“Apparently he was mistaken.” I picked up a fork but immediately set it down. I’d lost my desire for cheesecake about five surprises ago. Gut clenching, I turned to Minias. “So who’s watching Newt?”

The demon’s face lost all its amusement. “Some young punk,” he said sullenly, surprising me with the modern phrase.

Jenks, though, was delighted. “You lost Newt one too many times, and they replaced you with a younger demon. Oh, that’s beautiful!”

Minias’s hand quivered, his fingers abruptly loosening on his mug when a soft crack rang out from the porcelain.

“Stop it, Jenks,” I said, wondering how much of Minias losing his job was due to Newt slipping away on his watch, and how much was from the demon’s inability to make impartial decisions regarding her security. I’d seen them together, and Minias clearly cared for her. Too much to lock her up when she needed it, probably.

“How do they expect me to seduce her and maintain her adherence to the law simultaneously?” he snarled. “It can’t be done. Damned fool bureaucrats don’t know the first thing about love and dominance.”

Seduce her? I arched my eyebrows, but an icy sensation rippled through me at the glimpse of his anger and frustration. Silence, thick and uncomfortable, took over, making the surrounding conversation seem louder. Seeing us staring, Minias forced his tension from him. His sigh was so soft, I wasn’t sure I hadn’t imagined it.

“Al can’t be allowed to flaunt the rules,” he said, as if he hadn’t just shown us the pain in his soul. “If I can contain him, I can return to supervising Newt.”

“Rachel!” my mother exclaimed, and I turned to see a familiar mask of lighthearted ignorance on her. “He’s a runner, just like you! You should go out to a movie or something.”

“Mom, he’s a—” I hesitated. “He’s not a runner,” I said, stopping just short of saying he was a demon. “And he certainly isn’t date material.” Guilt hit me. I’d pushed her, and she was slipping into old patterns. Cursing myself, I pulled my attention to Minias, just wanting to wrap this up and get out of here. “Sorry,” I said to apologize for my mother.

Minias’s face was still empty. “I don’t do witches.”

I had a hard time not finding offense in that, but Jenks saved me from making a total ass out of myself by buzzing his wings to gain everyone’s attention.

“So let me get this straight,” he said, hovering a breath above the sticky table with one hand on his hip, the other pointing that plastic-coated paper clip at Minias. “You lost your cushy babysitting job and are now trying to gain control of a demon who has limited power and resources. And you can’t do it?”