Page 87 of Fool Me Twice

“I would not trust you to not burn the house down.”

“Rude.”

“But true.” Ez shoots Roma a crooked smile. “After lunch, we could go out on the town. Stroll through the Courtyard, sit and relax by Lakeside. I would keep you glamoured, of course, so no one from the Sanctum could recognize you. You could start an entirely new life for yourself.”

Roma’s heart twinges. “That sounds kind of nice,” she admits softly.

Ez’s smile is a little bit sad. “JJ seems to enjoy that part, too. Getting to build a new life with Cass and Desi. Apeacefullife.” Clearing her throat, she gestures back towards the kitchen table. “After that is dinner, I suppose. You humans really do spend most of your lives eating, don’t you?”

“Do you have a problem with that, Laguerre?”

“Depends on the food.” Ez grins. “We could go visit Cass and JJ for dinner, maybe. Or Obie‍—a lot of his recipes are global cuisines that span back thousands of years. He has spices that I’m pretty sure don’t even exist anymore.”

Excited curiosity sparks through Roma. “That’s really cool.”

Ez beams. “I think so, too. And after that, I guess, is bedtime,” she says, and she takes Roma’s hand, guiding her back to the bedroom. “Definitely for you, possibly for both of us. And then we wake up the next morning, and then… we start again.”

Roma’s chest feels warm. “So that’s a day in the life with the great Esmeralda Laguerre, huh?”

“That’s one of many possible days in the life,” Ez says. “Because you can make this life anything you want, Roma.Wecan make it anything we want. I guess that little niceties like eating and sleeping are non-negotiable, but beyond that, the world is ours. We could spend weeks traveling abroad, or we could spend weeks never leaving the bedroom. We could help with Desi’s homeschooling, or we could try every food truck in Redwater. We could‍—‍” She hesitates. “We could even open a shop together, if you wanted. A magic shop. We could sell spellcasting textbooks, curate old spell books. Maybe even put together a spell book of our own.”

Roma’s heart twirls. “That sounds really fun, actually. I’ve been wondering lately if glamours and rifts might be possible with human magic, so maybe we could experiment with those?”

Ez’s eyebrows shoot up.“Thatwould be a fascinating tangent. Maybe we could work on some healing spells that work on both demons andhumans, too? We’ll have people from all over the country visiting our magic shop for new spells.”

“And‍—‍” Roma’s mind buzzes with possibilities. “And could we have a coffee shop inside of it? Like, with pastries and everything?”

“Oh, don’t tell Obie that. He can andwillinvite himself to be an employee just to bake croissants every day.”

“I fail to see the issue there,” Roma says. “And‍—and you said that JJ is learning how to cook, right? Maybe he could help, too. Him and Cass. And we’ll have a shelf full of plushies for Desi.”

Ez’s eyes soften. “Sounds perfect. And, hypothetically, we don’t even need to turn a profit‍—I have enough money to last several lifetimes. We could just do it for fun. Just as something for us to share together.”

Roma’s chest aches with something unfamiliar‍—something a bit like homesickness, she thinks. Homesickness for something she’s never even had. “It’s a nice dream,” she whispers.

Ez’s smile wavers. “It doesn’t have to be, though,” she says, ducking her head to meet Roma’s eyes. “Obviously, we’ll startwith the breakfast and the books rather than the magic shop, but‍—but none of this has to be a dream. It can be our life.Yourlife.” Hesitantly, she reaches out and takes Roma’s hands. “So you have your place to run towards, instead of just your place to run away from.”

Roma’s heart squeezes. “I…”

It sounds perfect. It sounds completely, impossibly perfect, like everything she never thought she could have‍—everything she never even thought shewanted‍—is coming together before her eyes. Getting to live a life of peace, a life ofleisure,a life away from hunting and pain and death‍?—

A cozy life. A life with someone she respects, with someone sheadores,with someone she’s starting to think she might even love. A life where her partner is always within reaching distance and her friends are a mere phone call away.

Friends like JJ. Months ago, Roma was committed to bringing JJ back to the Sanctum, making the Council proud, and restoring the Gutierrez name, but now?

Now, Roma can’t imagine hurting JJ like that. Can’t imagine taking him away from the family he’s fought to build for himself, can’t imagine taking him away from Cass and Desi. Can’t imagine taking him away from Obie, who went out on a limb for Roma all those months ago and seems cautiously willing to trust her again now.

But, most of all, Roma can’t imagine a world where she could ever,everbetray Esmeralda Laguerre. Not for anything. She swallows hard. “Ez, I‍?—‍”

Abruptly, a loud ringtone blares out, making both of them jump. Swearing, Ez digs around in her pocket. “Sorry, sorry‍—I amstillbitter about the creation of phones, by the way; they are justsoinconvenient, always ringing at the worst‍—‍” Still grumbling to herself, she swipes into the screen and presses itto her ear. “Obie, I’mkindof in the middle of something here. Could this conversation be a text message?”

There’s a muffled voice on the other end‍—muffled, Roma realizes, because her enhanced hearing is deactivated with the rest of her enchantments. Whatever Obie says, though, it’s enough to make Ez’s spine stiffen and her eyes widen. “What?”

“What is it?” Roma says sharply, stepping forward.

Ez’s jaw works. “Hold on,” she says, and she pulls the phone away from her ear, tapping a button. “Obie, you’re on speaker‍—I’m here with Roma. Could you repeat that?”

And, this time, Obie’s voice is as clear as day. “Micah and Gregorio think they might’ve found some new information about the mega-rift epidemic‍—information that could impact your counterspell. Can you meet us at Sawyer and Naomi’s place?”

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