Maria woke around 9 with just enough time to toss a home made lasagna in the oven from her freezer. She took out the meat sauce she'd top it with, as well. That was placed in a sauce pan of water to simmer in-bag.

Yes, homemade instant Italian—she could hear her boyfriend complaining if he saw evidence of that. Not that he could taste that it wasn't fresh-made. Maria could tell, but Nico's taste buds were about as nuanced as a virgin's oral skills. Jerk was lucky to find a girl who was willing to cook at all, especially not so traditional a girl as to beat him for that porn with the ladle.

Maria caught herself mentally grumbling and wondered how long she'd been doing that over this man. Nico was classically hot, like Promo Reggiani bleached his hair one too many times and fried it. He swore he was a natural blonde. Stupido bastardo. It was such a promising relationship on paper.

She used the bake time to study for midterms. The first one was on Monday, at nearly 6 in the morning. It was a class full of later day-shift nurses with only a few aspiring doctors that didn't want their nights shoved full of courses—and had nothing to do with any of their degrees as an obligatory music class. It helped fund the music department, which wasn't near as prestigious as the medical division.

Thankfully, matching the opening of classic rock to their proper titles would be half the work. The rest was musical terms she wasn't used to—which is why she crammed that this morning, having spent most of last week on courses that meant something to her.

Last week was three months ago. The thought panicked her a bit, but there was nothing she could do about it but hope that most of it was retained.

That was put away to cut 4 slabs of lasagna to place onto plates, pour the water out the sauce pan, then toss some meat sauce on top of the slices and reserve the rest back in the pot for the other half of the lasagna. The plates themselves were heavily garnished in cheese and put on a baking tray under the broiler while she went to change into grownup clothing.

Maria was damned if she'd do her regular makeup for him.

The doorbell rang, and she rushed to get it as she put in the earrings he gave her for their anniversary. She wanted them on hand if he demanded them back.

She opened the door to a bouquet of red roses—the same thing he gave her every week, which she kissed his cheek for—their usual customs out the way. He caught her face with his hand—not roughly, but to hold her still while a slight frown marred the creases between his brows. "You're a beautiful woman, but I'm used to more makeup when we have a date."

"I have midterms—just picked up the study material."

"That's fine, so what are we eating?" He had let go of her and wandered down the hall, carrying the wine he said he'd bring.

She followed behind and grabbed the other vase to replace the old set on the table. "Lasagna."

"You made it fresh?"

"Of course. I only use the frozen ones for school days." The lie was so practiced she didn't even stutter.

Nico was polite enough to pull the plates from the oven and place two of them on the table while she grabbed silverware and napkins. A glass of wine sparsely sipped throughout eating, nonsense discussions of how the week went, and finally the meal drew to an end, close around mid-3rd plate for her boyfriend.

"You've had something on your mind the whole meal, haven't you?"

Maria let out a shaky laugh, knowing it wouldn't lighten the mood at all. She kept her hands close to her neck any time she didn't remember to act like normal, so she wasn't wholly surprised that Nico caught on, although normally he ignored everything but his own vain self. "Yeah, I've been getting ultimatums from Pops about getting my grandmother to keep me in on the inheritance, and you know she hates you."

"Yes..."

"Well, it ended with dad demanding I contact her, but she wasn't well enough to answer," her eyes drifted down to the tablecloth, where she forced her fingers, finding it difficult to look him in the eye, "so I got a hold of a guy that could get me there in time to talk with her, to see what I could do."

"Wait, you don't have that kind of money laying around. Did you take out a loan?"

"No, I ah..." Maria stared hard at her plate, stirred around her remaining bite like she was going to eat it. "I traded...ah...favors for a roundtrip that left me with a couple of hours with my grandma before coming home."

She didn't look up at him in the silence. She still hadn't gotten to the point, not yet. This part was hard enough.

His laugher was harsh. "I'd been keeping my hands off you for 3 years because you wanted to wait for marriage and you just give it to some loser because of a free ride? Baby, I could have fucked you there and back, bought you the tickets myself, and we could have charmed that old woman together, but no, you hook up with a guy you had no history with to fuck off across the Atlantic."

Nico slammed his hand on the table to startle her out of looking down. Maria glanced up, fully expecting his rage. Keep your hands off the damn necklace. Instead of anger, it was bored speculation that met her face to face.

What's it with these men and their lack of expression?!

"I'm sure your grandmother mentioned what I am, right?" There was that lazy smirk, the joy of possession that turned her off so badly.

Why did I stick this out?

"Do you think fucking a Fey would keep any demonspawn out your pussy? You're a chance to dominate a fragment of a Throne, a commodity to be owned, not even human, just a thing made of rings and eyes, an infinite hole to fuck endlessly—a demon's toy." Nico's wild gestures made Maria flinch.

His words were bad enough, but damn a demonstration, too. This was why she didn't even think twice about cheating on him—and her father sold her to him? Did he really say that in their last conversation? Pops really was a moron, screwing himself over on his own ambitions.

Anything further, and it was time to summon Mark, but she wanted to know how far this monster would go. Did he deserve a beating for being angry that neither one of us was respectful of the other? He couldn't help his ancestry any more than I could.

Her conscience needed to see the bottom of the well.