Mads dropped his head back against the graffitied tram window. The tracks were bumpy and the vibrations rattled around his head like a jar of coins. He glanced down at the crystal clutched in his hand, then at Cid who was sitting beside him. 

Mads had run to reach the tram stop, with the sight of the last tram approaching from further down the road. Yet Cid had walked with cool indifference behind him. The tram had pulled up before they quite reached it, and still Cid walked, even called out for Mads to save his breath. As they somehow boarded in time, it looked like something in the tram driver's gear box had jammed, and he only managed to get it working once they were safely aboard. 

Mads ran his tongue over his teeth. They'd been sitting silently for a few stops now, and there was no one else on board to overhear them if they talked. He needed to know more. 

"Did you do that?" He suddenly asked, voice quiet despite the empty seats around them.

Cid opened his eyes to glance at him, then turned their head back and resumed their position. "Yup." 

"How?" 

Cid took a deep, impatient breath. "Because I can. I can do whatever I want to help look after you." 

Mads' foot began to tap restlessly. "...What else have you done?" 

Cid properly looked at him now, gave him their full attention. They must have sensed that Mads would need it. "You really wanna do this?"  

Mads nodded quickly. 

"Alright," Cid began. "Your degree. The first one. I needed to get you out of that house." 

Mads' breath caught in his throat and he finally turned away from Cid. As if he were looking around for his sister, to see if she were watching them. "Wh-what do you mean?" 

Cid huffed out a laugh through their nose. "You know what I mean. Soo is great and all, but you needed to do something with your life already; earn a little independence, you know? If you'd stayed there any longer, I bet you would've started interning where she worked." 

Mads swallowed hard. He did not want to bring up how he very nearly started interning at the same architectural design company Solvej was rising up in. He felt unsettled by Cid's perceptiveness, and equally offended by their bluntness. 

"Solvej was not bad for me," he said quietly, trying not to grit his teeth. "She was the only good thing I..." 

"Exactly," Cid interrupted. "It was time you needed a little more than just big sis to get through life. So I sent that flier your way." 

Mads rolled this thought over in his mind for a moment. "I hated that degree." 

Cid snorted out another quick laugh, only turning away to glance at the screen at the head of the tram doors, checking they were on track for their stop. "I know you did. No idea a BA would be that dry. It's been a while since I warded someone through uni. But, I also leant you towards the transfer. Kept an open spot for you in this photography course. I made a couple applicants late for your job interview when your last place shut down. Oh, and I stopped you throwing up once during a presentation." 

Mads gaped at him. This was a lot to process, and he had a feeling it was only the surface. "I've thrown up during like, three school presentations." 

"Yes," Cid nodded. "But one of them, you didn't. You were going to, but you didn't." 

Mads hunched over to rest his head on his knees. What a useless gift he'd been given. 

He turned his head to look at them, but stayed leaning over. He’d heard enough for one night, and gave up trying to think of any more questions. Instead, he asked, "Where are we?" 

"Rosamond," Cid answered without checking. 

"Shit!" Mads whipped upright. "Pull the string, we're the next stop." 

The two walked the steep hill up past Maribnyrnong's shopping district. Mads clutched his jacket around himself with one hand, while the other fumbled with the cold screen of his phone. 

"Please pick up, please pick up," he muttered to himself, as he scrolled to find Marley's freshly added contact. 

"She will," Cid cooed, hands in their pockets, a smile in their tone. 

She sounded like his call had woken her from the dead, but she did eventually answer. Mads wondered if that was Cid's doing again. He apologised profusely, promised nothing was urgently wrong, but that he had to talk to her, and got her address. They wandered for a few more minutes, and eventually found her block of units.  

Her front window light was on, and she was waiting in the doorway with a cardigan wrapped tightly around her. Still half asleep, she squinted at them as they approached her door. 

"Hah, heyyy..." She tried, clearly a little hesitant to unlock the fly screen. "When I said we should hang out soon, I meant, like, in a week.”

Mads smiled apologetically as he shuffled up to the door, trying to soak up the warmth that was floating out through it. Her building looked cheap and not very secure, but what he could see inside her apartment looked just like how she'd dressed at the bar. There were cushions and beads and decorations everywhere, and the coffee table behind her was covered in large books and tomes. It felt very kitschy, but very genuine, covered in accessories but rooted in comfort. 

Here in the low light, Marley looked very different from what Mads saw earlier. No elaborate eyeliner, no braids trailing into a ponytail, and no piles of necklaces and bangles. Under her long cardigan she wore a simple tank top over a set of track pants, and her dark brown waves were loose and flat down her shoulders. Her large eyes were heavily lidded and clearly way too tired for this, which quickly brought him back to reality. 

"I'm so sorry for this," he said again, giving her an awkward little head bow. "I just had to see you... about this necklace you gave me?" 

Marley's face dropped and her shoulders tensed. "A-about what?" She asked, grimacing and quickly looking from Mads to Cid as if his friend could help explain. "Mads, it's like three in the morning!" 

Mads tensed. This felt much more important when Cid was ten feet tall and standing over him with the urgency and terror from earlier in the night. He too looked to Cid, praying for some kind of assistance. 

Cid raised their eyebrows at him uselessly. 

Mads whipped back to Marley before she had a chance to close the door on him. "I was attacked!" he tried desperately, which thankfully made her pause. "I... When I was outside the bar, before I left. Something tried to attack me. A demon, apparently. And your crystal saved me!"  

He tugged it out of his pocket and jerked it towards the fly screen, making Marley jump back despite the barrier between them.  

"I need to know what it's made of. I need to know how it works." 

Marley's posture relaxed, but her expression did not. She rubbed her face and shifted her weight, but still made no move to unlock the door. "Mads... I'm so sorry, but that shit is like... Fake, synthetic crystal. Like two bucks a pop. I've got heaps of them, they're just cute, that's all." 

Mads swallowed. He lowered his hand and looked down at the crystal in his palm. The demon had mostly rescinded out of view, but he could still see little puffs of black flourishing here and there. 

"What... What does that mean? What now?" He asked, turning to Cid. 

Both Mads and Marley watched Cid carefully as the angel ran their tongue thoughtfully across their teeth. They looked down at the crystal, then at Marley, then at Mads.  

Finally, they raised their hands in an overzealous shrug. "Then it's you, my dude."