Complications. Lindsay had been seventeen; he supposed that was on the late side according to Noah’s math. Not as late as Noah’s had been.

These were all questions he hadn’t thought to ask Dane or Cyrus. Or Taniel and Izia and Ezqel, when they’d been working to fix his broken magic. Each time he thought his questions had been answered, new ones arose in their place. His curiosity was such a contrast to how he’d once clung to ignorance and wished his magic would fade away from neglect.

“What are the runes supposed to do?”

“They give you basic guidance. Depending on how they fall, they let you know the nature of things surrounding a choice or direction.” Noah felt in his pockets and came up with a small pencil that he used to make a mark on a coin. “They’re the same runes we still use to create artifacts. The magic in us knows them, because our minds know them. Some people say that gives them extra power, that magic remembers them. That the stones do, or the metal. You could use anything that was familiar enough to you, with practice.”

Lindsay wondered if he’d be able to learn to do something like that. Make runes, and use them. He set the tea on the crate, and folded up the newspaper and tucked it into the seat beside him, so he could lean forward to watch Noah instead. “Can I see?”

“Sure.” Noah scooped up the coins and shifted to lean against Lindsay’s chair. “There’s twenty-four. I try to make sure they’re about the same. When I was a kid, I’d have to use a tool to mark them. Not anymore...”

Noah held up a coin that had pencil marks on it, a simple X. A tiny line of flame crept over the pencil marks and flared white. Where the marks had been, there were blackened grooves. He tossed it in the air and bounced it off his palm.

“Hot, hot, hot...” Noah laughed and caught it, then passed it back to Lindsay. Tentatively, Lindsay touched the inset marks, but they were barely warm now.

“You’ll do that to all of them? What would someone with another kind of magic do?” Lindsay leaned over Noah’s shoulder to return the coin. Heat radiated off Noah’s body, and Lindsay couldn’t resist, he nuzzled at Noah’s neck and cheek, feeling some of that warmth up close.

“You don’t have to bring your magic on them to make it work.” Noah sounded distracted. He cupped Lindsay’s face in his hand and leaned back to return the favor, gently rubbing his stubbled cheek against Lindsay’s. “It helps. But you’d learn to put your mind to it. Magic is around you and in you. The coins spin through it, magic and nature meet, and magic makes nature speak. I must have made a dozen sets as a kid.”

As Lindsay was about to coax Noah into a kiss, he heard footsteps—a light pat-pat-pat that wasn’t quite what Lindsay had come to associate with Kristan—that stopped out in the hall. He looked up to see Zoey standing in the doorway, dark eyes wide and one hand over her mouth.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, um. To interrupt.”

“That’s okay. You’re interrupting Lindsay interrupting.” Noah laughed at that and nosed Lindsay’s cheek before letting him go. He put the finished rune down and went back to writing on the remaining coins.

Lindsay snorted and rubbed his hand over Noah’s bristly scalp. He knew Noah hadn’t minded the distraction. “It’s fine,” he assured Zoey. “Come on in. I’d offer you a place to sit, but...” There hadn’t been time to bring anything else in yet. His chair must have been here when they arrived. “Pull up a piece of floor, I suppose?”

Zoey hesitated another moment before nodding firmly, like she was convincing herself it was all right.

She padded across the room and dropped to the floor to sit across from Noah. She was silent, picking at her nails and glancing up at Lindsay. Lindsay waited, but whatever it was she needed to say never came.

“You’ve had a rough few days,” he offered as a starting point.

She seemed relieved by that, taking it as the invitation it had been. “Yes. Oh man. Ylli said... Well, he kind of explained stuff, but I still don’t know what’s going on. I get that I, um, I kind of made a big mess

back there in Wildwood, and those people, they wanted to do some kind of experiments on me or something. That woman, the doctor, she...” Zoey shook her head, trailing off.

“She’s been at this a while,” Noah said dryly. “The mess wasn’t your fault. Can you say what happened? Before she came. Was there anything strange?” He looked like he was busy with what he was doing, but Lindsay could feel him listening for something.

Zoey’s face scrunched up, and she picked her nails as she thought about what Noah was asking. “The punch clock broke again. It’s supposed to interface with the computers, but it’s glitchy, and it wiped out all my hours for the second time this month. I got screwed out of money I needed last time it happened.” She looked uncomfortable. “It was funny at first, with the computers acting weird, but I got scared. I could see what was in my head spilling out everywhere, on the screens, over the speakers. And then everything kind of...went crazy.”

“That sounds about right.” Noah shrugged and looked over his shoulder at Lindsay. “The focus is rare, but the rest seems normal for someone raised mundane.”

Lindsay nodded. His own manifestation hadn’t been much different from what she was describing.

“Noah’s right. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

Zoey didn’t look like she entirely believed them. “Um. Ylli said... He said some people got lost when you guys got me out of that place, that the, um, Cyrus, he wasn’t the only one who got hurt. I’m really sorry. If there’s anything I can do...”

Lindsay swallowed hard and looked down at Noah. No, Cyrus wasn’t the only one who’d gotten hurt.

The loss of Cyrus was awful, and Lindsay kept shoving it out of his mind. He didn’t have time to deal with it right now. But Dane...and Noah.

Noah reached back and found one of Lindsay’s hands with his, tangling their fingers together. The touch soothed him. At times like this, Lindsay missed Dane so intensely it felt like the only thing keeping him sane was knowing Noah understood him and wouldn’t let him lose Dane completely.

“That wasn’t your fault either.” Lindsay met her eyes. “We knew what we were doing when we went to help you. I wouldn’t have let her keep you.”

“You’re not the first one she’s tried to add to her collection of experiments,” Noah said without looking up. The coins were all laid out in front of him now, waiting to be permanently marked. “We have more to do before we can rest. I’m sorry we can’t take the time to let you get your bearings. You’ve been feeling all right, other than the problems associated with living in a tree?”

That phrasing prompted a little laugh from Zoey, and she nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay. Even with the whole ‘living in a tree’ thing.” She tilted her head, dark hair spilling over her shoulder and gathering in the bunched-up hood of her faded varsity sweatshirt, yet another thing Kristan had dug up from a thrift shop somewhere. “More to do?”

Anah Crow and Dianne Fox

Lindsay squeezed Noah’s fingers and drew them up to his mouth to kiss them, then let them go so Noah could turn his attention back to his runes. This time, Zoey seemed unfazed by the display. “We lost Dane the night we took you away from Moore—the doctor. She has him, and we have to get him back.”

“Who is—?” Zoey’s eyes widened and she looked around the room. “The big guy. I remember him now. I guess I thought he’d show up. Is he the one— Ylli said somebody didn’t come back and that’s why we had to leave with Cyrus and then...”

And then the Hounds had found them anyway, Lindsay knew. “Yes. He’s my... My mentor, I suppose.” And much, much more. But he didn’t need to share that with a stranger, even one he’d risked everything to help.