Page 15 of Marked by the Demigod

Aimes quirks up an eyebrow, at the sudden show of personality. "Well, how sex went, that is what that entails."

Another twitch of the lips. "Was it at least good sex?" She's not looking up at Aimes as she types.

"It was a hotel hookup, while I was on a business trip, that's it."

Katya' eyebrows flew up, and she swivels away from her computer to deliver entirely too awkward of eye contact. "Aimelie, the sooner you start to think of it as not just hotel sex, the better," she says, her voice grim.

"Aimes," she says, back of her neck prickling. "I prefer to go by Aimes."

"What he did, without your permission or knowledge, is a crime. It's deeply personal, and it's looked down upon even when the people involved are lifelong partners. It's an anomaly and deeply, deeply unfair to you."

Aimes nods, out of a lack of anything else to do. "Well, it's just a marriage thing, right? You have to have divorce in your world."

The dark glance she gets speaks volumes. "It's a 'magical' marriage." She actually does the quotation marks around the words with her fingers. "Nothing is easy in this world, nothing is set up to make things work out." She looks away, back at the computer, and it's awkward again. "We are going to try to track him down, get him to answer for this."

"What..." she trails off, a lump in the back of her throat, "what would happen then? Would we..."

"It'll be uncomfortable, being away from him for a while. This marriage, this bond it...it was designed for people to be close for forever." Katya sighs, deep.

This now sounds like medical symptoms, and her head swims again. "Do you have any other questions about what he looked like?"

Another raised eyebrow, but she hmms and continues on. "Did he have any jewelry?"

"Cufflinks! He had these cufflinks, they had a symbol on them, but..." She slumps. "I couldn't draw it. I might be able to point them out, I don't know. They were...out of the ordinary. We joked about them."

"He was charming?" Katya watches her, face not revealing anything.

Aimes nods, and Katya types something in, then sits back.

"A symbol. A symbol and a name that's not coming up with any of our sources." She smiles, brittle, at Aimes. "I'll compile a list of magical symbols.”

There's a lull, and Aimes feels like she's floating. Like the moment is more than unreal, one of those moments where you both remember for the rest of your life but is also a blur. Like the moment you find out your sister died, or that there was a terrorist attack and the world was at war.

"At the printer in the front is a package of info for you. I'm having Miri print out a primer of not-natural beings and the culture, as well as a compilation of magical symbols. I would...I would officially recommend you read them and pay attention." Katya shoves a form over to Aimes. "Fill this out, we need to know how to contact you."

Katya catches her by the arm as she stands to leave.

"Obviously, this sort of thing relies on secrecy." She says, her voice low, like lowering her voice is the key to getting Aimes to understand that this shit is serious.

Like she hasn't already figured out that this bullshit has some sort of secrecy pact to prevent mass panic. Like she can tell anyone without laughing herself out of the room before she can complete a sentence.

Still, she nods, and Katya smiles in satisfaction at the answer.

* * *

Miri handsher the pages with a dimple filled smile, and Aimes walks out with a bunch of stapled papers and no real direction of where to go.

Back at the library, Dave avoids her glances with a guilty scowl, burying himself in helping a group of preteens find their homework. But it's okay, she's not sure she wouldn't slap anyone who talked to her at that moment.

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