reports of misconduct—” The driver changed the station to one with instrumental music that sounded like deep-sea recordings of whales.
“So you don’t really work at the Tankard, I take it?” she said.
“I do, actually,” he said brightly. “Weekends and the occasional mid-week shift.”
“How does that work with . . .” Sloane paused. “Your other job?”
“My other job is only demanding at certain times,” Mox said. “And it doesn’t pay very well.”
The driver poked the radio dial again, and the news returned.
“Reports of a skirmish between the Resurrectionist and the Army of Flickering in Bridgeport last night have surfaced. There was only one casualty, a police officer by the name of Paul Tegen. He is survived by his wife and his two-year-old son.” The driver changed the station again. Mox looked unconcerned, as if the mention of the Resurrectionist had no effect on him whatsoever.
They crossed the river and cruised down Canal Street, past a bright pink building that bulged on one side. It turned out to be a grocery store called Hey Presto! with a flying shopping cart as the logo.
The taxi stopped in front of Union Station, a wide, tan building with a row of Doric columns across the front. She remembered the Great Hall inside it, with its gridded skylight swelling up toward the heavens in a barrel curve. She had been there only once, as a child, taking the train from central Illinois to the city with Cameron and their mother.
She followed Mox in. It was difficult for her to keep up with him—a new experience for someone as tall as Sloane, but Mox’s strides were long and purposeful. Once inside, though, he seemed lost in the chaos, twitching when people called out to each other or got too close to him. Sloane thought of the can of green beans slamming into the wall the night before. She dragged him toward the line to purchase tickets. “You’ve got cash, right?” she said. “Hand it over and stay here. I’ll do the talking.”
When she got back from the ticket counter, he was standing helplessly in the middle of the room, staring at her. She pushed a ticket at him, and together they walked to the right platform, with Sloane directing them. Mox seemed easily confused by signs and distracted by everything around them. She had to drag him along more than once before they made it to a bench where they could wait in the chill of spring, when no one else was outside. She wore the cloak he had worn the day before, the hem singed by magical fire, and he wore a jacket not unlike one she might have worn at home.
“You don’t do a lot of traveling,” she said to him once they were seated. Her words found a shape in the air, like smoke.
“I do magic,” he said, and he chewed his thumbnail. “Never been good at the other stuff.”
“Like . . . basic existence?”
To her surprise, he nodded. “I used to break all my mom’s dishes. I’d be holding one and then—I don’t know. I’d get distracted and—crack. Light bulbs too. Even forks and spoons, sometimes.”
“What you told me about your parents and Arlington,” Sloane said, “was that true?”
He nodded. “They put me on a plane to Chicago when I was . . . nine? Ten? I’ve only seen them a couple times since then.” He ripped his thumb out of his mouth. “They think I’m dead now. It’s better that way.”
“They don’t sound great,” she said.
“Maybe they weren’t.” His thumb was bleeding at the cuticle. He had bitten down too hard. “Or maybe they just . . . weren’t prepared to have a kid bursting at the seams with magic. It’s still—” He shifted. “Too much. It’s too much. Makes me—not settled. Not stable.”
She put a hand on his arm. It was the only thing she could think to do. “I don’t handle magic all that well either,” she said, and she held up the hand that wore the siphon, letting the bright light of day reflect on its scales. “It’s not that I’ve never done anything with it, you know. It’s just unpredictable. And . . .” She shrugged. “I guess I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like it?” He frowned at her. “But—”
The train was coming, the brakes squealing as it charged into the station. It was bulky and awkward-looking, with protruding lights on the front that blinked until it came to a stop. Mox and Sloane got up and walked