Ten of Cups, Reversed

I wasn’t lying,” Artemis says after they’ve eaten and the dishes have been washed.

“About what?” Mary Margaret asks.

“When I said you have to do your homework. When I said I have stuff to do tonight.”

Mary Margaret is about to slump into a dining room chair, her fingernails clacking on the back of it as she prepares to pull it out, collapse upon it in dramatic protest. Instead, she whips around. “Is it witch stuff? You said you brought them for a reason.” Her whole body language changes; her shoulders point forward. “Please, Artemis, let me do the witch stuff.”

Artemis is torn—on one hand, if Mary Margaret doesn’t learn to wield her Power even more, even stronger, if she doesn’t keep a handle on it while it grows, it’ll burst out of her, like it did before (like it’s doing with Wilder right now). And then she’ll act out, take things. On the other hand, she also needs to pass Algebra II. Deep down, Artemis knows the first is most important, the second a fairly arbitrary measure of one’s intelligence. But she also knows the Magpie will have to live in the real world, if she has any hope at happiness. So she won’t wind up like the Sibyl, that stupid future teller with the stupid name whose whole stupid existence is witches and nothing else. In the real world, having passed Algebra II means something. Artemis oscillates wildly between two possible responses (“not until your homework is done” and “in fact I insist you do the witch stuff”) and settles on the more moderate, “Yes, I expect you to do both.”

Mary Margaret squeals and claps her hands, sits on the floor where Artemis indicates, cross-legged with an alacrity only a seventeen-year-old can manage, bounces her knees up and down. “What are we doing?”

Quibble sits next to her. “Teaching Wilder where their Hands are.”

Mary Margaret groans and slumps over her crossed ankles. “No, this is so boring. This is ass-elbow lessons.”

Wilder looks down at their hands—they are right there!—and has to admit they agree with Mary Margaret. Confused, they hold their hands up and get ready to say that they don’t appreciate being treated like a child, that dinner was nice and all but if they’re going to get pranked, that’s just fucking mean, they could’ve just stayed home and—

“Not those hands,” Artemis says as she sits across from Mary Margaret, next to Quibble. She gestures to the space on the floor next to her. “Sit.”

Being that Artemis is scary, Wilder sits even as they are trying to work out what she just said. “These aren’t—”

“Those are not your Hands, bud,” Quibble says. “Well, they are. Your hands. But not your Hands.”

“If you’re going to take the piss—” Wilder starts.

“What are we, British now?” Quibble interrupts, a smile on his face. He thinks he is gently roasting.

“Listen—” Wilder gets ready to fight and then gasps. Because they feel a sensation. As being gripped by the shoulders and squeezed reassuringly; kind of nice, actually, given that reassurance is exactly what they need. They reach up to touch what they are sure will be hands, fingers. But they brush only their own shirt. Nothing is there.

They leap up from the ground and once again Artemis says, “Sit,” and they do, like a game of fucked-up Simon Says.

“Breathe,” Quibble says, and they do that, too.

“What,” Wilder says between breaths, “the fuck. Was that?”

Mary Margaret wiggles her fingers, splayed out. “Hands,” she answers. “But not these.”

“It’s not your physical shoulders I’m doing that to,” Quibble says, “and not my physical hands doing it either. It’s your—spiritual Shoulders? That sounds dumb as hell. And my spiritual Hands? But here, Feel it. Listen.”

Wilder isn’t sure if they should close their eyes; they decide to keep them open, to stare at their own left shoulder, stare at Quibble’s hands across the circle. When the Feeling occurs again, they can plainly see that their body isn’t the channel through which they’re experiencing touch and that Quibble doesn’t move a muscle, except to crack his neck, which is gross.

Wilder looks around at all the witches, who look back at their panicked face expectantly. “I hate this.”

Inspired by Quibble’s horrible neck sound, Artemis cracks her knuckles. “Mary Margaret,” she says, “if these are, indeed, ass-elbow lessons, then you should know your ass from your elbow by now. Explain.”

Mary Margaret rolls her eyes and Wilder finds their own mother close at hand (or rather, close at mouth), and the sentence Your face will stick like that leaps to the cliff of their bottom teeth. But they hold it back and listen to the teenager say, “Everyone has two bodies—the physical one we’re all familiar with,” and Wilder gets the feeling these exact sentences, word for word, have been said to this child and this child has the kind of bear trap mind that remembers a lesson down to the syllable if she cares about it even a little, “and the one that goes beyond it. That exists Attached but Otherwise.” Mary Margaret uncrosses her legs and leans back, rolls her ankles until they crack, and Wilder wants to say, okay, enough. “The superstitious,” she continues, “might call it a soul. But it’s a Body, all right. Just—less meaty. Everyone has it, but it’s the purview of witches to be able to feel both the body and the Body at once, and to distinguish between the two. To use the Body to manipulate Power.”

“At least,” Artemis says, “that’s the best we can figure. It’s all theories. My theories,” and she looks proud. And she should be! To have figured anything out at all! In the version of the world where she hasn’t, this conversation is going much worse. “I can See the Power moving around, so my guesses are educated ones. But I don’t see it with my eyes. I See it with my Eyes.” Every time someone uses that sentence construction, Wilder feels insane.

“My guess,” Quibble jumps in, “is if you learn to differentiate between hearing things with your ears and your Ears, it’s going to get easier to turn the dial up on one and down on the other. It’ll be a little less overwhelming. But that’s just a guess.”

Wilder doesn’t want to tell Quibble that it sounds like a really good guess. They’ve returned to an activated, feral state, freaked out by being Touched in ways they can’t see but absolutely perceive. “How do I do that?” they ask, instead of yelling wordlessly, which is what they’d rather do. “The dial thing?”

Quibble shrugs. “Practice? Here, pay really close attention.”

“Could you—warn me first?” Wilder says, fast, trying to get in there before Quibble does it again. “Like before you Touch me?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, that’s—yeah. Sorry. Okay, incoming.”

And Wilder Feels it, the stretch from Quibble and the tension between them and the caress of a Thumb on their shoulder seam—spiritual Shoulder seam? It is confusing, feeling two things at once and parsing the difference. A metaphysical pop-and-lock, an isolation of moving one part of oneself and not the other. Quibble’s Hand creates sensation of the spine against a yoga mat on a hard floor; being held so firmly by the earth. Wilder loves it instantly and they are reminded that love and hate are two sides of the same tarot card.

“Can you feel the—energy?” Quibble chuckles. “The energy. Between me and you?”

“Yeah, actually.” Wilder is surprised. It’s like feeling an arm, or Arm, they guess. But it’s a bit too long. Like a weird Gumby Arm except, they don’t know, holy or some shit? Almost vine-like. Plant-y. Strong and totally invisible.

“Can you do the same thing? To me?” Quibble asks.

Wilder closes their eyes and tries to reach an Arm across the circle to Quibble. Their concentration is broken when Mary Margaret snorts laughter. They open their eyes and discover one of their hands outstretched.

“You don’t have to—” Quibble starts, kind.

“I know,” Wilder cuts him off, humiliated. “I know. But how—do I find it?”

“Here, Feel again.” And Quibble squeezes their Shoulder. “It’s like—you almost step a tiny bit to the side of yourself and there You are.”

“That’s not how I find Me,” Mary Margaret interjects. “For me it’s like I go to the spot where I feel when I’m hungry and, like, fling out.”

Everyone turns to Artemis, who holds her hands up. “Don’t look at me! I have an unfair advantage. I can See Myself under my skin.”

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Wilder says. “How does anyone do any of this?”

“Try a bunch of shit, to be honest,” Quibble mutters.

So they do. They try all of it. They don’t know how long they sit, looking inside, outside, upside down (they sit precisely four minutes and thirty-seven seconds). However long it is, it feels too long and they are already so activated. They feel the panic start to well up. They breathe deep into their belly and find the rising tide and—oh. There It is—there They are—in the calming of choppy waves. It takes Wilder another minute to locate their Hands because they’re texturally different; shaky, timid, and thin in comparison to Quibble’s veritable tree trunks. Like rivulets of water on a windowpane in the lightest of rains, so many of them, woven together and flowing every which way—a difficult energy to coax in a specific direction. When they finally reach out and Touch Quibble’s Shoulders in return, he smiles.

“Interesting,” he says. “Interesting.”

“Okay,” Artemis says. “Now that we’ve got that, time to cast.”

Wilder’s eyes fly open. “What, a spell? Like now?” Their Hands fall in a cascade like a popped water balloon, all form gone. “I only just figured out where my Hands are!”

Artemis shrugs. “If not now, when? Besides, I wasn’t kidding! I have shit to do!”

“I thought I was the shit to do!” Wilder semi-shouts.

Mary Margaret snickers at the innuendo and Wilder blushes.

“Nope, as important as you are.” Artemis says this and Wilder gets the impression she does not find them important in the slightest. It’s not that Artemis is mean. It’s that Artemis is focused. And she has been focused somewhat unintentionally on the horrible little lights; it’s unusual that she, who has an impeccable grasp on the difference between eyes and Eyes, would be getting a headache from Seeing Power. “I want to figure out what the fuck is going on with the phones. I can’t make you help,” she says to Wilder, knowing full well their constitution has the fortitude of wet crepe paper in the face her own bright blaze. “If you don’t want to, you’re free to leave. You’re always free to leave. But all the lights started when your Power Awakened, and you might just be the key to figuring it out.”

“Phones?” Wilder and Mary Margaret ask at the same time.

Artemis sighs. She explains the lights. She finishes with “Even though it’s the barest trace of Magic and the lights are small, they are omnipresent. It’s overwhelming because it’s everywhere. And anything that’s everywhere?” She folds her arms. “Could be dangerous.”

Wilder pauses after Artemis is done. “I don’t know how, though. I don’t know how to cast a spell.”

Quibble smiles with half his mouth as he says, “No one ever does, bud. We make it up every time.”

They all sit for a second, the streetlight bathing them orange. Then: “Pay attention!” Artemis speaks from some deep part of her. Her voice a resonant alto, like the backbone of a choir. Wilder sits up straight. Artemis continues. “Something amazing is about to happen.” She claps her hands, and it sounds like a well-made box clasping shut with a satisfying click. The apartment is small, yet it echoes. Wilder can feel warmth settle on the group, even with the window still wide open. The sounds around them blanket-fort-muffle. Close, conspiratorial. Artemis holds out her hands—Quibble takes one, and Wilder notices that both Artemis and Mary Margaret have their hands (their physical ones) stretched toward them. They hesitate, afraid to touch anyone, to participate. But one more look at Artemis’s determined face and they slip their hands into the others’ waiting palms. The warmth increases, envelops them from the forearms. As though a hug, except a handshake. A small, strange brightness in the palms of their hands. The Palms of their Hands. They taste lemon on their tongue and smell the brewing of tea.

They immediately recoil, both in body and in this queer Meta-Body that Tastes and Smells of its own accord. “What the fuck,” they say.

Mary Margaret snaps her fingers and says, “Come on, get with it,” her hand still outstretched.

“I—I tasted something.” Wilder thinks they are having a stroke. “I smelled it.”

“No, you didn’t,” Artemis says. “You Tasted it and you Smelled it. It didn’t happen in the physical world. You gotta start distinguishing.”

“What did you get?” Quibble asks.

“Lemons,” they answer. “Tea.”

“That one’s probably me,” Quibble says, and he smiles. “I used to take the lemons off the table during afternoon tea and wholesale eat them like a weirdo, run around with the rind in my mouth covering my teeth.”

Wilder is torn between two exclamations: “You had afternoon tea?” and “We get each other’s fucking sense memories?” Given the givens, they choose the latter.

“Yup! Not, like, everything.”

“Can you—pick? What other people get?”

“Nope!”

“And—and you didn’t know what I got?”

Quibble smiles. “Not even a little.”

“And you—do that? Willingly?”

All three look at Wilder with the painful and impossibly intimate understanding of the massive emotional risk; the look also contains the realization this concern has become distant for them. Mary Margaret looks the most shocked; Artemis the least.

“Yes,” Quibble answers. “Yes.”

Wilder is exasperated. “Why?”

Quibble seriously considers their question, and this serious consideration calms Wilder just a little bit. After a hefty pause, Quibble answers: “Because that’s the only way to do Magic. And I want to do Magic.”

Wilder almost gets up and leaves. Artemis just said they could, after all. But they think of the three trains back. Of the face-blistering amount of vocal information that would vibrate into their ears or Ears or whatever. And they know if they don’t sit here and cast a spell, they will continue to be broken by the world and all the people in it. However, it seems absolutely ludicrous that these people—Wilder doesn’t even know their last names!—should get the keys to their inner kingdom. “I wasn’t even touching Quibble,” Wilder says, delaying what they now understand to be inevitable. “And I got his lemons.”

“We’re all in it together. His lemons are your lemons, with or without proximity.” Artemis is inspecting her nails like she doesn’t care. But she cares a lot. She wants to keep going. She knows if she seems eager, Wilder will run. Maybe it is a little emotionally manipulative, but the line between driven by higher purpose and manipulation is a fine one that sometimes eludes her.

“Here, Artemis, trade me.” Quibble and Artemis switch positions, Quibble’s knee now brushing up against Wilder’s. “Okay? Try again?” Quibble’s hand reaches out. Wilder swallows—since when did their mouth produce so much fucking spit?—and slips their hands into his and Mary Margaret’s.

The tea and lemons slam back down onto them with such force that Wilder almost pulls away again, but the group clamps down on them, hauling their squirrelly energy back into the circle and tightening their grips until Wilder’s fingers ache. It is like trying to saddle an ocean wave and ride atop of it, for minutes or hours or eternities or seconds (it is seconds: seventeen of them). Nausea. Seasickness. Goose bumps walk wild over everyone’s necks.

Then it settles, and Wilder can feel everyone Looking at them though their gazes haven’t altered, their heads haven’t even twitched. They feel too seen. In an instant, Wilder understands in the pit of their stomach how well these people know each other, and how little they know Wilder, not even familiar let alone familial. As their Sense of the group seeps in, they consider that they’re fourth-wheeling a whole-ass family.

Mary Margaret’s energy is cloves and liquor, cheap yet inexplicably smooth, and the Smell of the cigarettes against clean clothes. It is sharp and raises one single eyebrow and punches Wilder in the meta-arm, the Arm.

Artemis is like a hot spring; her temperature runs scalding and freezing in extremes. She Smells of air before lightning and a desperate wish of calm.

Quibble’s is the scent of sandalwood and the kindest smile imaginable and the Feeling (but not the Smell) of woodsmoke. An autumn sweater, a hug from behind.

Wilder doesn’t want to know all that quite so quickly. What one’s Magic feels like to other Magic is so much information to have about a person. It is different and deeper than simply the quality of Quibble’s Arms, a more active window into the soul. Even more horrifying is the depth of information Wilder involuntarily shares about themself. What are the others getting? (Quibble gets it, mostly: the Smell of childhood oatmeal baths for itchy, red skin and the sensation of never looking down at their own body as it is applied.)

“Pay attention,” Artemis says again. “Something amazing is about to happen.”

It is as though Artemis reaches out with a toe and nudges Mary Margaret incorporeally. “Here is the amazing thing,” Mary Margaret says, even more bright-voiced in this Power-full bubble. Wilder feels their phone lifted from their pocket as it disappears. It reappears with the others, winking into existence one by one, on the floor in the middle of the circle. Of course. The pickpocket.

Time passes. They are not sure exactly how much time (a minute and four seconds). It’s a wondrous alternate dimension, this sitting circle. A bubble outside the natural progression of seconds (not quite—adjacent to the progression of seconds. Perception is a wild thing). When they blink, the room is darker, even, than before. Quibble speaks and his voice rattles Wilder’s Body. “Another amazing thing.” The air shimmers as though the wibbly space above a schoolyard blacktop at the height of summer. They can see an element of Quibble’s Other-Space—a purple-brown darkness, like freshly watered potting soil made transparent. Wilder Feels a double-bearded bisous exchange and Smells cooking onions, Sees Rico’s long eyelashes and Feels a surge of longing. They wonder if Artemis’s Power always Feels like longing (it does. Longing and Protection). So it isn’t only Quibble using Magic. It’s a tandem ride, effortless. They need not speak to each other and Wilder thinks of the simple dance that is their cooking of dinner. Wordless synchronicity.

Quibble’s Power isn’t as punchy as Artemis’s—it rolls like hills. It whispers like large-leafed plants in a strong breeze and Smells like honeysuckle, jasmine, and, yes, lemon.

The phones glow brilliantly against the extra-dark, the negative space Quibble holds open. Three of them—Quibble, Mary Margaret, and Wilder—blink. Only Artemis doesn’t react. This is, after all, what she Sees all the time. At first, the phones look perfectly normal—or as normal as anything looks in Here. Then it is as though sunlight catches on the dark screen; the kind of small, winking reflection the Lady Anastasia would surely chase around Wilder’s kitchen. Sometimes a pale glow; other times it hits them directly in the eye. Startling enough as a fact by itself, but disconcerting given the phones are completely still. Artemis’s near-constant headache becomes very understandable. The group, having now all contributed, turns as one to look at Wilder; they look like the collective heads of a single creature to which Wilder is desperately clinging.

Wilder feels the urge to speak. To Speak, really—to use Meta-Body Magic. They feel an incredible need to be heard, to be understood. A second thing: they feel exposed. They cannot stop thinking about how, if they open their Mouth, it might rain the Smell of sunburned skin being aloe-soothed or the sensation of losing a tooth at eighteen, a painful-relief-crumbling-pop after taking a backhand to the side of their face, the Sound of buzzing clippers or the vibration of those clippers in their hand. Hand? They don’t know on which body these things are written, if there is truly a difference.

Wilder wonders, also, if the winking light is sentient. And if the light can even think, they certainly don’t know what language it would speak. Will their Power work if they don’t know? Of course it will—they haven’t had to know yet. The light looks like fey fire in folklore, the wisps of light that lead travelers into sucking swamps until they’re stuck up to their knees. Wilder can’t begin to guess what amazing thing they’re supposed to do—light doesn’t have a face or a mouth. It is only sparkles. How does one speak or Speak with something like that?

They wish desperately for a light, cool touch on their shoulders. Folding into someone who smells of hydrangeas. They haven’t thought about their mother in a very long time, but she keeps coming back today, now. She was the parent with the red hair and her hands were perpetually cold. Wilder was a warm kid, and they fit together perfectly in this way. Their father was a long-haul truck driver and he was rarely there—no, even worse! They do not want these witches to see anything of their father. They lived in a converted garage on someone else’s farm and the inside was painted a shrieking yellow that Wilder loved for its boldness. Wilder’s mother had chickens and Wilder has fond memories of watching staticky television with the overtones of clucking and chuckling wafting through their open window in the high summer heat, cool hands on the back of their neck as their tiny space-heater body curled up on her lap.

Wilder falters. “Here is—” And they lick their paper-dry lips, which stick to the underside of their tongue. “Something—amazing?” But no amount of red-faced shame at being unable to continue could make them do so, could make them Reach into their Power and click into something deeper. Instead of giving away any telling sensory experience, they all Hear a high-pitched whine, electric and pulsing, like a janky lightbulb about to burn out. The Power flickers and falters, and the sensation of time-out-of-time dies. Dies in Wilder’s hands. Or Hands.

“Aw, come the fuck on,” says Mary Margaret as she slaps her palms down on her knees. “We had it.”

“Clearly we did not have it,” Artemis replies as she stands, eyes Wilder up and down. “Well. No matter.” She smiles a brave smile for the group, for Mary Margaret in particular. But her insides are turbulent, a howling and hungry flame. Her stomach rumbles for answers, answers she’d been convinced she was about to get. For the first time, she mistrusts Wilder. She suspects this is not entirely fair, but it is hard to apply some of the gentle coaxing she used with Mary Margaret to this whole-ass adult. “Hmm,” she scoffs. “Well. Mary Margaret has homework to do.”

“You gonna go out with Rico?” The smile in Mary Margaret’s sentence is impish. Artemis can’t help but smile as well, genuinely.

“No amount of mentioning Rico is going to make me forget you have homework to do.”

Wilder near about flees the apartment. They even take the stairs two at a time.

Quibble follows behind. “Wilder. Wilder. It’s fine.”

Wilder isn’t doing a very good job at hiding their disappointment in themself. The privacy they would surrender by going deeper into their Power makes them gasp. It isn’t as though they don’t deeply desire it—but it’s too much. And of course the part they keep a touch hidden from themself: the longing to be a member of that beautiful and strange collective creature lit against the setting sun, basking in both the light and the clarity of their love for one another. Wilder wants it so, so badly they can’t look at the center of it, must keep it always in their periphery.

“I’m sorry” is all Wilder can think of to say.

“Why?” Quibble asks, his breath curling into ethereal mist against crisp winter Brooklyn.

“Because I didn’t—couldn’t—I didn’t know how—”

Quibble waves his hands in the air, as though Wilder’s guilt and their apology are bothersome flies. “I didn’t expect you to. Mary Margaret did, yeah. Because, for all she’s mature, she’s still a kid. And Artemis—I don’t think she’d normally be this fixated on you being the solution here. Artemis likes portents and believes in fate. She’ll never accept that your Awakening and the phones aren’t related because they happened at the same time. Seers are often like that. I’m not. I know that sometimes shit is random.”

Wilder thinks about it for a moment, wonders if perhaps Artemis is correct. They had the urge to Say something to the lights. Perhaps theirs is the right Power for the job. But it seems so silly. They contemplate telling Quibble, but he cuts in just as they open their mouth.

“Do you want a slice?” He’s shoved his hands in his pockets, so he gestures to the pizzeria window with his bearded chin. “My treat. It really is okay. We’ll figure it out. We always do. Never something quite like this, but we always move forward on something. For a while, it was Mary Margaret. Power popping out everywhere, no control whatsoever. Pure Id—actually, no, that’s not quite right, at least not the way people talk about the Id. It was never mischievous or fun. It was always fear and survival. That’s worse.”

Quibble buys two slices of pizza before Wilder can refuse and hands them one, the tantalizing triangle point drooping off the paper plate. Wilder bites that piece off; they burn the roof of their mouth. The oil, the pepper, the flecks of black on the bottom of the crust, the ultra-thin slices of crisp roasted garlic lying on the cheese: heaven, and it warms them. Quibble is a folder of slices and Wilder isn’t. They wonder if it’s because they didn’t grow up in a city. Didn’t grow up able to eat very much pizza. Too expensive.

“Did you grow up here?” Wilder asks.

Quibble shakes his head. “Not Brooklyn. Manhattan, actually.” He smiles shyly.

Quibble sometimes doesn’t know how much to say about himself to people who have much less than he has. And he primarily hangs out with people who have much less than he has. Often, he sublimates a part of himself. He doesn’t want to complain about his life because it feels trite to do; he is, himself, safe and comfortable. He has worked very hard (emotionally, that is) to feel safe and comfortable. But when people ask him things and he answers honestly, he usually can’t get around mentioning the emotional work in tandem with his fortunate financial circumstance. He fears he sounds like a dick and he changes the subject. “You?”

Wilder shakes their head. “Upstate. The bit that’s basically Appalachia. Well, is Appalachia. It’s kind of what you think of when you think of Appalachia and kind of not at the same time.”

“Why’d you come here?”

“I’m not—really sure, actually.” It is very obvious that they are sure, or at least surer than they let on, and Quibble notices. He wants to press. But he is afraid Wilder will press back. And then he will have to talk about money and dead parents.

Instead, he changes the subject entirely: “It’s like garlic breath.” He gestures to the pizza with his chin.

“What?” Wilder asks around a mouthful.

“The thing where when you cast, you give away interior stuff. It’s like this pizza. If everyone is eating it, no one notices how much you stink. That’s a bad analogy, probably. But it’s what I’ve got.”

Wilder just grunts. Accepting a slice of pizza was their maximum; they feel uneasy about being comforted any further.

Quibble continues anyhow. “I find that different things come up with different people. Like whenever Mary Margaret’s around, high school stuff comes up for me. It’s not always, like, deep stuff. Like the lemons. The lemons aren’t like. Deep.” Except of course they are. That is a family memory. But Quibble doesn’t want to get into it. “You know,” he pivots, “you never give away the whole story. Not one of us would presume to really know you based on what we Experience. If that helps. You’re the only one who can give us that. It has to be an active decision.”

“I wanted to talk to them,” Wilder says, and they don’t even know they’re going to bring it up until they do. Ah, trans masculinity: two people take turns abruptly changing the subject to keep from discussing their feelings.

“What?”

“The phones. The lights. I wanted to talk to them.”

“Why didn’t you?” Quibble asks.

They know instantly the answer is I didn’t want to give away a piece of myself and they also know instantly they’re going to lie. “I didn’t know what language it spoke. Or if it could speak. Or how to find my Mouth. I don’t know anything.”

Wilder has something they want to ask, a return, slant, to the subject of Magical intimacy. They want to know what the woodsmoke is and they don’t know if it’s out of line to ask about it, if it’s like Vegas rules or some shit. But they are interrupted by Mandarin, spoken by the purveyors of the pizza window, and they feel like they’re going to ralph their pizza back up. “Can I—I want to go home.” But then they remember that at home, they can hear Roommate Andy. Quibble watches this realization ripple across Wilder’s face.

“Do you—want to come to mine?” Quibble offers. “It’s quiet. And if you’re going to join us—”

Wilder snaps a sneer onto their face, which comes easy—they’re starting to rock back and forth, squint their eyes as though that’ll keep them from hearing words liquefy into other words. “Who said I was joining you?”

“Well, I mean—you cast with us. Or at least, you tried to—No, I didn’t mean that!” Quibble interrupts himself as Wilder’s sneer deepens. “You did great! For your first time! And it’s going to help, the more you do it, I—well, I can’t promise, actually.”

“Yeah, see?” Wilder says as they turn toward the train, steel themself. “You can’t promise, actually. All you can promise is that you’ll be able to see my ass or whatever.” What they do not say: If you see these parts of me, if I can’t curate them for you, you’re not going to like me very much. I can’t let you catch glimpses of me like that. What they do, finally, actually say: “I can’t, Quibble. I can’t.” Their sneer is softer as their lips quiver. They disappear underground.