"Still, it's not the same. If you have a moral dilemma, or something that your bosses might not really want to know--"

"Well, now I have a lovely fiancée, if she doesn't mind talking about it."

She kisses his cheek. "I'm glad I can do that for you."

...She visibly hesitates.

"...is something the matter?"

(Not that he needs to ask, but-- he does need to know what it is.)

"I feel like I've only ever kept secrets from you.

You're so kind, and you trust me, and I--"

"I understand that you had to.

And I hate to ask, but does Parker know about--" he taps his chest, where a whistle would lay if he had one.

"The whistle? He gave it to me."

"That... makes sense."

(He should not be reading into her keeping secrets, reading into whether she's genuinely upset or putting it on for his benefit.)

"It's just that's what was used for the nonsense murder."

"I think I should-- show you something."

"--If it wouldn't trouble you."

"Do you... know where I can find an animal?"

"...how big and uh, how private are we talking?"

"Any animal will work."

"This is a shitty building, so in theory there should be some rats around here... I could go and try and grab a pigeon?"

"A pigeon is good.

Or-- I can grab it. Since that's the point."

She heads outside.

He follows.

She whistles, and a pigeon lands on her hand.

"I have magic powers. Tell me anything you'd like this pigeon to do and I can make it do it."

He remembers the pigeon at the park, that was so so tame and let him pet it--

"Can you tell it to hop up into the air and then land back on your hand?"

"Yes."

The pigeon does so.

"...You can control animals. With magic."

"Yes."

"Just animals, or--?"

As much as he would like to say he was so much higher than a base pigeon... there's a limit to how much he can be confident of that.

"Just animals. Not-- people or anything."

"That's good. Much better than drying people out to death."

Magic is real, and Parker's is making his life frustrating.

(He's not... entirely thinking that thought, flinching away from drawing the logical conclusions from all he knows.)

"Yes. And you see," she says, "my family is a-- magic family. And so is Parker's. I wasn't lying, really. I was just...

I thought you might not believe me."