“What have you done?” she asked, her voice still rough.

“Saved your life. You’re welcome,” I said, my voice hollow. I didn’t feel particularly excited about it, I just wanted to go home and cry for a few hours.

“But you’ve taken my wolf. I’ll have no pack, no people.”

“You’ll get used to it. I did.”

Without another word she vanished, and I turned back to Cecelia.

“And the alchemist?”

“Well…” That was a bit trickier. I glanced over at her cell and saw Jane staring back at me anxiously. “A year of being barred from Faerie,” I began, and was interrupted by an indignant teenage shriek. Alchemists get many of their ingredients from Faerie, so this would seriously hamper her ability to make potions. Ignoring her, I continued with my decision. “During that time she can spend her extra energy doing community service, preferably in a hospital setting, so she can learn the benefits of healing others instead of interfering with them. Therapy is definitely in order too. Lots of it.”

“Done.”

“That’s not fai-” Jane started, but was cut off as she disappeared. She was probably sent to her room at home, where no doubt another punishment from her parents awaited her.

I raised a weary eyebrow at Cecelia. “Do we get to go home n-”

The floor disappeared from beneath me again and I found myself falling through darkness. Lex and I landed in a clumsy sprawl on my bedroom floor in front of my mirror.

“-ow?” I finished lamely. “Ow.”

“Sorry ’bout that,” Lex said as he tried to untangle himself.

“Hey, they’re back!” I heard an excited voice call from my kitchen. I looked up in time to see Tybalt dash into my room, Portia right behind him.

“Kitty!” the two faeries happily exclaimed in unison. At least someone was having a good day.

Chapter Eight

Piled into my apartment’s small kitchen were two cats, two faeries, one guardian and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, maybe not the partridge, but I feared my apartment was nearing its maximum legal capacity. Merri and Pippin continued to stare at Lex, as though they found his every move intriguing. Crazy cats. I was half tempted to get out their catnip mice so they’d go do something else, but that would require moving, and I was just too damn depressed and exhausted to do anything but sit. I didn’t want to do anything at all.

It was dark and raining outside. Though it seemed to us as though only minutes had passed, hours had flown by during our time in Faerie, which is about par for the course. I made a few phone calls to Mac’s family and confirmed it was his flight that’d crashed. They promised to let me know when the memorial service would be. I felt numb and helpless, knowing there was nothing I could do but wait for my chance to say goodbye to my friend. First Maureen and now Mac-I had no one left, aside from my faerie cousins, who were doing their best to distract me. Especially Portia, who was opposed to negative emotions of any sort and was determined to keep my spirits up.

“You’re doing good, Kitty,” Portia congratulated. “There should only be one more test from the Council too. Piece of cake.”

“Do you two know why Lex was brought with me for it?” I asked.

“Well, he’s your guardian, silly.” Portia rolled her eyes at me as though it should’ve been obvious.

Confused, I turned toward Lex. “Does that make any sense to you?”

“I haven’t heard of it happening before, but I’m not exactly an expert on the subject. This situation isn’t normal to begin with. There’ve been a few attempts to kill off the competition in the past, but usually they’re subtle about it instead of outright puttin’ a price on your head.” He shrugged unknowingly. “Maybe Cecelia thought it’d be rude to separate us.”

“Anything’s possible at this point. I’m glad you were there.” I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if Lex hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t had him to comfort me and calm me down when I heard about Mac’s death. I glanced at Tybalt, noticing he was strangely quiet on this subject. Well, if he had something to say I’m sure he’d speak up, so I decided to move on. “We’re going to talk to your other contact tomorrow morning?”

“Right. We could probably see him now, but it’s not safe for you to be out at this hour.”

“I won’t argue with that, I’ve had enough drama for one day. Who’s this contact of yours? It didn’t sound like you were eager to talk to this person when Pete brought it up.”

“That’s because it won’t be cheap-he sells information for a high price. I try to avoid dealin’ with him unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Another librarian?” Many librarians, like Mac, prefer the free exchange of information, but there are those who prefer to barter and those who prefer to charge outright.

“In a way. We’ll worry about that tomorrow. Now, we have two problems to deal with tonight. Food and entertainment.”

I smiled, the first real smile I’d had all day-apparently Lex had the same plan of distraction as my faerie cousins. “Well normally I’d say we should order some pizza, but I’m afraid the poor delivery guy wouldn’t make it here in one piece.”

“Agreed.” Lex nodded.

“You want food? I can make food,” Portia offered. A feast popped into existence atop my kitchen table, a stunning array of dishes crammed together, and I swear I heard the table’s legs groan under the weight.

“I wish my cousins were this handy,” Lex commented, impressed. “You must be great at parties.”

The selection was mainly made up of foods I like, the sort of greasy, fried American fare we serve at the Three Willows. Though I didn’t have an appetite I forced myself to eat, knowing I needed to keep my magical strength up. Portia regaled us with lively tales of the past exploits of the Silverleaf clan during dinner, and I was grateful for it. When we’d stuffed ourselves full, Portia made everything disappear as easily as she’d conjured it, and we moved into the living room.

For the entertainment portion of our evening Lex bravely-or perhaps foolishly-decided to teach the faeries how to play Texas hold ’ em poker. The only cards I own are Tarot cards, but he’d brought a deck of playing cards with him in his gym bag, and we used pretzels and chocolates as poker chips. The man displayed the patience of a saint as he tutored my cousins in the basics of the game-I’d learned it when we’d dated, though we’d bet clothing instead of snacks.

Tybalt was enthralled, but Portia was slow to warm to the idea until she figured out how to cheat by magically marking the cards. Poker ended soon after that, and we turned to the Game Show Network for entertainment. Few things are quite as entertaining as watching millennia-old frost faeries shout “No deal, Howie!” at your television screen.

It was a welcome break, and I could almost imagine this was a normal night of fun with my cousins. The addition of Lex didn’t hurt, but it added to the strangeness. He was acting like the Lex I remembered-funny, caring, charming. I wanted to stay angry with him, but having him stand steadfast by my side today made that difficult. He was there when I needed him, which felt weird after what had occurred between us in the past.

A little after midnight I kicked the faeries out and sent them home so Lex and I could get a good night’s sleep before our big day tomorrow. Not that I predicted being able to sleep with the cold dread that’d settled into my stomach, but I was willing to give it a try. I gathered up the empty drinking glasses and the bag of chips we’d devoured, and brought them into the kitchen. When I returned to the living room for the second round of mess, I found the lights had been switched off. Barely visible, Lex stood at the window, staring into the night as he held the curtains aside.

“You need to see this.”

“What is it?”