His head fell back, his body convulsed. And as Layla grabbed him, he laughed like a loon. “Just kidding.”

“Goddamn it, Fox!”

“A little levity, that’s all.” He scooped the stone into his hand. “It’s warm. Maybe from the scary magic fire, or maybe it just is. Is it glowing? Are the red splotches glowing?”

“They are now,” Layla murmured.

“It… it doesn’t understand this. It doesn’t know this. I can’t see…” Fox swayed, the world rocked around him. Then Layla gripped his hand, and it steadied again. “I’m holding its death.”

Nudging by Gage, Cybil edged closer. “How, Fox? How is that stone its death?”

“I don’t know. It holds all of us now. You know, from what we did. Our blood is what fused it. And this is part of what can-will-end it. We have the power to do that. We had it all along.”

“But it was in pieces,” Layla finished. “Until now. Until us-all of us.”

“We did what we came to do.” Reaching out, Quinn brushed her fingertips over the stone. “And we lived. Now we have a new weapon.”

“Which we don’t know how to use,” Gage pointed out.

“Let’s just get it home, find the safest place to keep it.” Cal looked around the clearing. “I hope nobody had anything important in their pack, because they’re incinerated. Coolers, too.”

“There go my Nutter Butters.” Fox took Layla’s hand, kissed the wounded palm. “Wanna take a walk in the moonlight?”

“I’d love to.” Could there be a better time, she thought. Could there be a more perfect time? “Good thing I left my purse at Cal’s. Which reminds me. Cal, I’ve got the keys in there, but I’d like to hang on to them if it’s okay with you and your father.”

“No problem.”

“What keys?” Fox asked as he rubbed some soot off her face.

“To the shop on Main Street. I needed them so Quinn and Cybil could look it over with me. It’s all fine for you to look at the space with carpenter eyes, or lawyer eyes, whichever, but if I’m going to open a boutique for women, I wanted women’s eyes.”

“You’re-what?”

“But I am going to need you, and hopefully your father, to go through it with me. And I’m going to charm your father into an I’m-in-love-with-your-son discount. Hopefully a deep discount because of deep love.” Fussily, she brushed at the dirt coating his shirt. “And the fact that even with the loan-and I’m counting on you to put in a really good word for me at the bank-I’m going to be on a very tight budget.”

“You said you didn’t want it.”

“I said I didn’t know what I wanted. Now I do.” Clear, green, amused, her eyes met his. “Did I forget to mention it?”

“Yeah, pretty much altogether.”

“Well.” She gave him a shoulder bump. “I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“Layla.”

“I want my own.” She tipped her head to his shoulder as they walked. “I’m ready to go after what I want. After all, Jesus, if not now, when? By the way, consider this my twoweeks’ notice.”

He stopped, took her face in his hands as the others trudged and limped by them. “Are you sure?”

“I’m going to be too busy supervising the remodeling, buying stock, fighting demons to manage your office. You’ll just have to deal with it.”

He touched his lips to her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth, then grinned at her. “Okay.”

Exhausted, content, he walked with her behind the others on a path spattered with moonlight. They’d made magic tonight, he thought. They’d chosen their path, and found their way.

The rest was just details.