Declawed kitten.

“The only heart condition I have is having one,” he repeated the words, weighing each on his tongue, eyes widening slightly like he’d just partook in a revelation, and smiling when he finished. He could see saying that while looking off into mid-distance. There would be a music cue or an explosion just after, depending on genre. Good stuff. He could see that on a poster too. It could be placed in a drama set in a hospital and that would make it a pun. “Do you mind?” He grabbed the quill she was holding even as he was asking and wrote the line down on the napkin under her signature before tucking it away. “It’s pixie dust. I think there’s a bit of powder billywig sting in there,” he looked to Roderic for confirmation and got a nod which he passed on to Mila as he looked back at her, “So if you start levitating, shout and we’ll hold you down.”

She watched as Noah seemed to drift away, lost in some other world she wasn’t in just yet. She was about to snap her fingers when he reached for the quill, snatching it right out of her grasp, and she watched, confused, as he wrote what she had just said down. “The fuck’re you wri’in that for?”

Mila liked to think she had a pretty wide knowledge of drugs. But magical drugs? The fuck was pixie dust? “You mean that shit from Pe’er Pan that makes you fly? I can already do that with a broom. And what the ‘ell is billywig sting?” It was funny, how even as she asked the questions, she held a hand out, itching for a taste already. “Not that it matters. Just figured if I’m going to be levita’ing I might as well know what else to expect.”

He had been feeling like there was a second shadow hanging onto his back ever since the gala. He could forget it was there for short periods, but no matter what he did he couldn’t get completely out of his head and escape it until that packed club with bass pounding in his ears until he felt it in his chest and alcohol in his bloodstream and Roderic, friend of his that flew for the Arrows and was on and off again with Alyssa, standing lookout  and the bouncers and bartenders paid to be looking elsewhere and make sure any narcs they knew of were too while he  stood at the most secluded corner of the bar and smoothed the sparkling turquoise androxi pollen he’d dumped out of the vial he’d been wearing around his neck under his shirt into a sleek line with the edge of a credit card, chopped the card along the line to hammer out any chunks and made the line straight again. 

His head was bent when the girl joined them , a sign Roderic had failed at his job and was neither a good lookout nor good at casting disillusionment charms. Noah could have been mad. He was for a second. She could have been anyone, undercover auror, reporter. She looked vaguely familiar but that didn’t mean anything. But angry wasn’t Noah Sharpe. It was too late now. They could just see how it played out.  “Oversight,” he beamed. He sniffed a few times, not the most charming gesture but practical, and pinched the bridge of his nose, then he hit Roderic in the chest. “Why wasn’t she invited to this party? She is exactly who you’re supposed to invite. Here, sign this.” He moved his glass to the side, picked up the cocktail napkin it had been sitting on, and held  it up toward Mila between his fore and middle fingers, looking at her very seriously. “It’s a non disclosure agreement and it certifies you are over eighteen and you do not suffer from any heart conditions. It’s legally binding  even if you give me a false name” He tried to arrange his expression into an intimidating one but his cheeks and forehead were already starting to numb.

Mila looked between the napkin and the stranger, rolling her eyes already as she accio’ed a quill and signed it without care, real name and all. “I’m nineteen and the only ‘eart condition I ‘ave is having one,” she grumbled, and looked over at what was left of the line on the counter. 

“What is it?” she asked, curious but ready to partake no matter what the answer was. “Is it strong?”