, you have to understand, they don’t do anything for nothing.”
“Yes, Mother, I know. That’s how investors work.”
“I mean, whatever they get, it’s going to be so much more that what you get out of the transaction.” Her mom looked at her with more worry than she’d shown in years.
“Yes, exactly. That’s how funding rounds work.”
“I don’t think you’re listening to me,” her mother said as they stepped out onto the street. She grabbed Morgan’s arms and spun her around to face her. “You’ve never dealt with these people. They’ll give you what you ask for, but it comes with strings. They’ll use it to control you.”
“Mother,” Morgan replied, exasperated. “I know that. That’s literally how venture capitalism works.”
Her mother took a step back, appalled. She took a breath. “Well. At least wear a high collar.”
“I’ve got it under control,” Morgan sighed.
Fiona nodded, looking unconvinced. But then she trimmed her own bangs with her athame, so Morgan wasn’t sure she cared about Fiona’s opinions on fashion.
Fiona sighed. “Is there a Starbucks around here?”
Morgan groaned. “There was one inside the Macy’s. But there’s another one down the block.”
As they came out, cups in hand, Fiona made her usual complaint. “I don’t see why it’s so hard to get a plain regular black coffee. So expensive, and it still tastes burnt.”
“I told you to get the blonde roast,” Morgan said, rolling her eyes. “But if you wanted diner coffee, we could have gotten diner coffee. We’re right next to Penn Station, there’s an old-school diner on every damn block.”
“Well, I—I thought you liked the Starbucks,” Fiona said.
That stopped Morgan short. “Oh. Yes. I do.”
Her unflappable mother looked a little flapped. But then Murder broke the silence, descending out of the sky to land on Fiona’s shoulder. He eyed Morgan speculatively.
“I don’t have any eyeballs for you,” Morgan told him.
He clacked his beak.
“What, you want my cake pop?” She raised her eyebrows.
“He just ate,” Fiona told her. She gave the bird her own side-eye. “Seriously, you just ate.”
Murder lifted his beak in affronted dignity.
Morgan sighed. “You can have half. Mother, what did you want? It wasn’t burnt coffee. Don’t start to tell me all you wanted was to see how your daughter was doing. We both know it’s not true.”
Fiona had the grace to look chagrined as Murder accepted his share of the cake pop daintily. “Did you hear anything? About the summoner?”
Morgan had been debating with herself about what to say and hadn’t decided.
Would telling her about GreenField protect Luke or bring even more scrutiny?
Now, it was the Starbucks her mother had only pretended to want that suddenly tipped her over.
“Actually, maybe. There’s this company called GreenField UnLtd.
over in the Madison Square area. You remember Stavrula? ”
“Oh, she was such a nice girl. You two had the cutest tea parties.”
“Well, she says they’ve got way too much funding splashing around.”
“I didn’t realize you were still in touch,” Fiona said.
At some point, they’d left the old-school Penn Station area and crossed into the newer, hipper Hudson Yards neighborhood.
Shiny new skyscrapers soared above while tourists swarmed below.
Morgan wondered if they were walking somewhere in particular or if Fiona’s feet would keep going until they hit the river.
“I didn’t fall off the face of the planet,” Morgan said, although for the purposes of the magical world, she mostly had.
The warm look her mother shot her made her feel uncomfortably approved of.
“In the interests of disclosure,” she said, her ears warming a little. “GreenField is a competitor. Of my company. That’s not why I’m sending you after them—you asked me to look and Stavrula tipped me off—but I’m not exactly a neutral party here.”
She tried to keep her breathing even as she carefully didn’t mention that there was a different demon, and his demonic dog, sleeping on her couch.
“Morgan,” her mother said seriously. “I appreciate your integrity. You’ve been extremely helpful.”
Part of her was insulted that her mother was apparently surprised, while another part cringed with the knowledge that she was avoiding the very information Fiona wanted most. But the little part of her that had yearned for her mother’s praise, that she’d thought had mostly withered away and then been stuffed in a closet, fluttered back to life.
“So, tell me about this Ravenfell deal,” her mother said briskly. “If you’re going up against the vampires, maybe I can help.”
“Have you dealt with them?” Morgan asked, unsure how to handle her mother’s sudden interest in, well, anything she was doing.
“Never personally, although everyone’s heard of them.
They keep their noses clean, as far as anyone can tell.
Strict NDAs with all their employees, and their employees tend to wear turtlenecks if you know what I mean, but their employees also tend to lead long and what look like well-compensated lives.
Huge charitable donations to the New York Blood Center, as you can imagine. ” Fiona rolled her eyes.
“That seems ethically gray,” Morgan said.
They’d reached the plaza where the Vessel was situated.
The multi-story structure resembled an upside-down hollow beehive made of brass nestled between the surrounding skyscrapers.
Anti-suicide netting was strung in the gaps between each hexagon.
It made the formerly elegant structure look like a bag of grocery store clementines.
“Gray, yes, but not black,” Fiona agreed. “It’s an accepted arrangement. Can you hold on a sec, I want to check the wards on this while I’m in the neighborhood.”
“They finally broke the hex?” Morgan asked.
Soon after the art installation-slash-building had opened, multiple people had plunged to their deaths.
The intended tourist destination had been closed for years.
Fiona had caught the anti-tourist warlock responsible, because of course she had, but it seemed that whatever he’d done had taken a great deal of undoing.
“We hope so,” Fiona said absently. “There’s always something.”
Her mother stared at lines of power Morgan couldn’t see, unconsciously stroking a patch of coat covering a miniature crossbow the NYPD would absolutely lose its mind over if it weren’t invisible, while her daughter fidgeted uncomfortably.
“Well, that looks clean enough,” Fiona said suddenly. “Anyway. I will admit I don’t know much about investing, but I get the impression that the ability to manage your investments over centuries is a bit of an advantage.”
Morgan jammed her phone back in her bag, trying to handle the whiplash. She wondered, not for the first time, if maybe the magical world needed more awareness of ADHD. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“You’d know more than me.” That was certainly the first time her mother had ever made that particular statement. “And you’re confident your company knows what they’re doing?”