to play out, and certainly not the optimistic ones. There won’t be any happy-family-staying-together result here. Only one thing’s guaranteed: Remi’s gonna be pissed.
I take a breath and forge ahead.
“I was offered a job at MMC. In their IT department. Cybersecurity, if you can believe it. Davon got me the interview, and they called me last week.”
Nope, never mind, forget telling them last week—I should have stuck to my original plan and told them after they’d all moved to Jattapore and I’d already taken the job. When it wouldn’t matter anymore. Judging by their expressions, I’m in for a long night of glaring.
“MMC?” Remi finally says, their face pinched with anger. “Maz Management, Diz, really?”
I groan. Totally called it.
“Look,” I say, cutting off their tirade before it can begin. “Being all high and mighty won’t pay my bills once you all move to Jattapore and I have to get a new flat by myself.”
And there it is, the giant neon elephant in the room we’ve all been silently tiptoeing around, making plans and celebrating futures but never quite acknowledging the core truth: they’re leaving, I’m staying, and this family’s days are numbered in the single digits.
I don’t want to fight, but if they’re going to poke at me, you better believe I’m gonna fire back. “Besides, what was everyone else up to after the spellplague? It was MMC that figured out how to stop the contamination while everyone was dying. MMC figured out what to do with all us sad little orphans. MMC did research on the earthquakes. MMC is researching a cure. Maybe I want to be part of all that.”
“Diz,” Jaesin says warningly.
Remi waves him off. “I’m not just some sad little spellsick orphan. I’m a spellweaver. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be cut off from something that’s like . . .” They gesture wildly at the air around them, air that once held ambient traces of maz at all times. “Like breathing, Diz. I may as well be a techwitch now. No offense, Ania. What you do is amazing, but for spellweavers it’s like walking around with earmuffs and super-thick gloves on all the time. I can’t feel it everywhere anymore. It’s . . . weird.”
Ania wisely keeps her mouth shut. She still has her parents, and their money. She has no trouble getting whatever amount of maz she needs. For us, for Remi, we have to steal it. That’s how we got started siphoning maz from MMC’s pipes in the first place. I sigh and rub a hand over the shaved side of my head.
“I get all that, Remi, I do. But we were ground zero for the worst plague this world has ever seen, and when the whole city was dying, MMC gave people jobs, and bought toys and books for us, and made sure we went to school. That all costs money. I’m not saying they should charge as much as they do, but I’m saying . . .”
And there’s the anger, back again, fresh and hot. Remi is leaving anyway, so what do they care if I work for MMC?
“You know what, I don’t have to justify myself. I need a job. I got a job offer. And I’d be damn good at it.”
Remi scoffs and stands, leaving their half-eaten dinner on the floor.
“Sure. Yeah. Whatever you say, Diz,” they say.
The rest of us finish our dinner in tense silence. Maybe if Remi was staying in town I would work a little harder to keep the peace. Or maybe it’s better this way. Start cutting my ties now so it’ll suck less seven days from now. Maybe our black-market gigs are all that’s been keeping us together the past two years, and now that they’re over, we’re over. Maybe we should have drifted apart long ago.
Once the dishes are stacked and Ania is elbows-deep in dishwater, Remi comes back out of the bedroom doing their best interpretation of Ania’s worship-me walk. My eyes nearly bug out of my head.
“You changed!” Ania says, her gesture flinging soapy water across the room. “You look great.”
“You looked great before,” I say, then quickly drop my gaze. We’re supposed to be fighting. Those are definitely not fighting words.
But apparently it was the right thing to say, because a tinge of color blooms on Remi’s cheeks. “Please. We’re going to Club Nova. I’m gonna bring it.”
Well, I guess that answers the question of what we’re doing tonight. It’ll be impossible to stay mad with