“It’s a gift.”

“Then you must be talented beyond measure. You almost got yourself killed how many times today?”

I did a quick tally and winced. It wasn’t a good number. “Five definitely, but there might have been more.” I tried an apologetic grin. “There were a lot of demons in that street.”

“At least five.” Mychael just looked at me. “Raine, a man doesn’t face certain death that many times on a battlefield, and today was just you walking around town.” He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’m going to do everything that I can to keep you safe; there’s just the possibility that I may not succeed. When it comes to you, there’s only so much a mere man can do. If I don’t succeed, know that I did my best.”

A slow smile spread across my face, then I chuckled. “It’s about time.”

Mychael looked completely baffled. “For what? Failure?”

“For finally letting the paladin get off of his white horse.”

One corner of his mouth tipped upward. “He has to sometime. Risk of saddle sores.”

“So, while he’s being just as fallible as the rest of us, does he also put on his boots one foot at a time?”

“He does.” Mychael’s eyes gleamed, and he lowered his voice. “Just don’t let that get around. It’d be bad for his reputation.”

“His secret’s safe. And by the way, tell him that he’s the last person who needs to be sorry for anything. In case you’ve forgotten, I put that amulet around my own neck; you had nothing to do with it. And I’ve realized that my doing that was no accident-even then the Saghred was manipulating me. My father had the amulet made so he could hide the rock and still guard it without keeping it with him.” I snorted. “I mean, what are the odds that nine hundred years later, his daughter ends up with the necklace?”

“Extremely remote.”

“To say the least. I knew Sarad Nukpana wanted that amulet. If Nukpana wanted it, it stood to reason that it was a bad piece of jewelry. So I should stay away from it, right? Nope, not me. When I got my hands on it, did I do the safe and sane thing and put it in my pocket? No. I hung the damned thing around my neck. I didn’t even think about it; I just did it. Then I couldn’t take it off.”

“Temptation is what the Saghred does best,” Mychael said.

“It can destroy cities-but it also possesses magic most subtle.”

“And most potent.” I tossed his words from watcher headquarters back at him. “Mychael, what happened between us in that conference room? Was that the Saghred laying the groundwork for bringing you into our umi’atsu bond… or was it something else? I’m almost hoping it was the rock; we don’t need anything else.”

Mychael studied my face for a long moment. “Did you feel the Saghred between us during what happened this morning?”

“No.”

“I didn’t, either,” he murmured. “But it was there in Sirens, with the two of us and Tam. I felt it then, but not this morning.”

I swallowed. “There was definitely a difference for me, too.”

“Raine, whatever happened between us was triggered by me,” Mychael said quietly. “The Saghred had nothing to do with it.”

I stood very still. “What did you do?”

“I touched you.”

He could say that again.

“Beyond that, I don’t know,” Mychael admitted. “I have more than a passing knowledge of all known magical bonds, contacts, links, or pairings. I’ve read extensively on the subject. What we experienced this morning didn’t meet the criteria for any of them.”

“So we’re breaking new ground here.”

“It appears we are.”

“Any chances it was casual, garden-variety magic?”

“Did it feel casual to you?”

Most definitely not. I didn’t need to say it; Mychael knew how it had felt. I’d never seen colors so sharp, scents more vivid, felt sensations so intense. I’d also never felt so completely alive.

“Any idea what it’s done to us-or plans to do?” Then I thought of me and Tam, of searing kisses, and of feet off the floor. “Or what it plans to make us do?” My voice sounded small.

“None whatsoever,” Mychael freely admitted.

I just stared at him. He didn’t sound concerned, worried, or even mildly bothered.

“Raine, were you harmed by what happened between us?” he asked frankly.

“No.” Quite the opposite. It’d felt really good. Too good.

“Then until we have time to investigate it, or until it proves to be a danger to ourselves or others, I suggest we solve the problems we know we have.”

“We’ve got plenty of those.”

“That we do. When the demons are no longer a threat, then we’ll find out what we’re dealing with.” His expression turned grim. “No more demons have been sighted since early afternoon.”

“You make it sound bad.”

“It is. Dagiks are like scouts. Their task is to locate the nearest food source.”

I felt sick. “This whole island is a demon food source.”

“Exactly. Once the Dagiks knew that, they’d report their findings to their superiors.” He hesitated. “Demons prefer to feed at night.”

My stomach twisted. “College students prefer to party at night. Have you-”

“Dusk to dawn curfew,” Mychael assured me. “The only people out on the streets right now are qualified to be there. Guardians, certain watchers, and demonology department faculty are patrolling the city in teams looking for demons. Sora, her faculty, and grad students are hoping to find that Hellgate before dawn by tracking a couple of demons when they go ‘home.’ ”

I was incredulous. “Grad students? You’ve got to be kidding?”

“I wish I was.”

“Talk about a final exam,” I muttered.

“I didn’t like the idea, but Sora reminded me that’s the kind of job her grad students will soon be doing out in the real world. She assured me that they’re trained and qualified for it, and she’d rather they had their first on-the-job experience with plenty of backup.”

A college student facing down a hungry Volghul in the dark. Shit.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Mychael’s silence was all the answer I needed.

“Wait. Let me guess. I’ve helped enough already.”

“Raine, the demons want to open the Saghred, and for the foreseeable future, you and the Saghred are one and the same.”

Gulp. “I see your point.”

“I’m glad.” Then he grinned slowly, like a little boy with a secret. “And I managed to get you back into the citadel without tossing you over my shoulder.”

My mouth dropped open, then I drew breath to let him have it. “You-”

“It’s too late for you to leave tonight, Raine. The streets to the harbor aren’t safe.”

I just glared at him. He was right and I knew it; and worst of all, so did he. “So if Piaras hadn’t gotten into a fight with those guards, what were you planning on doing when we left Sirens?”

His blue eyes narrowed. “Whatever I had to. After what happened in Sirens with the demon queen, you wouldn’t be safe on the Fortune. If you’d stayed there, you would have been putting Phaelan and his crew in the worst kind of danger. I don’t know if you’re completely safe here, but it’s the best I can do.”

I didn’t like it, but I had to agree with it. Truth was I was too tired to do otherwise. “Thank you,” I said simply.

“My job and my pleasure.”

The silence stretched until I felt a twitch coming on. There was something I wanted to ask Mychael for, but awkward didn’t even begin to describe how it was going to feel asking him for it.

“You’re exhausted, right?” I asked.

He regarded me warily. “I’m still on my feet.”

“Solidly on your feet or about to collapse on your feet?”

“I’m not going down for the count anytime soon,” he assured me with a playful glint in his eyes. “What do you want?”

Just spit it out, Raine.

“The other week after I did that link with those kidnapped spellsingers to find out where they were being held-”

“And you were taken inside the Saghred by Nukpana, and you kept an entire stage full of mages from collapsing-all in the same day. How could I forget?” His eyes went from playful to gentle. “Do you have another headache you need for me to heal?”