Page 19 of Fool Me Twice

Ez makes a quick upward motion with her hand as she finishes the spell. A light breeze of magic rushes past Roma. “Anti-invisibility spell,” she says curtly, and just as quickly, she launches into another incantation.

A demonic version, Roma realizes with a jolt, of an anti-cloakingspell. Silently, she prays that Bryant and Chester are smart enough to stay out of sight inside the thrift shop next door until Ez leaves. “Why?”

Ez looks annoyed as she finishes the spell with a flick of her wrist, thankfully revealing a whole lot of nothing. “To try and find the summoner.”

“We haven’t seen an actual summoner in three weeks, Ez.”

“Donotcall me that.” Ez crosses her arms over her chest, scowling. “Your better half pointed out that the spellcaster might be using magic to disguise themselves, but there’s no one around. Unless they glamoured themselves to look like a lamppost, we’re out of luck.”

Roma squints at her. “Mybetterhalf? What does that‍?—‍?”

All at once, the meaning hits her like a freight train. Her stomach drops. “Wait. JJ? Are you‍—are you talking about JJ?”

Ez’s face shuts down. “Yep. I usually have dinner with him and the crew once or twice a week.”

Roma’s chest feels tight. Obviously, she knows that JJ is surrounded on all sides by his circle of demon “friends” nowadays; obviously, she knows that he’s sequestered away with at least Cass and Desi most of the time‍?—

Somehow, though, it never occurred to her that he might have domestic little dinner dates with Ez and Obie, too. Her heart hurts. “Oh. And‍—and he’s doing well?”

“That’s not really your concern anymore, is it?” Ez asks brusquely, and she snaps open a rift. “Later, Gutierrez. Here’s hoping we don’t do this again.”

And Roma doesn’t know what possesses her to ask. She doesn’t know if it’s just that Ez is the demon she sees most often, or that Ez was always the one who never stopped asking questions during Roma’s fake defection, or even that the mention of JJ hit a certain thread of nostalgia in her chest that she wasn’t expecting today, but‍?—

But, whatever the reason, she takes an impulsive step forward. “Wait.”

Ez pauses with one foot through the rift, eyes narrowed. “What?”

Roma’s throat feels dry. “Do you‍—do you remember that first rift at Lakeside three weeks ago? With the summoner and the three demons?”

Ez scoffs. “Of course I do. You were particularly pissy after that fight.”

Roma nobly chooses to let the comment slide. “Those demons. What happened to them?”

Ez’s eyebrows furrow. “Maggie brought them back to the Chain,” she says slowly, stepping out of the rift and letting it fadebehind her. “Like she always does. The Education Department registers them and helps them assimilate into society.”

“Right,” Roma says, nodding. “And they… assimilated?”

“As far as I know,” Ez says, squinting at her. “I didn’t follow up‍—I never really have. Why?”

And, for a long moment, Roma wavers.

On the one hand, she should stop questioning it. She should really,reallystop questioning it. After all, the Sanctum has been ramping up their testing program lately, and they’ve explicitly stated that they want every cell in the prison filled. If that goal is being met, then why should Roma care about the details?

But, on the other hand, she still doesn’t understand howthreedemons that were supposedly under the Chain’s care somehow ended up in the Sanctum. And, despite Roma’s dislike of demons in general and Esmeralda Laguerre in particular, she knows that Ez is the most likely person to investigate further. “I saw all three of them in the Sanctum’s prison a few days ago.”

Ez’s eyes widen. “What?”

“Yeah.” Roma shrugs uncomfortably. “I don’t know how they ended up there, and the chain-of-custody paperwork was… strange. Said that a lone hunter from out of town delivered all of them on the same day. I guess I just wanted to know if they went on a killing spree or something.”

Ez looks frozen in place. “And you’re sure? You’repositivethey were the same demons?”

“I mean‍—‍” Roma lets out her breath in a hiss. “I wouldn’t stake my entire reputation on it, no. But I got a pretty solid look at them while we were closing that rift, and they seemed to have the same true forms.”

“That makes zero sense,” Ez says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Normally, neophyte demons have case managers and check-ins to help them manage the transition to Earth. Did the paperwork say when they showed up in your prison?”

“About a day after they were summoned.”

Ez’s frown deepens. “And who brought them in?”

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