It is, but I’m genuinely curious. We all have our reasons to hide ourselves from the rest of humanity. Some of them are better than others. Magic isn’t something you tell just anybody about. Not only because we try to keep a tight lid on that shit, but because it’s dangerous. Normals and mages are complicated.

Take my sister, for example. Lucy had next to no power in an influential family of mages. All that did was paint a target on her back. We hid her away like Bertha in Jane Eyre. Changed her name, made up a bullshit story that she was an orphan our parents had taken in. We distanced ourselves in public as much as possible from her.

If you’re with a normal you have two choices. You can keep them safe, or you can tell them the truth. I prefer option three. Don’t get involved with them in the first place.

“Okay,” I say. “So why don’t you cut her loose?”

“I—Goddammit.” She throws herself onto the living room couch.

“She’s your reason, though, right? That’s why you want me to help? You’re afraid your girlfriend’s gonna get caught up in this.”

“My wife,” Letitia says. “I wasn’t expecting her to be here. I was going to show you our wedding albums, and tell you about her and—Fuck!” She slams her hand down on the arm of the couch.

“Annie’s all I’ve got,” she says. “I can do my job with the normals, I can do my job as part of the Cleanup Crew. But I can’t fucking do it if I don’t have somewhere to come back to where I’m not constantly reminded about all of it.”

“I can understand that,” I say. “But you made a choice, and there are consequences. Trust me, I know all about consequences. You think Sastre’s going to come after her? Why?”

“We fit the profile,” she says. “Everyone who’s died has lived with one other person they’re close to. A single father and his son, twin sisters, an adult daughter taking care of her grandmother. Even Werther. His granddaughter was the only family he had left here. Everyone else is in Europe waiting for him to bite it so they can loot his corpse. These are people who are so close to the victims it breaks them. If people actually stopped to think about it, they’d know this isn’t what you’d do. People are after you because you’re a convenient target for their grief. And nobody likes you much.”

I sit in an easy chair across from her. “Shit.” I wish I could say I think she’s wrong. But she does fit the profile. And nobody likes me much.

“You’re afraid Annie’s going to be killed.”