JJ frowns. “You hacked out the Sanctum’s soul-tracking enchantment, right? So can’t you just… put on a cloaking spell and walk around town? Just like normal?”
“The soul tracking isn’t an issue,” Roma says, “but you have to admit that it’s difficult to, say, order food at Tacos Near Me when Esteban keeps forgetting you exist.”
JJ winces. Roma’s cloaking spells are especially potent, making attention slide off her like she reallyisinvisible. Even basic conversations would be virtually impossible. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s definitely not ideal.”
“And Iamjury-rigging a human-magic glamour spell,” she adds, slouching back in her armchair, “but I’m still working out the kinks. So far?—”
“Hold up.” JJ raises a hand to stop her, eyes wide. “Did you just say you’re working on ahuman-magic glamour spell?But glamours have always been exclusive to demon magic!”
Roma smirks. “Can’t let Laguerre have all the fun. I’ve been tinkering with a handful of demon-magic spells, actually—glamours, rifts, pocket dimensions. Rifts are the most fascinating, since we already have the interdimensional variant that summoners use, but glamours will definitely be more practical.” She scowls. “Once I figure them out, at least.”
“Roma, that’samazing,”JJ says emphatically. His heart feels full. “I always knew you were the best spellcaster in the Sanctum, bloodlines be damned. And look at you now, doing the impossible and translating demon-magic spells to human magic.” He smiles. “Life on the outside has been pretty good to both of us, huh?”
For a long moment, Roma considers him.
And then, quietly, she asks, “JJ, don’t you think about them at all?”
A sharp pang twists through him. “Bryant and Chester, you mean?”
“Yeah.” Roma’s jaw is set in a grim line. “They’re still stuck there. They’re still stuck there, and the only thing any of us knew after that disaster at Lakeside was that you’d shacked up with a demon. And—” She gestures vaguely around her apartment. “And they probably thinkI’veshacked up with a demon by now, too.”
“I doubt they believe you have enough game for that,” JJ says diplomatically.
Roma hurls a throw pillow at him. “Shut up.”
JJ catches it with a grin, hugging it to his chest. “Honestly, I’m flattered that they thinkIpulled a demon. When did I ever give them the impression that I was capable of that?”
“Says the guy who based his fake boyfriend on Cassius Chin.”
Heat flares into JJ’s face. “He wasn’tbasedon Cass. I just used certain aspects of Cass to make the con more convincing.”
Roma looks unimpressed. “Uh-huh,” she says, and she leans forward. “But seriously. Do you think about them? Do you—do you miss them?”
JJ’s heart hurts. “Of course I think about them,” he says softly. “I miss them every day. And I miss…”
What elsedoesJJ miss? A fresh wave of guilt roils through him, and he swallows it down hard. Even though he makes it a point to stay in touch with Roma, and even though he thinks about Bryant and Chester often?—
Even with all that, JJ isn’t sure how much he misses the Sanctum itself. He doesn’t miss the constant unknown of waiting for the next mission, the constant obsession with pure bloodlines and perfect performance, the constant anxiety looming over his head. Doesn’t miss his spartan bedroom, doesn’t miss the sterile hallways, doesn’t miss the Council members’ foreboding offices.
He definitely doesn’t miss being treated like a third-class citizen. After twelve years, some of the other hunters’ digs became so normal that he subconsciously internalized them—which he usually realizes nowadays when he makes a particularly self-deprecating comment and Cass gives him a horrified look in response.
And, above all, it’s hard to miss any of that with Cass and Desi nearby. “I miss our people,” he says at last. “Bryant and Chester. I miss—I miss having lunch together and training together and walking around Redwater together. And that’s…” He looks away. “That’s all, really. If they were here with us, I think it’d be perfect.”
Roma’s lips twitch downward. “No love lost for the Sanctum, huh?”
“Not… really,” JJ admits. “I know they took me in when they didn’t have to, and I know they raised me and trained me and gave me a purpose, but I—I don’t really miss the Sanctum as an institution, no. Honestly, I’m relieved to be out.”
Roma’s eyebrows shoot up. “Relieved? Seriously? I feel like I’m ready to claw my own skin off.”
“You were born there, remember?” JJ says quietly. “You were raised there. It was all you knew. For me, it—it wasn’t. I remembered life on the outside, remembered how free it was. And I don’t…” His throat feels tight. Swallowing hard, he tries again. “I don’t think I realized how trapped I felt in the Sanctum until I was on the outside again. Until I got a taste of that freedom with Cass and Desi.”
That’s been one of the hardest parts, JJ thinks. Admitting to himself just how toxic the Sanctum really was. All these years, he was proud to be a hunter, found his very identity in it, but now?—
Now, he’s slowly starting to realize that the Sanctum was going to kill him long before the “evil demons” ever did. Kill the parts of him that mattered, at least. Like the part of him that can look at a demon like Desi and know that she’s just a little girl who deserves to be loved, and?—
And the part of him that can look at a demon like Cass and want him in ways that are terrifying and thrilling in equal measures.
Eventually, Roma looks away. “Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.”
