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I didn’t press any further, because this sounded like just as much of a knowledge gap for Morrow as it did for me. Identifying who was really in charge of the Black Market would be just as challenging as figuring out why, exactly, Occultech existed.

Oh, sure. Director Sakamoto had told us about the corpo’s earliest days as a cult, how the prized Viridian Tablet had always been a record for storing names. I remembered how she’d once told us that names no longer had the power that they used to.

Then why did Paralumen show up when she did, seemingly at the very mention of her name? It could have been coincidence. Maybe she was tracking us the whole time we were tracking her, or maybe Loki had sent her after us, using his divine magic to — ugh — divine our location.

Either way it was painfully clear now that they were working together — or that Paralumen was working for Loki. The glazed look in her eyes, the fact that she wasn’t gleefully monologuing the way she used to. Was she under Loki’s control? Could she have crafted a charm so powerful that Loki commandeered it and used it to break her mind? Perhaps Paralumen had crafted the very chains that bound her to his will.

“Just be glad that we ran into Xavi in boy clothes today,” I said. “If he was walking around the Black Market as Xtra Xtra — hoo, boy. One of us would be missing a limb, at least.”

We’d been very, very fortunate that Xavi wasn’t wearing drag, which he wouldn’t be whenever the sun was out, anyway. Xtra Xtra didn’t do daytime drag unless she was being paid very, very well.

Something about being in drag elevated Xavi from a competent mage to an extremely deadly one, as if the ceremony of putting on all that makeup, padding, and fashion augmented her magical abilities. In many ways, there really was something ritualistic about queens getting into full drag.

The headdress, the regalia, the warpaint — like someone preparing to go into battle. And considering all the absolute bullshit that drag queens have to put up with, I wouldn’t be surprised if magical drag queens everywhere didn’t get a boost of power from the act of assuming their fantastical alter egos.

“It’s not just me though, right?” I said. “Did you notice how dull and lifeless she was in the eyes? She had every opportunity to gloat, especially with how she’d dominated Xavi’s mind. But nothing. Didn’t seem normal to me at all.”

Morrow shook his head. “It’s bad. I think it’s clear that she’s in deep with Loki, but not in the way she might have expected. Kind of ironic for someone who’s mastered charm magic to fall into the trap of being charmed herself.”

I sucked down the last of my iced green tea. “I’m just tired, honestly. If I didn’t know they were endangering both mundanes and the magical community — anyway, thanks for lunch. That really hit the spot.”

“Sure, sure. And fine, we can change the subject for a spell.” He thumbed his phone’s screen, flicking absently, as if pointedly avoiding my stare. “So did you get the playlist I sent you?”

I cocked an eyebrow, feeling a flutter of something warm in my belly. “Playlist? What playlist?”

“I promised you a playlist of my favorite Carly Rae Jepsen songs a little while back. You know, so you wouldn’t think she was just a one-hit wonder and all.”

Warmth spread across my cheeks. This was some real high school shit, but damn if it wasn’t hitting me hard. I had it bad, man.

“I’ll check it out once I have a minute.” With a wry smile, mostly to cover for my blush, I added: “I’m not sure if you noticed, but we’ve been kind of busy lately.”

“Right, right,” he said, slipping his phone into his pocket, rubbing the back of his neck.

Morrow and I both had our weirdo moments, but his little display of vulnerability was too awkward, too cute. I stared at my empty cup, at the bits of rice on the table, anywhere but his face. He ambled over to my desk, scratching his forearm, hand encircling and rubbing his wrist as he similarly made an effort to avoid my gaze.

I snuck a glance as he curiously perused the chaos of my workspace. He reached for the fragmentablet, paper rustling as he brushed some photocopied documents aside. He turned it over in his hands, testing its weight.

“So have you ever tried reading it?”

I scoffed. “Why would I bother? It feels so good to get all those fragments out of my head. I don’t see why I should risk putting them all back in.”

“Fair enough. I just figured you’d be a little curious about learning more magic.”

“Hah. Fair enough.”

He wasn’t wrong, of course. We did share a common curiosity for arcana in all its forms. I glanced over at my blasted war zone of a workspace with fondness, and maybe the slightest hint of disgust.

Parchment, drawings, books scattered everywhere, nothing at all like Morrow’s card catalog of meticulously sorted scrolls. But again, hard pass on the tablet. I had a hard enough time keeping my brain from unraveling.

“May I?” Morrow asked, holding the tablet face up.

“Knock yourself out.”

Occultech had designed the device a lot like an actual computer tablet, or one of those e-readers. Morrow sat at the table and tapped the screen to wake the display. He hummed and muttered as he turned the pages, enough to make me want to read over his shoulder.

He sounded like someone who was trying to tempt a toddler into trying a new dish by making delighted, appreciative little noises. And of course, like a gullible boy, I came over to see what was so special about his stupid olive oil roasted broccoli.

I watched him flip through the tablet with a suspicious side eye, totally paranoid about the as-yet-unknown effect of reabsorbing these fragments into my poor little hamster brain. So far, simply looking at the strings of letters and glyphs on the page didn’t make me feel any worse.