As soon as I found my seat, I took the napkin out of my hoodie pocket. Pulling the table down from the back of the seat in front of me, I carefully unfolded the tissue and smoothed it out over the top of the grey, plastic tray.

Magnus’ sloped handwriting struggled across the texture of the napkin, but I could make out the words easily enough. It looked like a snippet of an idea, a poem…or a song.

When we reach /

Up to the sky /

And dream of Heaven /

Under our feet /

Angels in Hell /

Look up and dream of us /

Oh, they dream of their Heaven on Earth.

Part of me was delighted to own such a personal writing of Magnus. But a larger part of me, the part that had come to know the man behind the glossy photoshoots and album covers…that part of me felt bad for taking this away from him. He had admitted he struggled with songwriting, that that whole inability had been what drove him to seek out Faenyx in the first place.

But if Faenyx had written this, puppetting Magnus’ hands to write, had he given away something equally as precious? I had no doubt that a demon must take payment for his services, and the idea that Magnus would pay for this and not even get a song out of it worried me.

I flipped the napkin over, noting the other side was blank, then turned it back over to look at the song snippet. Something struck me as odd. If Magnus’ deal with Faenyx was that the demon would write songs for him to sing, then Magnus was getting a raw deal. The words were beautiful, but they were certainly not a full song.

My fingers traced the corners of the napkin. In the bottom right corner was Magnus’ late addition to the piece—a series of numbers I did not immediately recognise. It wasn’t until I connected the little plus symbol at the start of the string of numbers that I realised what it was. My heart jumped into my throat.

A country code. It was a foreign mobile number. I hadn’t recognised it at first, being used to the UK’s zero-seven starting digits.

“Oh. My God,” I muttered to myself, letting a breath whoosh from my lungs as I attempted not to overreact in public.

Magnus Claymore had given me his mobile number.

This was fantastic, but it also meant a demon had given me his mobile number.

I grabbed my phone from my pocket, shoving aside the guilt of the now-ridiculous number of message notifications from Killian, and typed Magnus’ number in. I paused, my heart hammering in my mouth by this point.

I typed out the only message I could think of.

[To: Unknown] Hey, is this the number for an exterminator? Got a rat problem.

After that, I busied myself with answering Killian.

[To: Killian Rose] Hey, sorry I went AWOL. Don’t phone. On a train, signal spotty. I’ll tell you everything when I’m back, I promise.

Almost instantly, three dots jumped at the bottom of the screen.

[From: Killian Rose] What happened? I’ve been worried sick. :( Is your friend okay?

Oh crap, I thought to myself, almost setting my phone back down and debating lying and saying I couldn’t reply because we’d just entered the world’s longest tunnel. I decided against adding to my stack of lies to Killian again. Lord knew he didn’t deserve it.

[To: Killian Rose] He’s fine. But that’s why I haven’t been on my phone much. Sorry, dude. I’ll be back in Birmingham in a few hours.

I didn’t stay to watch Killian’s reply come through—another notification made my heart skip and gained my full attention.

[From: Unknown] You say such sweet things to me, Stella.

I smiled to myself and burrowed back into my seat, bringing my phone up to my face as I typed away.

[To: Magnus Claymore] Just checking it was you. Coulda been a prank. Might’ve given me the number of one of your bandmates or something.

I swiped back to Killian’s message then, juggling the two very different emotions and conversations as the train rattled through the outskirts of the city.

[From: Killian Rose] I’ll meet you at the station. Message me the stop before!

[To: Killian Rose] Will do. Thanks!

That awkward conversation was something for Future Stella to worry about. I was certainly not looking forward to it. Hell, I wasn’t looking forward to going back to university after the gig anyway, and less so now that I had made such a strange and unexpected friend in Magnus.

I had been told I would “find myself” at university. That it would be good for me. That I would flourish and finally shape the lump of clay I’d been all through school into a majestic statue worthy of respect. But all I’d found was the same shit as school, only it was twice as frustrating as these people were meant to be grown-ass adults. The cliques still formed, the popular people still sailed on above us all, and the unpopular folk were left out, shoved out, and laughed at.

I couldn’t tumble too far into my reverie before Magnus messaged me again.

[From: Magnus Claymore] I wouldn’t do that to you! Anyway. What did you think of the song? Or…verse, I guess. Not bad for a first try?

So, this one hadn’t been written by Faenyx after all. I picked up the napkin again, reading the words over.

[To: Magnus Claymore] I like it. Fitting theme. So, you CAN write, huh?

[From: Magnus Claymore] That…is why I gave you my number. Honestly, I’ve never written anything remotely decent on my own before. I can’t really explain it, but…a couple of your sketches got into my head last night. I started thinking of scenarios for those characters in your drawings and…I don’t know.