---

Two months after their flight from Prague, Bee-dee! Bee-dee! rang Veronica’s phone alert tone.

Maeve pulled her cloak over her head. She’d curled up on the floor of the railway car, her duffel bag shoved into a rough pillow shape. “Ugh, is it morning already?” the blue gargoyle grumbled.

“Sorry! Sorry. I’ll put it on silent,” Veronica apologized.

“Looks like we’ve arrived in London!” she continued, looking into her phone. “Maeve, what do you say about getting a hotel room for tonight? It’ll be our last night in Europe!”

“Mrrrgh,” Maeve grumbled, never having been an early riser. Wait, “hotel room” means “real bed,” she realized, make a yes noise. “Real bed,” she muttered.

“I’ll take that as a yes!” Veronica said happily, tapping away.

Two months ago, Maeve reflected, I lived in an underground society of gargoyles with my best friend. For years I knew she snuck out a lot, but she didn’t say much about her double life. Now her double life is our only life, and it’s been… an adjustment.

“Ugh,” Veronica said, brushing her hair, “and thank God because I smell like train.”

Kind of a lot of it smells like trains, Maeve thought. I don’t mean to be grumpy. I chose this, with my eyes open. But I wish I knew what I was getting into.

And I wish I knew more about who I was getting into it with. The more experience Veronica demonstrates in the human world just shows me how little I know about her.

“Today I’m going to look up shipping schedules,” Veronica said breezily. “Exciting.”

“Is it?” Maeve asked, lost in thought.

“Nope! But hopefully I’ll find a cargo ship leaving for Canada or America that we can hide on, and finally get off this continent before the mages or whoever find us.”

“After I find a ship I’m going to place an order for supplies we’ll need,” she continued, “so I’ll need to take my phone with me, but if you’ve got a book to read…”

“I do,” Maeve said.

“Great!”

Veronica, two months ago I watched you cheerfully kill a man, Maeve thought. How can things possibly be great?