I heard her smother a giggle. "As bad as that?"

"Not funny. I got arrested, got dumped by my date, and had an interesting time fending off the blandishments of a beer-and-pizza-addled neighbor."

"I shouldn't laugh, it's just the image… But there is a problem and I'm afraid Albert has made a bags of the situation."

"What situation? A 'bags'?"

"A mess. I'd rather discuss it in person. Can you drop by? I've a geology lecture to give at one, so if you can come before eleven…."

"Geology?"

Mara sounded harried. "Yes. I also teach at the U. Can you come up?"

I growled. "All right."

I rushed my routine and drove up to Queen Anne. I was barely through the Danzigers' front door when Albert showed his shadowy face in a swirl of snow-threat Grey.

I jabbed a finger at him, too furious to consider how utterly stupid it was. "You! You are so lucky you're dead."

Mara blinked surprise at me as Albert blinked out. "It does no good to be threatening a ghost."

"It's not a threat. It's a fact. If I hadn't been following his incorporeal ass, I wouldn't have gotten arrested. Normally I'd take that sort of thing out of his hide. If he had one."

"Then it's me you should be angry with. Not Albert. It's my fault he showed up and acted badly."

"Is it? Why? What did you do?"

"I sent him looking for the source of the problem, but he came up with you!"

I threw my hands into the air in frustration. "What problem?" "There's something wrong with magic."

Chapter 15

"Something wrong with magic?" I echoed. "There's a lot wrong with it from my point of view. But I assume that's not what you mean." Mara made a sour face. "Not hardly. I know you've still some trouble with all this, but it is a serious problem. The house has its own nexus, but outside, things are running a bit slow, as if the power is dammed up. So I sent Albert out to find the source of the blockage, but he somehow followed it to you—he says you're a knot in the thread."

"What does that mean?"

"That you're connected to the problem, though you aren't the problem yourself. And that's a relief. When Albert found you, he got confused and tried to bring you straight to me. Unfortunately, Albert's idea of straight seems to mean straight through the Grey. Can't say I'm pleased with him for that. Whatever this is, I do need your help to find it and fix it. Can you see that you're the only person who can help me?"

I sighed and shook my head. "I'm not sure about that, but I can try." "You'll find this much easier if you can accept what you are." My annoyance had dropped, but it was starting to notch back up. "What I am able to accept is that most people in my situation wake up every morning in a padded room."

It was Mara's turn to sigh now. She took a few steps away from the door and sat on a wooden bench in the hall, tired and frustrated with me. "It's fighting it that will drive you mad. That's why you slip and stumble and why Albert couldn't stay with you. You burn up energy needlessly fighting to do something you'd find so much easier if you accept and relax into the Grey."

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the doorframe. "A couple of days ago you were trying to show me how to push it back, now you want me to let it in. Which is it?"

"That's access-control, not denial. The normal and the Grey are different states, and you can't go on struggling against that fact once you're in the Grey. You'll exhaust yourself, and you'll not be able to protect yourself or concentrate or do any work. You must connect to it to control it."

"And how do you suggest I do that without ending up like your friend?"

Mara gave me a look which must have quelled rooms full of rowdy undergraduates without raising her voice. "Sit down, Harper."

I considered it. What did I lose by giving in?

I sat down on the bench.

"Are you going to help me?"

"Yes."

"Then you shall have to learn to relax into the Grey. It's not so bad as you think. It's not hard. But it's only in the Grey that you'll be able to understand the problem and track it down—as you would a missing person or a stolen object, here."

I turned and peered at her. "You want me to try this, right now?"

"Yes. It's simple. Do what you did before, but once you're in the Grey, just relax. Don't fight."

I had strong reservations, but I tried it.

It wasn't too bad, at first. I'd had enough practice last night to have a feel for the edge of the Grey pretty well, though it rippled and moved like a flag snapping in a stiff breeze. Each time I approached it, a wash of nausea flooded over me and my heart raced.

Albert crept in and I yelled at him, "Don't help me!" The break dumped me back into the hall with my head ringing. A combination of fear and fury left me shaking.

I settled myself back down and tried again. The writhing curtain wall of the Grey flooded up very fast and I pushed across the edge before I could change my mind. The snowstorm light twisted and heaved around me with a blizzard howl. I clapped my hands over my ears and staggered as the steamed-mirror world budded with the suggestion of monsters and armies of formless dead. The cold pushed through my skin, trying to touch me someplace deeper, frosting my flesh with ice.

"No!" I yelled and yanked myself backward, away from the rain-mist wall, crashing back to the floor of the Danzigers' front hall on my knees.

Horrified, Mara was on her feet, reaching down to me. "Harper!"

I pushed her hands aside. "No. Don't touch me." I smacked my hands onto the plain, solid wood of the bench and shoved myself up to my feet. "There's something in there. I cannot go in there and let it at me."

"That's your fear. You're fighting so hard, you only see what you expect to see. You have to let go." "I can't."

She glared at me. "You mean you won't."

I snapped back. "All right. I won't."

"You must. You're just afraid and it won't—"

"Damned straight! Damned. Straight." I shoved a hand through my recently chopped hair and almost cried when the hair ended too soon. I swallowed a vile lump in my throat.

I bit my lip and grabbed my bag. "I can't do this. I can't. I won't. Whatever word you want to use. I—"

I wrenched around and reached for the door. Albert, looking solid as a plank, intruded.

Behind me, Mara was saying, "Harper, don't bolt. You have to try or your fear will eat you!"

I shot her a look over my shoulder which sent her a step back with wide eyes. "I. Can't. Do. What you want me to do! I can't!"

I felt hot with terror-fed fury. I whipped back to Albert and hissed through clenched teeth, "Get out of my way or I swear I will find a way to hurt you."

He slipped away. I slammed out the door and ran.

I drove and I didn't know where or why I wasn't arrested. I couldn't see anything but flooding, pressing Grey around the windows for minute-eternities. Shock-cold chilled my nerves. I pulled to the curb until I stopped shaking.

I couldn't remember ever saying that before: "I can't." Even as a kid being pushed to perform, the phrase never came from my lips. "I don't know how," "I'm afraid," "I'm not good enough," all kinds of propitiations and excuses, but not that one. Not "I can't." I felt sick.

I closed my eyes and took slow breaths until my chest and throat stopped aching. I was tired, but I pulled the Rover away from the curb and headed to the office, where I left it in the parking lot.

I didn't want to sit in the middle of the routine haunting, so I started walking.

I walked up Third for a while, paying very little attention to where I was going, trying to ignore the flitter of Grey in the corners of my eyes. I looked up when I reached the Bon Marche and realized I was only a few blocks from the address Sarah had given me for Edward's condo. I'd nearly forgotten. Good, old-fashioned work.