She smiled, but gently pushed his hand away. “Rephaim, stop. Be serious. Aphrodite’s vision is scary.”

“Did you not tell me Aphrodite foretold Zoey’s death? Twice. As well as her grandmother’s? Each time the foretelling of those deaths made it possible for them to have been averted.” Rephaim caressed her cheek and kissed her gently before saying, “We will use this vision to avert my death as well.”

“’Kay. That sounds good to me.” She nuzzled his hand with her cheek. “But we gotta be clear about somethin’. Dragon’s some kinda key, so you really do need to stay away from him.”

“Yes. I know.” He caressed the side of her head, loving the softness of her hair, and let his fingers trail slowly down her neck and shoulder.

“Rephaim, please listen to me.” Stevie Rae took his face between her hands and made him stop touching her hair and her skin.

“I’m listening to you.” Reluctantly, he focused his attention on her words.

“I’ve been thinkin’ that maybe I was wrong. Maybe you do need to stay here and not go to school, and for sure not go to whatever ritual we do out at Z’s g-ma’s farm, or at least you need to stay away until we figure out more of the details about Aphrodite’s vision.”

Rephaim took her hands from his face and held them in his own. “Stevie Rae, if I begin hiding now, when will it end?”

“I don’t know, but I do know you’ll be alive.”

“There are worse things than death. Being trapped by your fear of it is one of those things.” He smiled. “Actually, I find the whole thing curiously positive. The vision means that I am truly human.”

“What the heck do you mean? Of course you’re human.”

“I look human, or at least I do until the sun rises. Being mortal makes me truly what I appear to be.”

“But doesn’t knowing your immortal blood is gone make you sad?”

“No, it makes me a little more normal.”

Stevie Rae’s bright blue eyes widened. “You know what else it makes you? Not being part of Kalona’s blood anymore.”

Rephaim tried to understand Stevie Rae’s denial of his father. He really did, but he couldn’t help the defensive, almost angry feeling that came over him when she tried to push him away from the winged immortal.

“Do you believe it takes more than blood to make a father?” He spoke slowly, trying to reason through his feelings and find the truth beneath them.

“Yep, absolutely,” she said.

“Then it stands to reason that the absence of blood does not automatically unmake a father, too.” Before she could rebut what he was saying, he continued, “Kalona is immortal, but I was by his side long enough to glimpse humanity within that immortality.”

“Rephaim, I don’t want to argue about your daddy. I know you think I hate him, but that’s not it. I hate that he hurts you.”

“I understand that.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head, breathing in the sweet, familiar scent of girl and shampoo and soap. “But you must let me find my own way in this. He is my father. Nothing will change that.”

“Okay, I’ll try to lay off the speeches about staying away from Kalona, but I want you to promise me you’ll think about staying away from Dragon—at least for a little while.”

“That is an easy promise to make. I already try to avoid the Sword Master because I know the sight of me causes him pain, but I will not hide. I cannot hide from Dragon any more than I can hide from my father.”

She pulled back and looked at him. “We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

He met her gaze. “We are. Always.”

“All right. Let’s stay together, even if it’s dangerous. I’ll protect you,” she said.

“And I will protect you,” he agreed. Rephaim kissed her then, long and slow. He held her close for just a few moments more, letting her scent and her sweetness blanket him.

“You have to go now?” She spoke with her face buried in his chest.

“You know I do.”

“I’m gonna quit asking that I go up there with you ’cause I know you don’t want me to, but I want you to know that if you ever change your mind I’ll be with you until the very end. ’Cause even when you’re a bird, you’re my bird.”

That made him chuckle. “I never thought of it like that, but I am your bird, and your bird needs to go out to the morning sky and stretch his wings.”

“Okie dokie.” He liked that she let go of him first and beamed an enthusiastic, if not totally believable smile at him. “I’ll be here when you fly home.”

“Good, because I will always fly home to you.” He kissed her quickly, pulled on his shirt, and left their room. He was glad he’d left before his skin started that awful prickling. He hated the panicked feeling it gave him to run through the tunnels, yearning harder and harder for the aboveground world and the beckoning sky.

Just a little way from the last tunnel junction before the basement exit, he saw something move within the shadows and he automatically took a defensive stance.

“Hey, relax. It’s just me.”

He did relax as he recognized Shaunee’s voice, followed closely by the girl herself as she emerged from the right-hand branch of the tunnel. She looked disheveled and was carrying a large plastic basket.

“Hello, Shaunee,” he said. “Are you well?”

“Yeah, I guess. I have one more load of my stuff to haul from Erin’s room to my new place down there.” She pointed her thumb behind her at the darkness. “And, yes, I know I’m gonna have to string lights.”

“You need light?”

She grinned, held up her hand, palm flat, blew on it, and a little flame appeared, dancing merrily. “Well, not really, but anyone who wants to come visit probably does.”

“I’ll help you do that tomorrow if you’d like,” he heard himself saying, and then suddenly wished he hadn’t. What if she was like most of the other fledglings, and really didn’t want much to do with him?

He needn’t have been worried. Shaunee didn’t reject him. Actually, her grin got bigger. “That’d be awesome. I was gonna try to put some up when I brought back the last load of stuff, but moving sucks and all I really want to do is curl up on my very comfy new bed and rewatch the last episode of Game of Thrones on my iPad. I really like me some Daenerys.”

“Stevie Rae and I have been watching that, too. You know it has ravens in it.”

“Yeah, and dragons and dead things and a cool dwarf, which should be all whatthefuckery and crazy, which it is but in a good way.” She bit her lip and looked like she was trying to decide whether to say more, so Rephaim just stood there, waiting, even when his skin began to tingle. Finally, Shaunee said in a very small voice, “Erin never liked it. She said it was too Dungeons and Dragons dorkified, and I agreed out loud with her, but I used to sneak and watch it while she was sleeping.”

Rephaim wasn’t sure how he should respond to that. He didn’t really understand why the two girls used to need to act as if they were one person, so he also found it difficult to understand why they both, in their own ways, seemed so upset and lost now. “Maybe you could watch it with Stevie Rae and me when the new season begins?” he offered.

“Would Stevie Rae make buttered popcorn? She used to make awesome buttered popcorn.”

“She still does, so yes, I’m saying she will make the popcorn. With butter.”

“Oooh, yum. I’m in. And, thanks, Rephaim.”

“You are welcome. I must go now…” he trailed off as he began moving away from her toward the basement exit to above.

“Hey, I heard about Aphrodite’s vision. I just wanta say I hope you don’t get dead.”

“I hope I don’t get dead, either.” He paused, and then added, “If something does happen to me, would you call that phone you gave Father and tell him?”

“Yeah, of course. But nothing’s gonna happen to you. I hope. And, plus, you don’t have to get dead—you can call that phone whenever you want to, you know, just to talk to him.”