Chapter 17
I had no idea human children were so advanced,” Luke said, frowning at his laptop.
“Why are you even looking at anything involving human children?” They certainly weren’t going to sign a kid up for a Deal; with the Ravenfell presentation tomorrow, this was hardly the time to get distracted.
“I’m trying to figure out which House GreenField is contracted to so I can figure out how much more trouble we’re in, and I’m looking at the LinkedIn profile for Tim’s ex-roommate,” Luke said. “His name is Hawk? Isn’t that a bird?”
“Ugh, that dude. Doubt his parents named him that. Go on.”
“Anyway, his two-year-old wanted a new toy and told his dad that it would be more expensive for Hawk to miss an hour of work dealing with the kid whining than to buy the toy in the first place. Apparently he learned negotiation from listening to his daddy on sales calls,” Luke said, scrolling to a picture of a stuffed purple squid.
It looked slightly maniacal. “When I was that age, I was still trying to gnaw off the limbs of my broodmates: I definitely wasn’t learning sales techniques.
No wonder humans are such good negotiators. ”
Morgan rubbed a hand over her face. “We’re good negotiators because we lie, Luke. Which is what this Hawk guy is doing. His toddler absolutely did not figure out his hourly rate. At least half of the people who regularly post to LinkedIn are lying through their teeth.”
“So this next lady’s sister isn’t actually dying of cancer?”
Morgan peered at the post and cringed. “Given that she’s trying to use it to make a Very Special Point about management skills, no. Or she’s the worst sister in the world.”
Luke’s Slack notification popped up. He groaned.
“What does Brad want now?” Morgan wasn’t sure how they were supposed to finish prepping for the Ravenfell presentation if they kept having to stop to answer Brad’s increasingly unhinged requests.
“He wanted to know if the guy in the lobby with the lighting rig is here for an interview.”
“I didn’t set up an interview,” she said, suddenly concerned Brad had bypassed her and set up his own interview.
“No, I think they’re our new neighbors. I got the construction people evicted, and the lease was taken over by something called an immersive theater troupe?”
She tried to picture what kind of show would want a half-completed construction site and decided that, as long as they didn’t drop goo on her head, she didn’t care.
Slack pinged again. “He also says that since Sam Bankman-Fried had a one-ton block of tungsten in his lobby on a plinth, he needs a one-ton block of something cooler. He’s suggesting iridium.”
“We don’t have a lobby. We’re sharing a space with thirteen other startups and a mediocre cafe. And apparently an immersive theater.”
“I don’t think he cares.”
“What would we even put it on? It would break the floor.” She waved a hand. “I know, I know, you don’t think he cares.”
“I’ll suggest we postpone that until we have an architect to design a lobby that’s a sufficiently impressive setting.”
“You’re getting disturbingly good at managing him,” she said, with a little admiration.
“Years of not getting fired by Bel’aliol.”
“If you got fired, would you try to get a similar job at another House? Or do something totally different?” she asked idly.
He stared at her. “I’m starting to think we mean different things by the word ‘fired.’”
She thought that through a bit and winced. “What would you have wanted to do? If you hadn’t been in debt?”
He leaned back. “My sire was a soul-power repair technician, so I’d always assumed I’d follow in his claw-steps, but afterwards there wasn’t any money for the apprenticeship fees.” He caught her ill-disguised expression. “I wouldn’t want to do that anymore. Not after meeting you.”
She deliberately jumped back a topic. “Bel’aliol is like Brad?”
“No,” Luke sighed. “Bel’aliol is competent. Why do humans put people like Brad in charge of anything?”
“Because he’s a white dude with outrageously good hair.” She sighed. “I suppose he could be pretending to be stupid to fool us all. We could try to break into his laptop and look for nefarious plans. I bet his password is something like ‘password123.’”
“He just Slacked me to ask for a copy of ‘the Wu-Tang Clan album that pharma dude bought.’”
“Yeah, he’s an idiot.” She straightened up. “Luke, what if we’re going about this wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“We wanted to know which House GreenField is contracted to. But I haven’t been able to connect anyone there to the magical world: even among mages, the fact that there are different Infernal Houses is pretty esoteric knowledge.
I bet you Hawk doesn’t even know what House he’s signed with.
I don’t even know what House you’re at, come to think of it. ”
“House Berith,” Luke supplied.
“OK,” she said. “My point is that it might be easier to figure it out from the Infernal Plane side. I think we should tell Bel’aliol there’s a rival at work.”
“I’m not talking to Bel’aliol,” Luke said automatically.
“He’s a shoot-the-messenger type?”
“He’s probably a flay-the-messenger-alive type. I don’t know, I’ve never given him bad news.”
“Let’s talk this through,” she said. Impulsively, she reached out to hold his hand. She’d intended to just squeeze and let go, but he grabbed it like a lifeline. “I’m not saying I know better than you, I really, really don’t. But first—how easily can he hurt you here?”
“If I summon him, maybe. If I just call him, less so. Not at all via messaging. But I can’t stay here forever. I have to go back at some point.”
She swallowed down the pang she didn’t have time to unpack at the moment. “But by that point, he may have calmed down, especially if you come back with two souls in hand.”
“We only have one.” And they still hadn’t discussed whose it counted as.
“We’ll have two by the time you go back,” she said with confidence she didn’t feel. “But my point is that you only have to survive the initial call, and it’s probably safe enough here you can do that.”
He didn’t look convinced. His hand tightened. “What’s the second part?”
“This isn’t your fault, and it has nothing to do with you,” she said.
“This is a chance to give him useful information. This rival House don’t know you’re here.
They can’t get an agent of their own over here, because someone would have to let the agent out of the circle, and who’s stupid enough to do that? ”
They both glanced through the door at Vijay, who was typing very intensely with a Beanie Baby duck on his head.
“You’re not bringing him a failure. You’re bringing him an opportunity. If he can figure out who it is, maybe we can help him get ahead somehow?”
Luke had slowly started to straighten. His hand loosened but he didn’t let go. “That might work.”
She smiled and he smiled back. “What do we need?”
“For a call? Some kind of heart,” he said. “For a sacrifice. Doesn’t have to be human. It’ll be easier at midnight our time, if he’s not in a receptive mood.”
“We’ll stop by a butcher on the way home,” she said. “You keep looking for details on Hawk. I’ll tell Kelly it’s competitive analysis.”
Before he let go of her hand, he squeezed it back.
* * *
She punched the dough down with more force than was necessary.
It wasn’t ideal; if she knocked too much of the air out, the crumb would be too tight.
She’d learned most of her baking skills from YouTube.
Her mother tended to forget to eat and then inhale three protein bars, and her father made the same chicken and potatoes and overlaid it with a glamour every time.
Figuring out how to produce food worth eating for less money than takeout had been first a necessity and then an adventure.
But most of why she was making bread now was that she was nervous and she wanted something she could safely hit.
Luke watched, enthralled. She usually felt self-conscious when someone watched her bake, but somehow he was different.
His presence made her more aware of what she was doing, in a good way.
Gisele had grown up in a house full of home cooks; she wasn’t particularly impressed.
Luke’s wonder at the transformation of flour into dough reminded her of how much she enjoyed the process.
“And this is how sandwich casings are made? I never would have guessed.”
Sandwiches were clearly one of Luke’s favorite human inventions. Once he’d discovered them, he ate one every day.
“Thinking of bringing this back with you? Should I be teaching you how to bake?”
He started to say something and then stopped.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, glancing at him. Then she looked back down and turned the dough out of the bowl onto the mat. Sometimes it was easier to talk if someone’s eyes were somewhere else.
“I wish…” He trailed off. Then he started again. “I sometimes wish I didn’t have to go back.”
Inside she stilled, but she kept her hands moving, shaping the dough into rolls while she thought. “Why is that?”
“This plane is a lot nicer,” he confessed.
“We’re pretty messed up,” she reminded him. “We’ve screwed up our environment, we do terrible things all the time.”
“You don’t eat each other,” he pointed out. “Much.”
“We don’t,” she agreed. “Although we do a lot of killing each other anyway. Maybe it would be more honest if we ate each other after.”
“The majority of you haven’t killed anyone at all.”
“I guess. But we lie all the time, which you don’t have.”
“It’s kind of refreshing? Here, at least, if you hate who you are, you can say you’re someone else. And then sometimes if you try hard enough, you can even make that true.”
“I hadn’t really thought of it that way,” she said.
“I like bread,” he said suddenly. “And ice cream. And subways. I like watching Gisele make her pictures and I like how excited she gets to make them.”
“Those things are all pretty great.” And she wasn’t going to be able to enjoy any of them if she ended up in a nightlight.