Ten minutes later, I was crouching where I’d been before, the flaking wall against my back, my heart tripping over itself. My throat was dry. I leaned over to peer at the warehouse. The buses were gone. Only half a dozen cars remained. I looked for people, but didn’t see anyone. I made myself stay still as I scanned the ground. It had only been one day, and in a part of the city that stayed pretty much dead as a cod all weekend. The chances were that it would still be where I’d dropped it.

I saw it. The rifle lay flat, its barrel still pointing roughly toward the warehouse. I inched forward, one eye on the warehouse, one on the rifle. The sun left it almost too hot to touch, but I got my hand around it and trotted back to the cover. I tried to remember how many times I’d fired while Coin walked back from the carnage. Three, I thought.

One round still waited in the chamber, one in the magazine. Carefully, I lifted the cartridges out, feeling the carved designs squirm against my fingertips. I dropped the nasty little things into my backpack, tucked the rifle under my arm, and jogged back to the minivan.

Despite Ex’s best efforts, I had two bullets made for killing riders. It was a thin victory, but I took pride in it. I drove back to the house with a growing sense of possibility.

When I got there, I swept up the ruined dishes. I cleaned the coffee stain off with a rag and warm water while Midian sat on the couch, watching me with silent, dead eyes. I stood back, considering the wall. After a little scrubbing, the biggest problem was that the cleaned bit now looked brighter than the rest of the wall. I looked around, suddenly aware of all the little ways that the house had fallen into disrepair during the time I’d been in it.

“Well,” I said. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Midian asked.

I looked at him, then went to the kitchen and came back with a carving knife in hand. The yellow eyes tracked me uncertainly.

“If I let you go, are we going to be cool?” I asked.

“You’re serious?” he asked. “I’m a fucking vampire, you know.”

“Eric was willing to work with you,” I said. “And besides, I kind of like you. So are we going to be cool or not?”

“As long as we want the same thing. After that, we’ll have to see how it plays out,” he said. And then, “Hey, kid. At least I’m not bullshitting you, right?”

I answered by cutting the rope around his wrists. He rubbed the desiccated, time-dark flesh and looked up at me.

“For someone who’s totally fucked, you’re looking pretty chipper,” he said.

“Yeah, well,” I said. “I’m going to clean the place. You want to whip us up some dinner?”

The vampire shrugged, then stood up.

“I’m on it,” he said.

I dug a vacuum cleaner out of a closet and set to getting all the coffee cup fragments out of the carpet. I threw out the tray Midian had been using for his dead cigarettes, gathered up all the dirty glasses and dishes that had found their way to the flat surfaces of the house, and brought them home to the dishwasher. The bright spot on the wall kept bothering me. There was only one thing, I decided, to be done about it. I got my laptop out from the bedroom, hooked it up to Eric’s modest stereo speakers, and cranked up some music. China Forbes sang an old Carmen Miranda tune, and I started washing down all the walls in the living room while I danced to it. About twenty minutes and two walls later, Chogyi Jake came out from the back, surprised to see something happening that wasn’t about ruining the flatware.

“I’m not cleaning the main bathroom. I’ve been using my own,” I said over the section of “Dosvedanya Mio Bambino” that they lifted from “The Happy Wanderer.” “All that mess in there is you guys.”

Chogyi Jake tilted his head in obeisance, just on the friction point between mocking and sincere. I went back to the walls and saw him a few minutes later, heading from the kitchen to the back bathroom with a bucket and a sponge. If Midian’s return to freedom was an issue, he didn’t bring it up.

The music went from the Cuban-dance-band-meets-chamber-orchestra of Pink Martini to a mix CD I burned from my first-semester dorm mate’s music. The old familiar Goth-punk songs didn’t depress me the way they usually did. A scent equal parts butter, beef, and wine wafted out of the kitchen. When I finished with the walls, I went back and stripped the sheets off all the beds and gathered up my own old laundry. On my way through the kitchen toward the laundry room, I stopped to admire Midian’s upcoming feast.

“It’s all tapas,” Midian said. “For one thing, we’re down to not enough groceries for anything big. And for another, you need new plates.”

“Check. New plates,” I said with a nod. “I’m on it.”

He shook his head in apparent disgust.

“I think mood swings run in your family, kid,” Midian said, but he smiled when he said it.

We ate dinner early, the sun still high in the late summer sky. I’d found a bottle of red wine that went pretty well with Midian’s spread. Cheese and tomatoes, strips of fried beef, toasted French bread with a spread of garlic and olives. The three of us sat around the kitchen table. Outside, the day was blisteringly hot.

“So,” Midian said, looking at me through the red swirl of wine in his glass, “you want to tell me what happened to change totally fucked girl into Little Mary Sunshine? Because right now, I’m thinking bipolar.”

“Working meditation is always useful,” Chogyi Jake said around a mouthful of garlic and olive.

“I think we call that petty control over your immediate physical environment,” I said.

“That’s as good a name as any,” Chogyi Jake said. “The thought is the same. It’s a way to bring yourself together. Cope with anxiety and fear.”

“It’s not just about making the place smell less like a cheap bar? Which reminds me. No more smoking in the house.”

“Hey!” Midian said, putting down his glass.

“You want to go outside and see if the magic anticultist wards cover the backyard, that’s up to you,” I said. “But not in the house.”

Midian frowned, considered for a moment, then nodded.

“I’m not hog-tied and sleeping with a shotgun pointing at my skull,” he said. “I can deal with the trade-off. But back to the issue at hand.”

“Well, I was feeling pretty screwed over,” I said. “And now I’m not.”

“Yeah,” Midian said. “That’s the part that’s confusing me. Because from here it’s still looking pretty bleak.”

I wiped my mouth with a paper napkin and leaned back in my chair. My backpack was on the counter by the phone book, and I reached for it while I spoke.

“When that fucking asshole Ex took off,” I said in my best calm, reasonable voice, “I felt like he’d taken my only shot at dealing with Coin. I didn’t have anything anymore. You know? But today I realized that’s not true. I’ve got the two of you.”

“Yeah,” Midian said. “And a powerful-as-fuck wizard trying to kill you. Is this a very special Blossom? Did I miss the part where we all learned and hugged and grew?”

“I can still tie you back up,” I said. Midian raised his hands in mock surrender.

“You were saying,” Chogyi Jake said.

“Right. Well, the two of you,” I said. “And I have these.”

I placed the rifle cartridges on the table with a soft tap. Midian moved back an inch or two, but Chogyi Jake scooped one up, rolling it in his fingers as he examined the graven symbols. When he looked over at me, his brows were raised, inviting me to go on.

“And,” I said, “I have a lot of money…”