“It’ll take a bit of explaining. Do you still take your coffee the same way?”
“Um.” Rattled, Imp tried hard to get a grip, but ultimately failed. “Maybe?”
“No problem.” Eve glanced towards the sideboard that took up the far wall of her office. There was a jug of water there, a couple of mugs, and a small built-in fridge. “Allow me to serve you.” A stream of water snaked up and out of the jug, looped across to one of the mugs and dived in. Then the lid rose from a jar. The odor of roast coffee filled the room as a gritty cloud of grounds rose to join the water.
Imp watched Eve closely. Her face was a mask of tension as she wrestled with her materials by force of will alone. “There’s no need to—”
“Yes there is,” she grated, then ignored him. The mug began to steam. The airbrushed perfection of her forehead was very slightly shiny: Is that sweat? he wondered. Fine bubbles began to surface in the mug. “Ninety degrees is the correct temperature for fresh brewed coffee,” she noted. “Boiling water scalds the grounds.”
“You really don’t have to—”
Imp trailed off. A dripping mass of brown sludge rose from the mug and drifted towards the small rubbish bin on the sideboard. Next, the fridge door opened. The rising stream of milk didn’t surprise Imp now: he was, however, impressed despite himself when the mug of freshly brewed coffee rose from the sideboard and floated towards him.
“Take it,” Eve gasped.
Imp grabbed the mug out of the air. “Thank you,” he said, raising it in toast to her, his mind spinning. “I didn’t know you could do—” his eyes tracked to the sideboard—“that.” Making coffee as a superpower? He wondered: Am I meant to be impressed? Then he worked through the exact sequence of actions his sister had just carried out by force of will alone, and his mouth dried up.
“I’m so glad we understand one another.” She smiled winningly as he took a sip; on the sideboard, a second mug was underway. It was, Imp decided, a very good cup of coffee. And a warning. A very pointed warning. He swallowed carelessly and burned the roof of his mouth.
“Good coffee. Technically impressive. Much precision, very superpower, wow.”
“The family aptitude for esoterica apparently extends to more than … you know.” Her smile vanished. “I only discovered I could do this a couple of years ago. The re-emergence of magic has made all sorts of things possible for people like us.”
“You say opportunity, I say threat: the family tragedy redux.” Imp, now brooding, put his mug down on the edge of her desk. “How did you find me?”
“My position gives me certain privileges. I’ve had people watching you for a while.”
Somehow Imp did not find this revelation in any way surprising—or reassuring. “Why?”
She shrugged, but the gesture was swallowed by her jacket’s tailoring. “In case I ever needed you. In case you ever needed me.”
“Come to the Dark Side, Luke…” Imp took another sip. “Have you seen Mum recently?”
The mug of coffee steeping on the sideboard shattered, leaving a boiling brown jellyfish hanging in the air above the French-polished walnut. Eve scowled. “You did not just say that!” Her discarded drink extended a liquid pseudopod towards the mouth of the bin.
“I’ve been visiting her whenever I could.” Imp slid the knife in. “How about you?”
“I visit the nursing home regularly.” Eve narrowed her eyes at him: “I’ve got a very important job. Lots of people depend on me. I’m very busy.”
“I’m sure you are. You’re so busy you ignore your brother for four years.” It was an unfair accusation, intended to hurt: in truth he’d been avoiding her for four years, they had good reason for avoiding one another. But he wanted her to give some sign that she shared his pain. A bolus of coffee bulged along the tentacle and dripped into the waste. “But it’s okay because you have people to monitor your relatives for you.”
Eve’s face went mannequin-still, and for a gut-curdling second Imp thought he’d pushed her too far. But somewhere beneath the glossy, lacquered surface, there still beat the shrivelled remains of his sister’s heart. “Yes, I do,” she said very softly, “because I am very busy. I’m not a nice person these days; ten-years-ago-me would have been horrified if she could see nowadays-me. No question about it. But the people I have to do business with are much, much worse than you can possibly imagine. The distance I maintain is for your own safety: I cut you out of my life because I care about you, not just because of the family curse.”
Imp put his mug down. He folded his hands to stop them shaking. “Is it really that bad?” Can’t you leave? he wanted to ask.
“Oh, you have no idea.” Her cheek twitched, the glaze cracking for a moment. “I didn’t want to drag you into this. But I’ve been given a job—ordinarily, a straightforward job—with a tight deadline, and I’m afraid I need your and your team’s skills. I have to get my hands on a rare book that’s up for auction, but unfortunately my acquisitions agent, the only person I know who knows how to contact the seller, has been murdered—” she rolled over Imp’s startle reflex implacably—“and I’m concerned that there might be a leak within the organization. Some of the very bad people I alluded to may also be after the book. So I need your help. I’m willing to pay whatever it takes. Not just money. I can make your problems go away. I can get you whatever resources you need to make your film. I just need you to get me the book.”
Imp leaned forward in his chair. “I want you to stop threatening my friends,” he said, in a semblance of a calm voice.
“Of course.” She gave him
