“Okay,” I said. The last thing I felt like doing was escorting the souls of the dead, but I didn’t want J.B. to get any more grief than he was already getting.

“And if you want Chloe to help you, it’s going to have to be on her off-hours.”

“I think she’s been spending a lot of her off-hours time here, anyway,” I said, smiling.

J.B. gave me a questioning look.

“Apparently she’s been pursuing Samiel,” I said.

J.B. blinked. “Really?”

“Yes, very aggressively.”

He smiled, and that smile transformed his face. He was under so much stress that I hardly ever saw him without knit brows and downward mouth.

I was reminded of how handsome he was, and hard on the heels of that thought was the memory of Amarantha’s servant Violet pursuing J.B.

He was king of the court now, and he probably had faeries throwing themselves at him to be the next queen. I felt a little jealous, and then I reminded myself that I was in no position to feel that way. I’d never considered J.B. as a lover, and even if I did, it would be impossible to avoid feeling like I was betraying Gabriel.

My life was complicated enough.

J.B. watched me very soberly, and I wondered how much of what I was thinking was evident on my face.

Quite a bit, it seemed.

“You know,” J.B. said carefully. “Someday you will stop missing him quite so much.”

“I’ll never stop missing him no matter how much time has passed,” I said.

“Okay,” he conceded. “But one day you might realize you don’t want to spend the rest of your life alone, or that maybe you’d like your baby to have a father.”

“I don’t…” I started.

J.B. held up his hands. “All I’m saying is when that day comes, whenever that day may be, please consider me.”

I shook my head. “J.B. You can’t wait forever for the possibility that I might choose you.”

“I’m hoping I won’t have to wait forever,” he said steadily.

“I don’t deserve you,” I said.

“Probably not,” he replied, and he put his hand over mine.

Which was how Nathaniel found us when he knocked on the back door and walked in without waiting for an answer.

7

“EXCUSE ME,” NATHANIEL SAID TIGHTLY, TURNING BACK to the door.

I felt guilty, and I didn’t know why, which made me angry. I pushed away from the table and stood.

“What did you want?” I asked.

Nathaniel paused at the door, not looking at me. “Only to see if you were well.”

“I’m well,” I said. “And in the future, please wait for me to answer the door before coming in.”

“I apologize. Everyone else is permitted to come and go. I presumed it would be acceptable for me to do as well.”

“It’s not.”

“I understand,” he said, and went out again.

I slumped back into my chair, my adrenaline crashing.

“Never mind the stress of being hunted by all and sundry. I may not survive the stress of having Nathaniel in the house,” I muttered.

Beezle pushed the back door open and flew in. He gave an exaggerated double take when he saw my hair.

“Speak and you die,” I said.

“What?” Beezle said. “I was going to ask if you made an omelet for me.”

“Really?” I said skeptically.

“Well, no, I was going to say it looks like you took a hacksaw to your head, but I suspect such comments would be frowned upon in your current condition.”

“You suspect correctly,” I said.

J.B. stood up. “I’ll send Chloe to you tomorrow.”

“Let me know if you overhear of any further plots on my life, will you?”

J.B. nodded and left.

I looked at Beezle. “I’m thinking we shouldn’t wait around to see what shows up at the door next.”

“You want to confront Titania and Oberon?”

“Good, you were eavesdropping so I don’t have to trouble myself to explain the situation,” I said.

“Maddy,” Beezle said, and his little face was very grave. “I’ll admit that you’ve defied some pretty powerful beings in the past, and you’ve even managed to defeat most of them. But Titania and Oberon are on Lucifer’s level, and you haven’t managed to get the best of him yet.”

“What do you know about them?” I said.

“Nobody knows how old they are. They might be as old as Lucifer.”

“Very ancient beings. Check,” I said.

“They adore children but have only managed to have one of their own in all these millennia, so they are not above stealing someone else’s child.”

“So I should avoid revealing my pregnancy to them for as long as possible.”

“Oh, yeah. To steal a child of Lucifer’s line would be quite a coup for them.”

“Have they been trying?” I asked.

“Well, the difficulty comes from not knowing just who Lucifer’s been bonking,” Beezle said. “Remember what a surprise Baraqiel was?”

“I wonder why the faerie king and queen have so much trouble conceiving while Lucifer seems able to father a child on pretty much anything.”

“For some reason, faeries don’t seem to reproduce easily. But rumor has it that the only child of Titania and Oberon isn’t Oberon’s, if you know what I mean.”

“The faerie king is shooting blanks?”

“So some say.”

“Where do you get these rumors from, anyway?” I asked. “It’s not like you leave the house unless you’re with me.”

“I have a Facebook account, as you well know.”

“You’re discussing the paternity of the faerie kingdom’s heir on Facebook?”

“Just because you don’t know the value of social media doesn’t mean everyone is like that,” he said.

“Then I want you to put your pastime to good use. See what else you can find out about Titania and Oberon.”

“Are you looking for some specific information?” Beezle asked.

“Yeah. I want to know their weaknesses.”

“Besides the usual immortal flaws of vanity, jealousy and self-righteousness?”

“Yes. Although those give me something to start with,” I said, thinking. “If there is any truth to the rumors about Oberon, then there’s some leverage there.”

“Careful where you tread,” Beezle said.

“I know. They would crush me just for implying their heir is not legitimate.”

“It definitely hits Oberon’s pride. And Titania will apparently do anything to keep him happy.”

“So they love each other, then?”

“Not in the way you would think of love, probably, but yes, they do.”

“And that’s something to work with, too,” I said. “Love is a weakness. If you care about someone, then you can be hurt.”

Beezle looked at me. “Aren’t we ruthless?”

“I know better than anyone how love can cut you to pieces.”

“But love isn’t just pain,” he said, his eyes troubled. “Isn’t there happiness, too?”

“Just enough to make the cut deeper when it comes,” I said.

We both stared at the table, lost in our thoughts.

“Let’s not brood,” I said, after a while. “Want to watch a movie with me? Something funny?”

“Yeah, Night of the Living Dead.”

“It’s funny to watch people get their guts eaten by zombies?”

“It is if they’re too stupid to get away. Zombies shamble. You could escape them with a brisk walk and yet these idiots are getting overtaken all the time.”

“It’s the number of zombies that’s the problem,” I said, “not the speed at which you attempt to escape.”

Beezle waved a hand at me. “This is starting to sound disturbingly like a nerd argument, and I am not a nerd. You make the popcorn; I’ll get the DVD.”

I laughed as he flew out of the room. For just a moment, everything felt normal. And I wanted to keep it that way. At least for a little while.

I woke the next morning on the couch. Bright sunshine streamed through the picture window. The scent of bacon filled the air. I rubbed my eyes, rolled over and saw Chloe sitting on my coffee table, staring at me.

She wore a leather vest that revealed the sleeve of tattoos on each arm and a pair of faded jeans. Sparkly purple polish on her fingers and toes matched the shocking violet of her hair.

“What did you do to your head?” she asked.

“Who let you in here?” I asked. Did nobody respect my privacy anymore? The house was starting to feel like a dorm.

“I came up with Samiel,” she said. “I can fix that, you know.”

I rubbed my hand over my hair. The thought of Chloe near my head with scissors was quite terrifying.

“Really, I can’t stand to look at you like that,” she said. “It’ll put me off my breakfast. Come on.”

She grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. I thought I was brusque.

“Are you staying for whatever Samiel’s cooking, then?” I asked.

She pulled me into the bathroom and lowered the toilet seat lid. “Sit.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. Besides, it didn’t seem that arguing would do any good. Chloe was like a force of nature. I could see why Samiel was so disconcerted by her.

She took the scissors from the cabinet and began to snip here and there. Every once in a while she would tell me to move my head this way or that. I closed my eyes and hoped I wouldn’t end up looking like G.I. Jane.

“There,” she said with a satisfied tone in her voice. “Look.”

I stood, a little afraid, and looked in the mirror. And was pleasantly surprised.

She’d shaped the hacked-off mess into a neat pixie cut that framed my face.