Page 73 of Fool Me Twice

Something that Roma doesn’t think she’s ever quite felt before.

Instead, she’s under orders to betray both EzandEz’s friends again. She started this collaboration‍—started thisepidemic‍—for the sole purpose of getting close enough to bring JJ back to the Sanctum, and even though the last dregs of Roma’s resolve are wobbling on shaky ground, the Council doesn’t have any such issues.

She’ll either need to betray Ez or fail her mission. It’s that simple.

Simple, and the most complicated web Roma has ever found herself tangled in. “Yeah,” she says eventually, nodding. “Closure is‍—is good. I’ll think about it. Thanks, Ez.”

“Mm-hm,” Ez says, giving her a half-smile, and Roma‍?—

Roma tries not to think about how her own closure with Ez is probably going to come sooner than she really wants.

Or about how it’s probably going to tear her heart open even more than it already is.

32

Ez resists the urge to tap her foot impatiently while Cass squints down at her counterspell, making notes in the margins and occasionally muttering to himself. She knows that spellcasting isn’t his specialty, but it’s abundantly clear that he’s wracking his brain for every magic principle he’s learned in his two hundred fifty years‍—and taking his sweet time doing it.

Right now, the two of them are sitting across from each other at Cass’s kitchen table, as is their custom. Tonight, though, the custom is slightly different from usual: true to his word, Obie commandeered Desi for Bring Your Child Bowling Day, and JJ, being the good sport that he is, decided to join them. Now, the suitably glamoured half-demon father and his demon daughter are probably struggling to do math just like Ez always does at Redwater Bowl, and Ez and Cass are taking some time to review the reversal that she and Roma created.

A verylongamount of time, if Ez does say so herself. She almost cheers when Cass finally reaches the end of his annotations and gives the spell one final skim. “Well, you know my spellcasting is much less refined than yours,” he says, hiseyes shifting from the incantation back to Ez’s face. “But it looks solid to me.”

Ez doesn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed. She settles for a theatric sigh, resting her head in her hands. “All right. Thanks.”

“You’re annoyed that your spellisn’tbad?” Cass asks, squinting at her. “That’s an unusual attitude from Esmeralda Laguerre.”

“Because this is probably the most important spell of my life, Chin,” Ez says emphatically. “It’s one of the few spells I’ve ever created from scratch‍?—‍”

“I wouldn’t call a point-by-point reversal ‘from scratch.’”

“‍—‍I’m going to be using it to access an ancient and barely understood magic reservoir‍?—‍”

“Which you’ve already done on more than one occasion.”

“‍—‍and theliteral fateof Redwater is hanging in the balance, along with the literal fate of my life,” she finishes relentlessly. “And yet theonlyfeedback I’ve gotten so far, from you and Obie and Maggie andeveryone,has just been ‘oh, yeah, it’s fine.’”

“Well, what did you expect?” Cass says, draping one arm over the back of his chair. “You and Roma put that counterspell together, and you’re the best spellcasters in Redwater. It makes sense that there aren’t any mistakes.”

Ez ignores the squiggly feeling in her chest at the mention of her and Roma as a team. It’s an unfortunately common sensation for her nowadays. “But I’d still appreciate it if someone pointed outsomekind of error. Even a small one. That way, I could be sure we’re not missing an obvious mistake that’ll lead to all of us being summarily blown up.”

Dutifully, Cass leans over the counterspell again, tapping his pen against the table. “Well, you didn’t use the Oxford comma here,” he says, pointing at the offending list of three items.“Which is a heinous crime against the English language that you should probably rectify at your earliest convenience.”

“I hate you so much.”

“Love you, too, Laguerre.”

“And we didn’t use the Oxford comma because we’re not pausing there,” Ez adds. “While I agree with it as a grammatical construct, we’re trying to keep the cadence of each line the same. If we put a comma there, then there’ll be too much of a pause between those words when compared to the corresponding words in the rest of the counterspell.”

Cass opens his mouth, closes it, and says, “See, tiny details like that arewhyno one can find any issues with your counterspell. It’s foolproof.”

Ez groans, dropping her head back into her hands. “Donotuse the f-word around my spells. I beg of you.”

Cass reaches across the table to pat her shoulder. “Listen,” he says, a note of seriousness dropping into his voice, “all of us understand what you’re risking here, and none of us want you to die from a preventable error. If we can’t find any mistakes, it’s because we’re specificallylookingfor them, but they’re just not there.” He raises his eyebrows. “Like I said, you and Roma put together a good spell. And Maggie signed off on it, right? I’d trust her opinion almost as much as Obie’s.”

“Which is hilarious,” Ez says, “because they both repeatedly insisted that they’re bad at spellcasting when I asked them.”

“Well, Obie’s just a liar,” Cass says, shooting her a crooked smile. “And I think Maggie only knows a handful of spells off the top of her head, but she knows themincrediblywell. Three thousand years on Earth will do that to a demon.”

“Yeah,” Ez says, and a strange pang twists through her. Maggie looked utterly bewildered when Ez asked her for feedback, and she doesn’t think it’s just because Maggie is more comfortable around a broadsword than magic.

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