a nocturnal conversation.

Devon

Hours later, Rafael wakes to Devon's voice. But something in the tone of it tells him she isn't talking to him. She's talking softly, like she knows he's asleep, but he hears a gentle laugh at the very end of something. He is barely awake for the first thing he hears. Eyes opening, he sees her bare back. She's sitting up now, sitting on the edge of the bed like it's a chair, her hands on the tops of her thighs. She's got her eyes open.

Her voice, no longer laughing as it was a second or two ago, has a somewhat wary quality: "What do you mean?"

There is no one else in the dark room. The curtains are closed. The door is locked.

Wariness bleeds into tension, perhaps even anger, in Devon's words: "I don't like this. Leave me alone."

Rafael

Somewhere along the way, girl has become irreplaceable to him. So near and dear to his beating heart that to sleep beside her like this, arms wrapped around her, her body bare and warm close to his, is some of the deepest comfort he knows. He's tired from a long day on the road. Tired from the way they've fucked. Warm and relaxed from that long hot shower at the end of it all. His brain switches off. He sleeps.

But not until morning. In the dead of night he is awakened. Girl is speaking, though softly. He thinks at first she's on the phone, perhaps to her mother. That would make sense. The time difference. The distance. But there's no phone in her hand, and her hands are in her lap. She's sitting straight and pretty at the edge of the bed, like she's at a fancy dinner, like she's some schoolgirl under the thumb of a strict headmistress.

Her skin is still bare. And now her voice is changing. And he sits up in bed, squinting, blinking, scrubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"Devon?" He reaches over, clicks his lamp on. "Who're you talking to?"

Devon

His voice seems to break some spell she's under. She's silent for a moment, but something in her supremely straight back softens. Her shoulders round. Her breathing changes, like someone just waking. She breathes in, looking behind her. Bleary-eyed, she winces and flinches from the lamp, then squints at him and smiles.

Crawls over to him, curling up at his side again, as snuggly as she would be if she woke in the middle of the night to find he'd stolen the covers and she needed to steal back some of his warmth.

"Mm," she murmurs. "Turn the light off," she complains. She acts as if she didn't hear his question. "M'tired. S'too bright."

Rafael

He's quite awake by then. That softening of her spine, the way she turns and sleepily crawls back to him -- it doesn't soothe him. It makes him warier.

"Who were you talking to?" he repeats. He doesn't turn the light off. He doesn't lie down again either.

Devon

Devon's brow wrinkles. Her eyes are closed, but she peeks one open, looking up at him. At least his head blocks most of the light.

"What?" she says, sounding confused. "I wasn't talking to anyone. I was sleeping. Til you turned on the light," she adds, with the sort of mock accusation that would, under other circumstances, be less unnerving.

Rafael

He just stares at her.

"You were talking. A moment ago, you were sitting right there," he points, "and talking to empty air. You laughed. Then you said 'what do you mean'. Then you said you didn't like 'this', whatever 'this' is, and you told someone to leave you alone."

Devon

Devon sighs, both eyes opened now, looking as tired as she claims to be. "Babe... I don't know. Maybe you dreamed it. Maybe I was talking in my sleep." She wraps her arm around him, looking a cross between concerned and a little frustrated. "I'm tired, and as far as I know, you just woke me up with a light in my eyes. I just want to go back to sleep. All right?"

Rafael

That he's unsettled is obvious. That she isn't alarms him all the more.

"You didn't sound like you were talking in your sleep," he insists. "You sounded like you were talking to someone only you could see and hear. Do you remember anything? A dream, even?"

Devon

Devon closes her eyes. "Babe," she repeats, and now frustration is overtaking concern, has overtaken it, is a ripple of tension through her voice. "I hear you. I get it. But I just told you: I don't know what you're talking about. I just woke up, and now you're making it so I don't know if I can go back to sleep. Can you just... leave it? I'm tired."

Rafael

Now he's frustrated too. "Okay." He clicks the light off. "Go back to sleep. We'll talk about it in the morning."

Devon

What was between them, just a few hours ago, seems broken. And it hurts her, to have fallen asleep one way, to be woken thus, to have to try and fall asleep again like this. She's pissed off at him for blaming her for his weird-ass dreams or interrogating her over talking in her sleep. She turns on her side, her arm sliding off his abdomen, her back to him. It's not that different from how she fell asleep the first time. Only now, she isn't stroking the back of his hand.

All the same: she does sleep. It takes longer, and she's rather miserable for a few minutes, lying in silence in the darkness, but

sleep does come. Always, inevitably, for everyone.

--

Their alarm goes off at nine. Even with broken sleep, Devon got enough hours that she wakes yawning, and the yawn has the satisfied sound of someone rested. She sniffs, stretching, and -- as though nothing ever happened -- she rolls over, searching for Rafael in the warm sheets, trying once again to cuddle with him.

Rafael

He lies awake for some time after that. Long after she is asleep, he is still awake. Watchful. Listening. Listening not only for her voice but for anything else -- a sound, a sight, a glimmer of a hint to tell him who or what it was she spoke to earlier.

Nothing comes. And eventually, finally, without quite even realizing it himself,

he falls asleep.

--

The alarm wakes him. His eyes snap open and he startles, unaccustomed to waking in this rude manner. It's a few seconds before he realizes what it is and swings his hand out, smacks blindly at the clock until it falls silent.

By then she's moving closer to him again. And he lets her, because of course he does. He's troubled still though, frowning at the ceiling as she slowly wakes.

Devon

Nothing comes in the night. There's no afterimage in the shadows, no scent to tell him who -- or what -- Devon was talking to. Maybe she was just having a vivid dream, talking in her sleep. As far as he knows she never has before, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

He does know that he didn't dream it. He didn't imagine her perfectly straight spine, her hands resting on the tops of her legs like she was arranging herself for presentation, or the way her voice crept towards tension, then anger,

as she talked to shadows.

--

Devon finds him, and holds him, snuggling up to his side and tucking herself under his arm like she's never, ever been mad at him, never ever in the history of Devon. She strokes his side fondly, breathing in his scent, long before she ever willingly opens her eyes and peers up at him.

"Brekkie?" she asks, since they set the alarm planning to go downstairs for the free breakfast before getting back on the road. Her foot wiggles against his calf.

Rafael

That soft little question brings him back to himself. He stirs like he's awakening all over again, looking down at her where she cuddles against his side.

"Yeah," he says softly, his voice hoarse from disuse. He breathes in, stretches. Yawns, none too fragrantly, and pushes back the covers to swing his legs to the floor.

Morning sun on his bare back, bare ass while he crosses to the bathroom. He brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face, closes the door long enough to take a piss and washes his hands after. Gets dressed by degrees, putting on clean socks and clean underwear out of his backpack, reusing the pants from the day before. Changes his shirt, though it's almost indistinguishable from the first -- different shade of grey, is all.

A little hesitantly: "You ... remember anything from last night?"

Devon

Devon grumps a little when he pulls away, getting out of bed, but she decides to take advantage of it, rolling over and dozing a bit more while he washes up a bit. She doesn't get out of bed again until he comes back, sitting beside her or maybe just standing next to the bed.

She peers up at him. A beat. A slow smile. "Remember coming with you. Twice. Almost a third. Got too sleepy."

Rafael

He's not sitting. He's standing, pulling his shirt on, frowning at her answer.

"You woke up in the middle of the night," he says. "You sat there ramrod straight and you talked to nothing at all. When I asked you who you were talking to, you told me I was dreaming and then went back to sleep.

"You don't remember any of that?"

Devon

Her dark head, all that black-Irish hair, stains the pure white of the pillowcase. She looks up at him, waking in degrees as he tells her about last night.

He asks her if she remembers it. Any of it.

Devon is quiet a moment. Then she shakes her head, slowly. She doesn't even remember waking.

"What did I say? To nothing?"

Rafael

Relieves him a little that she reacts. That there's something there this time, some click of circuits connecting. Something more than denial and unnerving lack of concern.

He does sit now, sinking down on the edge of the bed with something like a sigh. "I only caught a little of it," he says. "You were laughing. Sounded happy. Then it changed, and you said something like -- 'what do you mean?' And that you didn't like whatever was happening.

"That's when I talked to you. And you snapped out of it, like you were sleepwalking. But I don't think that's what it was, because then you were just ... I don't know. You were grumpy. But you also just didn't seem to care. Weren't worried or freaked out at all.

"It was weird. Felt wrong."

Devon

Her hand moves from under the covers. She brings it out, reaches over to him as he sits beside her, in the hollow made by her thighs, her belly, her arms. She holds his hand, if he's willing.

"Well... I could have just been talking in my sleep, babe," she says gently. "But if you say it felt wrong, I believe you. And it is weird that... I don't know. It sounds like you woke me up. But I don't remember that, either."

She frowns. "Maybe... I should do a reading about it, or something."

Rafael

"You sounded tense. And angry. Like someone was -- doing something to you. That's why I can't just let it go."

He takes her hand. Of course he does, just like he'd welcomed her nearness earlier in spite of it all. His hand covers hers, grips.

"You should," he says. "And maybe talk to your friend. The one we're going to see."

Devon

It's the tension in his hand when he holds onto her that she notices. She glances at his hand, holding hers tightly. She hears it in his voice, too, in the words he chooses: someone doing something to her. That's why he couldn't let it go.

Two years ago, a bit more, and she would have wiggled her hand free, to hear that. Doesn't want to be caged, does she? Doesn't want to feel like he'll never let go. But that's not what it is. That's not what makes his shoulders so tight.

"I will," she says softly. "Then we'll see."

Rafael

He looks at her. Quick glance over a thick shoulder. Some of the tension leaves his brow, if only barely. He exhales, and his grip loosens a notch.

"Okay." A small pause. "Breakfast first? Know it takes something out of you, reading."

Devon

Devon smiles at him. She wants to be reassuring. After all this time with him, she thinks she understands that it's never been about possession with him. Never. He cannot stand the thought of losing her. Even when he didn't really like her, when he was so sure she didn't like him that he tried to make certain she never would, the thought of something terrible and final happening to her was a thought he couldn't bear. This morning, from the way he held her hand to the way he talked about someone doing something to her, she knows how unsettled he must be,

even if she can't remember last night, and the tension in his voice as he asked her what was going on.

Her fingertips stroke the back of his hand. She nods at what he says, glad that he understands, but also unworried: it's been like this for most of her life, really. Magic takes something out of her. It took a lot out of her coven in New England, all those generations ago. It takes something out of her new maybe-friend Ursula, too. It's just the cost of what they do, channeling such power through fragile mortal bodies and diaphanous mortal souls.

So: she gets up. She wiggles her hand free and gets up on her knees, the sheet pooling around her legs, and wraps her arms around him for a moment, holding him close. Her hair is a tousled mess; she smells more like him and his sleep than anything else. She kisses his jaw, just slightly scratchy, and then slips away again to get ready. To piss, and wash up, and arrange her hair in a couple of braids, and put on eyeliner like it's war paint. Devon, despite having no particular issue with b.o., does not re-use her clothes from yesterday but puts on cutoffs from a pair of black jeans washed so often they turned grey, the edges frayed and the denim worn so thin it's as soft as cotton. She puts on a blue tank top over her bra, an enormous t-shirt with a blue-eyed wolf on the front, the neckline and hemline and arm holes all chopped up so it drapes off of her shoulders in a way more reminiscent of a Roman tunic than anything else.

Bracelets and bangles and earrings and socks and boots and all of it, then. All before she's ready to go downstairs and pile a couple of plates full of sausage and eggs and toast and a fucking Belgian waffle with whipped cream and strawberries. She'll eat a quarter of it at most.

She'll eat more after she reads.

--

They take their food back upstairs with their big paper cups of coffee and juice. Devon eats wolfishly, always has, hunkered over her plate and not terribly conversational when there's food to be had. This is one of the things they have in common: a willingness to eat together, sit together, be in the same space, and not talk. Especially if they're hungry.

But after she's broken her fast, Devon goes to wash her hands free of salt and oil and syrup, and then she closes the curtains. Makes the room dim again. Goes and digs into her backpack, pulling out her cards, wrapped in what they call a 'fat quarter' at fabric stores. She doesn't bring them back to the table but perches on the edge of the bed they slept in, spreading open the cloth as she unwraps the cards from it. She's sitting like a teenager, one leg draped down the edge of the bed, toe of her boot brushing the carpet aimlessly, her other leg cocked, tucked in with her foot touching the opposite thigh. Her bracelets and the like clack together as she starts shuffling her cards, her hands quick and deft and familiar, the cards softened in her hands and rough at the edges from such regular use.

Her eyes find him again, after wandering about the room.

"Might help if you ask me questions," she says, like she just thought of it.

Rafael

For a moment there, feels just like they're at home, rising together lazily on some unhurried Sunday. Girl puts on her warpaint, puts on her distinctive fashions that he loves so much. He smirks at the wolf. That supposed to be me? he wants to know -- but then of course it's not. He doesn't have blue eyes.

She does, though. And they're so brilliant outlined in black. He kisses her before they go down to breakfast. Slides his arms around her waist, under that slashed-apart shirt, lifting her against his body for a moment while their mouths meet.

--

Big meal for both of them. Companionable silence. He eats mostly meat, drinks grapefruit juice. When she's done she gets her cards out, and he doesn't sit across from her. Feels wrong to sit there. Reading isn't really for him, and anyway: the magic in those cards is not the magic in his bones. They have a healthy mutual respect, his wild magic and her old magic, but it feels wrong to skirt too close. He loiters by the window, sitting on the windowseat, sun warm on his back.

Looks a little surprised when she asks him for a question. He blinks, then says the first thing on his mind: "Who was talking to you last night?"

Devon

'Course not, she informs him, regarding the wolf, pointing to it with a finger that has chipped blue enamel on it, this one's grey. Which it is. Blue eyes, grey fur -- the sort of wolf you see on a t-shirt, but not the sort he turns into. He's larger, for one. He's white as snow.

And his eyes are green.

She goes easily into his arms when he pulls her close, her toes lifting off the ground a bit. She smirks up at him as he wraps his arms around her, her hands opening over his biceps. He kisses her, or is leaning down to kiss her when she elongates her spine and kisses him.

Anyway: they kiss, lingeringly, boldly, like they are unbothered by things like scentlessness and witchcraft, orphanhood and isolation, infertility, or strange voices in the dark. That's far from true. They are both bothered by all these things, to varying degrees and at different times. But right now, right when they're kissing,

they are fearless creatures.

--

Big meal for both of them indeed, especially Devon, and even though she only eats half or so of what she got. When she gets up, she does notice he doesn't follow her to the bed where she sits, but she doesn't remark on it. She doesn't realize how he feels about it, thinks maybe it's because of that one time early on when she did read cards about him, about the two of them, and... it didn't go well. Started a fight, if she recalls correctly.

She shuffles. She looks at him. Says what she does. He asks his question, and she gives a little nod. She lays her cards face down, cuts, and pulls one from the middle of the deck, laying it on the cloth before her in the center.

It's a deck he's seen before, her main one: black and white lines on the back, mostly black-and-white drawings. Lots of animals and trees and the like; no human faces. Maybe Rafael doesn't know that most decks have human faces, or anthropomorphized animals rather than things like this. Maybe he does; he's visited her at her various shops enough times to see walls and shelves full of hundreds of different tarot and oracle decks. But this is the one he sees her with most often.

The card she drew is of a young owl, a thin black sword clutched in its talons, in the midst of a dive. The dynamism and energy of the card is forceful, targeted. And the card announces itself in script at the bottom: the son of swords.

Devon looks at it, thinks on it, picks it up, rubs her thumb over it.

"A knight," she says, her shoulders rounded down, her voice thoughtful but not yet faraway. She's staring at the card, then looks at Rafael, or... at a point of light coming in through the drapes. "A... fierce and calculating warrior... but far from their king."

Rafael

"What does this warrior want with you?"

Maybe he's supposed to ask abstract questions. If so, he missed the memo. He's a literal creature, thinks concretely. Doesn't even call it a knight, see. Just a warrior. That makes sense to him, in his literal world. Knights don't exist anymore.

Devon

If this were a normal reading -- the sort she gets paid for at her shops around the city -- then such direct questions would be harder to read for. Not impossible. She's had people ask her if they were going to pass their emissions test or not. But this is the other kind of reading Devon can do, the kind of true seeing, real divination, where the picture on the card is only a gateway into whatever message she's being given from...

from god only knows what. Devon herself has no idea if her abilities come from Gaia, or some inner fire, or something else entirely.

She lays down the first card, back in the center of the cloth. She draws the next card, places it -- after a moment of thought -- above the Son of Swords. This one is of the same suit: a sword, held upright against a black sky rent by lightning. A rainbow serpent without tail or head is wrapped around the hilt in the sign of infinity.

"Knowledge," she says, a little taken aback. "Information." She's frowning. Without prompting, she draws another card, laying it to the right of the Ace she just pulled. This one is reminiscent of walking alone in a forest, looking up... and seeing Luna above, silent and unknown. Devon inhales.

"About you." This has made her tense. "About what you are."

Rafael

Across the room, the wolf is frowning too. His arms were folded across his chest; now they unfold, and he stands.

"Why?"

Devon

This time, the card Devon pulls is laid beneath the knight, the warrior, whatever it is: a fox, curled around a sword, one eye open. Six swords above.

"The knight is also a thief," she says, and looks up, over at Rafael.

Rafael

He comes closer. Still doesn't pull a chair over to sit across from her, but instead circles to stand over her shoulder, looking at the cards with her.

"What does it want to steal?"

Devon

It's starting to become noticeable: even with her warpaint on, even though she ate first, Devon is looking a little drawn around the eyes. Her brow seems set in a permanent furrow. She isn't drained enough that his nearness makes her flinch, not yet, but when he comes closer he can almost see the energy she has already used, hovering outside of her skin, dispersing with the breeze of the air conditioner.

Her head tips slowly to one side. They look at the cards, all those swords and then that one shining moon. She reaches for her deck, and draws another card, laying it beside the seven of swords she drew last.

It's another major arcana. This time the card almost glows with a lightness and innocence that the other cards in the spread lack. A watercolored, rainbow star gleams in a dark sky, surrounded by other tinier, twinkling stars, shining light below. Devon's expression changes briefly to something almost wistful, rather tender.

"I... don't know what this means," she confesses. "Innocence? Or... dreams? Faith?" She shakes her head; none of the words fit. All of them bother her with how they don't quite fit. "Sorry, babe. I'm not sure."

Rafael

He senses her fatigue. Senses that shift in her expression too, her mood -- her confusion, her uncertainty.

He puts his hand on her shoulder. Cups her head with the other hand; bows to her, kisses her atop her head. It is tender and sweet, his concern silent but palpable.

"Just one more question," he says. "This warrior. Is it your friend? Or someone else?"

Devon

Devon is tucked under his jaw, in a manner of speaking. She leans into it, as though asking him to stay there, to guard her, though she doesn't notice she's doing it and isn't conscious of her desire to have him like a shield at her back. She doesn't consciously feel exposed, but that awareness will come,

when she is not so keenly focused on something else, far away and unseen.

She draws a final card. It's pretty: a sunset. The silhouette of three birds on a branch, with three cups below. Devon smiles.

"It's not her," she says, with some comfort underwriting her breath. She points at the three shadows, the birds hanging out together on the branch at day's end. "That's us. You, me, Ursula." She sighs. She sounds so relieved. "It's not her."

Rafael

She is not the only one relieved. He feels it too, though perhaps for a different reason. He's relieved her friend -- one of the only true friends he's ever known her to have, and certainly the only other witch she's ever met in this time, this life -- did not betray her.

That would be an injustice he could not stomach. It would be a betrayal he could not forgive, even if she could.

So he wraps his arms around her, tighter. He kisses her again atop her head, breathes a moment. She is scentless, but it hardly matters anymore. Sometimes he imagines he knows her all the same. Somehow.

"Good," he murmurs, quiet. "Glad."

Devon

Something there, when he sniffs her hair, inhales her the way you do when you love someone very much. He's felt it before: not a smell, not quite. Something else, beyond the five senses his body knows. Something similar to the pull of north when he's in wolf form, the way he knows which way to run, or when to leap from the shadows at his prey. Some other sense, nameless. This is what he feels, perhaps even interprets as a scent, when he lowers his nose to her hair as her magic is rising from her, leaving her.

"Yeah," Devon breathes, in agreement. No telling if she would have forgiven it, if Ursula were not on their side. No telling if forgiveness would even be on her mind, or if, quite simply:

her heart would be broken.

She scoops up her cards between her hands. She shuffles the ones she drew back into the stack, careful to separate them again, to cleanse them of whatever attachment they briefly shared with the subjects of the reading. She makes them neutral again, fanning and shuffling and cutting the cards over and over until she feels satisfied. Then she lays them down in the cloth, wraps them up, ties the ends over them like a kerchief. It's a tidy little packet, but she doesn't move to shove it back in her backpack again.

Devon just flops backward on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

"Can we get ice cream when we get back on the road?" she asks a moment later, like she doesn't have a huge breakfast to finish. She swivels her head to look over at him. "Soft serve? Like Dairy Queen?"

There's a beat.

"A butterscotch dip cone," she adds, like she has just nailed down the thing that will make her feel like herself again.

Rafael

Quick little laugh at that. Slower grin, spreading. He leans over her, hands braced, dipping down to kiss her again. Eyes open. Mouth soft.

"Yeah," he says. "Sure. We'll get one on the way out of town. I'll drive."

Devon

The way she kisses him back is different than it was when they went down to breakfast. Her eyes close. Her lips are softer. She doesn't lean into it as much. She's tired. Of course he'll drive; she'll have her dip cone and probably pass out for a while, hugging her pillow despite sleeping plenty last night.

With a soft yawn, she says: "Gonna text Ursula when we get on the road, so she knows we're on our way." She thinks a moment. "Won't mention last night. Could make her start asking stuff about you. Might have nothing to do with her, anyway."

--

At some point, he's able to get her up. Devon stuffs a few things in her backpack. She nibbles absentmindedly on breakfast leftovers, licks syrup off her fingers before they head out, leaving the keys on the dresser to check out. They head back to her car, and he moves the seat back, and she climbs in beside him.

She is asleep before they find a Dairy Queen.