12. Chapter 12
Milo
Being summoned by a mortal leaves a trace, a spectral fingerprint that lingers in the ether long after the magic itself is gone.
Finding Evie was never going to be the problem.
The summoning created a thread between us, thin and persistent, tugging at the base of my sternum every time I move in a direction that isn’t toward her.
The longer I spend away from her, the tighter it winds, leaving me sluggish.
I rub at the ache beneath my ribs and start for town.
The thread steadies at once, pointing me back to her with the certainty of a compass needle.
I stayed by the river all night. There’s a bench along the walking path, tucked between two old willows, and I claimed it.
Demon physiology doesn’t operate on the same punishing schedule that humans submit to.
We require rest, but sparingly. A few hours of deep rest every handful of days is enough for the body to reset itself.
I spent that time staring at the water and contemplating all the possible versions of what I’d say to Evie this morning.
By the time the sky started to lighten, I had stiff shoulders, no plan, and the growing suspicion that I wasn’t remotely prepared for any of this.
I’ve been standing across the road long enough that a woman walking a corgi has glanced at me three times.
I should go in. I need to go in. The reason I tracked Evie down is because we need to talk.
The bell overhead chimes twice when I push through the door. Fresh coffee and baked goods fill the air around me.
Maddie spots me straight away and her hand shoots up, waving energetically. “Milo! Hey!”
Evie’s face falls the instant she sees me. Her eyes widen, then narrow as she schools her expression into guarded neutrality.
Every thought in my head evacuates. The speech I prepared on the walk over, the calm, rational points I was going to make, the apology I rehearsed in front of a shop window while a woman watched me argue with my reflection. Gone.
I shuffle toward their table like I’m walking to my sentencing.
“Hi. I wanted to talk to Evie.” My throat has apparently stopped cooperating, so I clear it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Wait.” Maddie’s eyes ping between us. “You two know each other?”
“We’ve met,” I say at the same time Evie says, “Kind of.”
Maddie’s jaw drops, then a laugh bursts out of her. “Oh my god! You’re her mystery break-in man.”
“Yes.”
“This is the guy from the bar!” She grabs Evie’s arm and shakes it. “The one I was telling you about!”
“I figured that much.” Evie’s voice is barely audible.
Maddie spins toward me. “The girl problems you mentioned . . . that was about Evie?”
“Yes.” I shift my weight and shove my hands deeper into my pockets before anyone notices the tremor.
“This is kind of perfect.” Maddie’s eyes dance with amusement.
Evie’s face says the opposite. Her lips flatten as she stares past my shoulder.
“I can go . . . if you want?”
Evie stares at me, visibly working through every terrible implication of this situation.
Maddie kicks out the chair beside her. “Sit down. This is clearly happening whether she likes it or not.”
“Fine.” Evie’s jaw tightens.
I pull the chair out and it shrieks across the floor with a clamor that could wake the dead. Several heads turn, their conversations momentarily interrupted.
The table is small, designed for two people, possibly two and a quarter if they’re comfortable with each other. Three strangers with unresolved supernatural tension is asking a lot. My knee bumps Evie’s.
“Sorry,” we both say.
She shifts sideways, pressing her shoulder against the wall.
I pull my legs to the left and accidentally bump Maddie’s chair.
My leg is still buzzing where our knees touched, and I run through every summoning side effect I’ve ever studied, trying to explain why one accidental touch set off every nerve in my body.
Tether fatigue. Realm displacement. Magical feedback.
None of them fit. I have no framework for this whatsoever.
“You two need a bigger table?” Maddie asks, voice dripping with glee.
“We’re fine,” Evie grits out.
I stare at the tabletop while she reaches for three sugar packets, tears them open in one motion, and dumps them into her drink. She stirs with a force that suggests she’s imagining the spoon is my throat. I hook my ankle around my chair leg to keep my knee from drifting back toward hers.
Maddie turns to me, chin propped on her hand, and says the seven words that would end my mortal realm disguise.
“So . . . Evie tells me you’re a demon.”
I can’t look at Evie. If I do, I’ll see the panic on her face, and it’ll make my panic worse, and then we’ll just be two panicking people at a table.
Demons can’t lie. My only play is hoping that this sounds ridiculous enough that no sane person would take it seriously.
“I am.”
Maddie’s grin freezes. Her eyes narrow, reading me, and I hold still while her brain decides what to do with that sentence.
“Contract division,” I add, hoping the absurdity of it all will tip the scales to my advantage. “Soul acquisition. Currently on what my supervisor would call a probationary field assignment and what I would call a slow-motion disaster.”
Evie stiffens beside me. I don’t have to look to feel the tension coming off her, but Maddie snorts. One sharp burst of laughter that breaks into a full cascade, her head tipping back, hand slapping the table.
“You’re really committed to this bit.”
I push a thread of influence outward, and it takes more effort than it should because I haven’t done this in fifteen years and the mechanism has gone rusty.
The thread brushes against Maddie’s mind, and I flinch internally at the contact.
I always forget how invasive it is from this end, how close you have to get to someone’s actual thoughts to nudge them in any direction.
I resist wiping my palms on my jeans. I find the skepticism already sitting comfortably there and lean into it, feeding it until doubt solidifies into certainty.
“Halloween is next month, man.” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, still chuckling. “What’s the costume? Horns? Pitchfork? One of those red bodysuits?”
I withdraw the thread and my fingers twitch. I feel grimy.
“No pitchfork,” I say. “They’re more of a middle-management thing. I’m entry-level.”
She laughs again, tilting her head. “Entry-level demon. That’s adorable. Evie, where did you find this guy?”
Evie makes a small, choked sound next to me.
I turn to her briefly, then back to Maddie.
“This is funny. I get it. But regardless of whether you believe me, you need to know I’m not dangerous.
At all. My biggest accomplishment today was successfully operating a crosswalk signal on the third attempt.
The only thing I’m a threat to is my dignity. ”
The laughter tapers. “Alright, demon boy.” Maddie points at me with her index finger. “You’re strange, but not giving me dangerous vibes. You’ve got the energy of a golden retriever who’s been left at a bus station.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“It is one.” She turns to Evie. “He’s fine. Weird, but fine. You can unclench.”
I watch Evie’s confusion give way to relief. Her shoulders loosen, death grip on the cup easing.
Maddie glances at her, then at me, and something sparks in her hazel eyes.
“So, are you single?”
Evie chokes on her latte. It’s not a delicate, ladylike cough. Her hand flies to her mouth as a strangled wheeze escapes, face turning red all the way to the tips of her ears.
“Maddie.” She barely gets the name out through her fingers. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. I’m being thorough.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Everything’s my business. You know this about me.” Maddie sets her cup down. “It’s a simple question. Yes or no.”
Evie groans, and for the first time I notice the freckles scattered across her nose. Not many, just a light scatter across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. The blush makes them stand out like constellations appearing at dusk.
I am losing my mind.
“I’m single,” I offer, hoping to ease the tension. “Yes.”
“Good to know.” Maddie looks thrilled. “That’s all I wanted.”
“That’s never all you want,” Evie mutters.
Maddie ignores this, then looks at me with sudden alarm. “Wait! You don’t have a drink. How do you not have one? I’ve been talking to you this whole time.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“That’s polite and also insane.” She’s standing now, shaking her head. “What do you want?”
“I genuinely don’t know.”
She heads toward the counter, waving her hand. “I’ll figure it out. You seem like a caramel macchiato guy. Actually, no. Nora’s been working on some new fall thing. Consider yourself the trial run.”
And then it’s just us.
The café noise rushes in to fill the space Maddie left behind, but it all becomes background static beside the woman sitting to my right.
Evie turns her head.
Finally. Direct eye contact.
Her eyes hit mine, green with those gold flecks that catch every stray photon in the room, and something in my chest seizes. She is disarmingly, inconveniently, dangerously pretty.
“You should go.” Evie looks away first.
“I don’t want to leave.”
Her thumb scrapes back and forth along the edge of her cup. “Then at least tell me you’re done with the demon thing.”
“I can’t.”
“Milo.” She pivots towards me again, her gaze pleading. “It was a great bit. Maddie loved it. You committed, and it was genuinely funny. But she’s gone now, and I need you to be real with me. Can you do that?”
I could make this so much easier. The influence is right there, curled up and ready. With the tether connecting us, it would barely take any effort at all. I reach for it and stall.