"Oh! I had no idea! Wow, ok. Uh, what about if you picked out a group takeout order or something?" he asked, giving her a worried look.

"It's really only an issue with food I cook or cultivate in a garden or something," she reassured him. "Even a wild fae just handing you a packaged snack from a convenience store is fine in theory, but the problem is that you can't easily know if what they're handing you is what it seems. They could easily glamour a tomato from their garden to look like a name brand human snack."

"Wow, ok. I will definitely keep that in mind," Lucas said. "But you would really make poisoned food?"

"It's... not like that," she sighed. "The food itself isn't the problem, the problem is the faerie magic. It naturally enters anything we make; food, art, music..." Rue shrugged.
"If I really focus, I can keep most of the magic out of what I make. Enough that it doesn't have ill-effects, but it does take on a greater appeal, as if it were higher quality than it actually is."

"Well... I can certainly understand one's supernatural abilities giving an unearned advantage," Lucas sighed, rolling the last bite of his bagel around on the table.

"What do you mean?" Rue asked, unable to reign in her curiosity.

"Well... I was on the basketball team in high school. I had a full ride scholarship to one of the big college ball teams. I had plans to go pro after college. But then..." Lucas unconsciously touched his knee with one hand. Rue traced the movement and saw a faint scar just above his knee. The last scar he would ever receive.
"After I was turned, it was really hard to hold back the werewolf strength and speed. It was... not fair to anyone else on the team. And, instead of feeling challenged to improve my basketball skills and get stronger and faster, it became the opposite. The challenge was holding myself back and making myself less strong and fast, so that I wouldn't blow the secret. It really didn't take many games of street ball in my old neighborhood to figure it out, either."

"I had no idea it was like that for you. Claude told me you got help from the S.P.A. right away, so I thought-"

"Yeah," Lucas interrupted, frowning. "They helped me and taught me, and impressed on me the need for secrecy. They offered to help me get into college, but I didn't want that at first. I wanted my scholarship and my career. That first summer was really difficult. I caused a lot of problems for the S.P.A. I'm really lucky my handler is such a good dude. He's a really strong empath and a decent mage. He helped me come to terms with things. Well, mostly. I still want my scholarship and career, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did last summer. At least I know I can make a difference."

"Working for the S.P.A. you mean?" Rue asked.

"Yeah. They don't have a lot of werebeasts working for them. It's mostly mages and psychics and powerless humans who are connected to the supernatural world through family. The most common non-humans working for them are vampires. Plus a few dragons and unicorns."

"Well, that makes sense, there are a lot of vampires in general since they're able to hide among humans better than most. Even some mages and psychics struggle with that, and they still are human," Rue observed.

"Yeah. The S.P.A. wants Claude to join them since he doesn't have any real connections to other vamps, but he doesn't really want to."

"Oh? I'm surprised. Somehow I thought that was part of why you two were friends?"

"Well, he helps out on a volunteer basis sometimes, when they need extra hands. But in general, no, he doesn't plan to work for them after college."

"What does he want to do?" Rue asked.

"Well, officially he's majoring in folkloric sociology and minoring in music. But his actual major is supernatural history. There's several cover degrees at Sacred Oak like that."

"What is your major then?"

"Offcially, law. But of course, I'm focusing on supernatural laws. I want to be a supernatural defense attorney, basically."

"Defense attorney? Are there supernatural courts? I feel out of the loop, I don't think I knew that," Rue said, surprised. She finished her bagel and gathered up the trash. Lucas quickly finished the bite he'd been playing with so he could hand her his trash too.

"Not the way humans do, no. Just, charges are brought up before the local Council of Nine, which is what it's called even if there aren't nine members."

"Nine, like, the nine categories of supernatural? Mage, psychic, fae, werebeast, vampire, unicorn, dragon, demon and angel?" Rue asked.

"Yep."

"I see. But it's not always nine? Why?"

"It's based on population. There has to be a certain number of members of a supernatural group per capita in a district. Once there's enough, they have to agree on someone to be their representative on the Council of Nine. Some supernaturals swap out their representatives regularly and others don't."

"Let me guess," Rue said with a half-smile, "it's the mages and psychics who regularly change their representatives?"

"Yeah," Lucas laughed a little. "They're American humans, at the end of the day."

"Who's the fae representative for this district?"

"There isn't one. There's not enough fae in the district to warrant one. There's no angel, demon or dragon, either."

"So there's five on the Council for this district?"

"Yeah." Lucas glanced at his phone and then back up at Rue. He offered an apologetic smile.
"Duty calls. I gotta get going."

"Ah! Wait! What about paying you back?" Rue protested.

"Well, you weren't going to do that now regardless, right?" Lucas laughed. "How about we go out to dinner sometime soon? Preferably before the semester starts?"

"Oh, u-um, sure?" Rue stammered, flustered.

Lucas grinned at her and grabbed his cup and dashed off, leaving the other two bagels for Rue. Rue realized she hadn't touched her own cup and took a cautious peek at its contents. It was just a milk tea. Not exactly her favorite, but definitely a safe choice, and much better than coffee.

Rue wrapped up the remaining bagels and added them to the fridge with the other cream cheese spread packs. She took her tea upstairs with her. She set it on the dresser while she rummaged for clothes for the day.