Lilith switched to serious mode, no longer attempting to roughhouse or murder Liam.

He hopped off the bed and jogged over to the entranceway. Whoever it was outside knocked a second time. Liam glanced through the peep hole on the front door. The woman outside was holding a pizza.

He opened the door and accepted the pizza. “Thanks.” After everything that was happening recently, the exchange felt entirely anticlimactic. The smell of hot pizza diffused into the house, luring Lilith closer.

Just as Liam pushed the door to shut it, a hand caught the door from the other side, pushing it back open. “Dude, hold up.” It was apparently Vincent, and he caught a glimpse of something as he pushed the door back open. “Again, huh?” Vince whispered, winking to Liam. “Liam, here, my parents asked me to give you this.” He held a decorative box out with his arms, large enough to hold two or three shoeboxes, probably. “As thank you for taking care of Nathan.” He plopped it on top of the pizza box Liam was holding.

“What is it?”

“Food, I think? Dunno, they just wanted to get rid of it while they were visiting, dude. Actually, maybe you can share it with someone right now? Anyway, see ya later.” Vince bolted.

Still a bit shell-shocked by Vince’s shtick, typical as it was for him, Liam shut the door—successfully this time. He walked over to the kitchen table and placed down the pizza box. Sliding the decorative box off it to the side, he then retrieved a pair of scissors and cut open the box. “Lilith?” He looked around, but she was absent. “The pizza’ll get cold!”

He opened the upper flaps of the decorative box and saw it was chock-full of fancy consumable gift items. Chocolates, cheeses, cured meats, high quality chips, flavored popcorn, candy, small bottles of various Champagnes or the like, several additional baked goods and a few other things that Liam didn’t immediately recognize or notice. “Wow, there’s some good stuff here. Lilith?”

He went searching for the demoness assassin. If she didn’t want to be found, he doubted he’d spot her any time soon. It ended up not being an issue. She was in his bedroom sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, mumbling to herself. “Lilith?”

She turned to look at him. “I let myself get seen… that was so pathetic.”

“I don’t think he got a good look. Probably just your leg or something.”

“Even so!” She hopped up. “This is so unlike me!”

“Whatever. Come try the pizza with me.”

By now, it was possible to smell the pizza, slightly, even here in the bedroom. “Okay…” She followed him back to the kitchen.

Liam set two slices on paper plates and offered one to Lilith. He grabbed two of the small bottles of fancy beverage from the decorative box and uncorked them. “Here, let’s try these.”

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“Thank you…” She accepted her drink while staring at her slice of meat pizza like she was studying it. When she noticed Liam was about to take his first bite, she watched him closely.

He chewed a few times then said, “That’s one way to eat it, or you can fold it in half if you want.”

She tried eating it straight, the way Liam had. As she bit off the first piece, her eyes went wide. While she chewed, she had this shocked expression like something life-changing had just occurred. She stared at the slice for a few seconds then rapidly took a bigger bite.

“Haha, slow down.” Liam waited for her to finish chewing and then encouraged her to try the fizzy drink.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“I think it’s Champagne. Fancy sparkling wine?”

“Sparkling?”

Liam laughed again. “Just try it. I don’t normally have it, so you’re in luck. It’s warm, though.”

Lilith took a small sip and almost spit it out in surprise, although not because she thought it was bad. “What IS this?”

Liam took a sip as well. “It’s all right.”

“All right!? Just what kind of standards do you have? I don’t think the humans in my world have food or drink like this…”

“Hey, you’ve got magic, we have pizza and Champagne. Personally, I think I’d prefer the magic if I had the choice.” Liam sort of did, but he decided to gloss over that for the time being.

Lilith resumed her ravenous consumption.

“Let me know when you’re ready for a second slice. I’ve got a bunch of other snacks here we can try, so you probably shouldn’t have any more pizza than that.”

----------------------------------------

Two hours later, Lilith leaned back so far in her chair she looked like she might slip down to the floor. “I’ve never been so full in my life.” Her hands rested on her bulging stomach.

“If you find yourself suddenly needing a toilet, please use the one in the guest bathroom. I don’t want to have to explain to the human kingdom on the other side of the invisible door that I knowingly vomited into their summoning chamber.”

Lilith tried to laugh, but got cut off by a cough halfway through. “I feel like I failed twice today…”

“But at least it was tasty,” Liam reassured her.

“Your food is so amazing…”

“Yeah, we have a lot of good options for food. I don’t eat this type of stuff every day, though.”

“Not just the food, I bet.”

“Hm?” Liam could guess where she was going with this.

“I bet your world has lots of other things to offer that we could only dream of on the other side of the invisible door.”

“We probably have more sophisticated entertainment than you do…”

“Like what?”

“Movies and TV shows can be relaxing to watch if you don’t feel like getting up and doing anything. Videogames were always a favorite of mine, although I don’t play quite as much lately, I guess. Sports are pretty common too, but I haven’t really—“

“Wait wait wait! Explain what each of those are, one at a time!”

Liam acquiesced and gave a summary of each major activity he could think of. It took a good ten minutes or so.

“Oh, I want to try video games!”

Liam couldn’t blame her. They were quite appealing to the uninitiated. “I guess that’s all right, but I should put you on a portable device, I think.”

Lilith didn’t understand the distinction, but encouraged Liam to get her what she needed right away. He grabbed the oldest portable he had laying in a drawer and inserted the simplest game he could think of, involving lining up layers of blocks before the screen filled up. “Try this. Here, let me show you how it works.”

Liam gave a two-minute demonstration. Lilith watched, focused on every detail he demonstrated like this was work. “Okay, I understand.”

He handed her the system and started cleaning up the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, he checked up on Lilith. She was still sitting there, playing the game. “How is it?”

“It’s good.” She barely paid him any attention.

“I don’t mind if you stay a bit longer, but I will probably have guests coming through the invisible door tomorrow. We should figure out how to get you back safely before then, right?”

She kept playing and didn’t say anything.

“Lilith?”

“No need.” She continued pushing buttons frantically.

“Huh? Why not?”

“I live here now.”