“It’s not much different. Just bigger.” He reached over to squeeze her hand. “Besides, you did. Once.”

“As a child,” she said dismissively, before squeezing back. “But who did that child become? What would you have looked like if you’d been allowed to remain entirely you?”

“It’s still me, Sola. I’m in here. What does it matter what’s on the outside?”

“Because I want to make love to you. I want you buried inside of me. Not a facsimile, not a mask hiding you from me as if I’m just another person in this world. I’m your wife now, and our child will have your features. I’d like to be able to recognize them in her, that’s all.”

Her sentiment touched him, and he bent to place his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do that.”

She bit her lip, fought back her tears, and nodded. Glancing at her plate, she pushed at her food with her fork, before stilling. Then she looked up again, tilted her head, and narrowed her eyes. Her tears fell, squeezed out by the considering look.

“What?”

“Well, I might…there may actually be a way. But…no. Too risky.”

“What is it?”

“No. I can’t ask it of you. Not now, after you’ve done so much. Let’s just move forward, okay?”

“Please, Sola, just tell me. If I can’t be heroic for my own wife, who can I act for?”

It surprised a laugh from her, but it took a minute more of convincing. When she finally told him, he sat back in his chair, mind spinning. She was right; it was dangerous. It was also taboo.

Each side of the Zodiac possessed a human ally called a changeling, a child young enough to still believe in comic book heroes and epic causes. Their job was to protect an agent from his or her enemies when within a safe zone, and not just the agent, but the agent’s identity as well. When the changelings willed it, they could mold their aura around an agent’s form to hide the person’s current identity by revealing the original.

Despite this ability, the kids were truly mortal. As soon as they reached puberty, the willingness to believe in comics and superheroes waned. They lost their powers, practically overnight, and put the Zodiac world behind them as they would a toy train. Their posts and duties were then passed on to another.

Asking a changeling to perform this function outside a safe zone was taboo because it was also dangerous. An agent could survive injury by a mortal weapon, but if the agent was attacked while wearing a changeling’s aura, the child would still suffer mortal damage. There was also the issue of securing the changeling’s earthly body. When an agent was using the aura, the child’s was immobilized, as fragile as an egg until the aura was returned. That emptied mortal body couldn’t survive beyond twelve hours.

All these considerations raced through JJ’s mind as he studied Sola. What ultimately settled it was putting himself in her position. If she were clothed in a fleshly disguise, wouldn’t he want to see his true love beneath? The way her body moved below his, how her face looked when focused solely on him? Besides, despite the warnings, a changeling had never been harmed before. The warnings were just that: like notices on the back of poison. Only dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.

“And only once, right?” he asked, though he wasn’t really talking to her.

“It would be enough,” she said simply, and that was it. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, she only wanted him. And this would be her sole opportunity to see whom she was giving up her entire world for.

“Well, as long as we’re living dangerously,” he said, and a small jolt at the illicit—the same dark desire Sola had known lived in him from the beginning—thrilled through him as they kissed, sealing the decision.

7

It was JJ’s responsibility to acquire the changeling, but Sola set the stage. She chose a penthouse downtown, one with an old-school feel but new-city glamour. In the bedroom, she’d created a cocoon of pillows to shelter the fragile shell the changeling would become once JJ borrowed his aura. Their room, he assumed, was up the winding staircase she descended when JJ and the boy arrived.

“I’m going to put on something a little more comfortable,” Sola whispered, her body twining with his, already smelling of wet heat. “I suggest you do the same.”

She ascended the staircase like a wisp of smoke, and JJ smiled after her, until the kid, Ricky, finally cleared his throat. He was watching Solange with narrowed eyes, but he trusted JJ enough to follow.

“Right. Come with me.”

Once inside the bedroom, they wasted little time. The kid reminded him that it was imperative to return his aura within twelve hours, then, making it look easy, shrugged off his aura as simply as he’d remove his clothes. His body elongated into a shimmering outline of JJ’s, thinning to a finger’s width to achieve the same height, the transformation reflected in the mirror across from them. The boy’s glimmering form deepened to opaqueness, so that his features disappeared. Now JJ’s could appear through him.

What are you doing?

JJ, watching all this as though from a distance, immediately dismissed the voice. He was being transparent, that’s what he was doing. Being truly seen, perhaps for the first time since Solange had looked at him across the distance of his parents’ broken bodies. How appropriate that it was she who would see him again now, not as an enemy or superhero, just him and her and the child they’d created between them.

He stepped forward, through the elongated form, and felt the aura mold to him like wet gauze, healing and cool. He avoided looking in the mirror as he made sure the boy’s now lifeless body was safely cradled on the bed before heading upstairs. He wanted his wife to be the first to see him. The first in years.

She killed in black silk. Though the staircase surprisingly led to a rooftop terrace that mirrored an outdoor bedroom with the sky spread above, and downtown Vegas winking below, he marveled only at her. It was a toss-up as to what possessed a deeper sheen, her hair or the chemise, or perhaps, JJ thought, it was her eyes, fixed on him as she handed him a glass of champagne, then clinked her glass to his.

“To quintessence,” she said softly.

“To relevance,” he added, which made her smile. She lifted to her toes, mouth open and inviting on his. JJ moved to deepen the kiss, but she pulled back and held him at arm’s length, studying the man who was really her husband.

JJ shifted under her stare. “Well?” he finally asked, sipping nervously at his glass as her eyes trailed him from head to toe. He felt vulnerable, small beneath the night sky they both loved. Though he knew the stars were there, they were unreadable from the city, and he had a sudden flash of being suspended amid all that dark matter, not knowing if he was on an upswing, or a down.

What are you doing? His inner voice again, more ur-¥?gently, but his eyes had already slid to Sola’s smooth legs as she poured more champagne, the black silk rounding out her behind, cutting low on her back to reveal the ridges and muscles and strength he so loved. He caught his reflection in the oval floor mirror and startled at the sight. But he was only sizing himself up in relation to her, and in his eyes—scotch-colored, the same as always—they were a perfect fit. And that’s what she commented on.

“She’ll have your eyes.”

He lifted her, kissing her neck as he dropped her to the center of the bed, also draped in black, so only her limbs shone in the ambient light. Her lips and eyes were dewy, and so was her body as his mouth trailed downward. She was his drug, he decided, as he grew dizzier with her taste and scent and sight. Her moans echoed like a shifting wind as he lingered at her thighs, her desire driving his need. Champagne poured over her torso, and he licked it clean on the way back up to her mouth, where he entered her, dividing her twice. She spread her limbs like a five-tipped star, encouraging him to mirror her with her hands and hips. He did, and she sucked and sucked at him, like she was trying to pull his soul loose and bury it inside her. Already dizzy, he actually became breathless, but her need was relentless. She wouldn’t stop.