I stood there wishing I could simply erase the past few moments from the chalkboard of my life. I’d just betrayed to Ryodan that I’d been contemplating him with such frequency and intensity, I decided he must have put a spell on me. And he’d gotten that faintly smug look in his silvery eyes probably no one else but me would have noticed.

One way or another I was getting out of this one with grace. “So your tattoo doesn’t have any effect on me whatsoever?”

“To the contrary. I’m the one it’s a problem for.”

“No spell?”

He sliced his head to the left and that smug glint shimmered a little.

I exhaled gustily and said, “So it is because I can’t stop thinking about it.”

He arched a brow, waiting.

“Shazam,” I clarified. “Each time I drive by here, I start thinking about him. You said you could help me.” These past few weeks, I’d forced myself to put thoughts of Shazam in suspended animation, focusing on saving the world and Dancer, in that order. How could I justify pursuing something I wanted just because my heart hurt so badly it almost made me puke in the middle of the night, when the world was silent and I worried about where and how Shazam was and if he was crying and all alone, when billions were going to die if we failed to save them? How could I leave Dancer? What if he died while I was gone?

When I was a kid, my thoughts were so linear: point a to point b. There was what I wanted and what I did to get it. But when you get older, you suddenly have all these c’s and d’s and z’s you have to factor in, too.

When I first returned to Dublin I’d been acutely aware of how much time was passing for Shazam while I hunted for a way to rescue him and get us both back home. The more time that passed, the more worried I’d gotten that I would go back for him and he’d be gone. Not only would I still not have him, I’d have paid whatever price I had to pay for going back—for nothing.

I dropped down into a chair near Ryodan’s desk, waiting for him to go sit down on the other side. When he finally did, I said, “You said you could find me anywhere with the tattoo. You asked me not to use it when you were injured and I didn’t. I want to use it now.” Even as I said it, I wondered what I would do if he said yes. Could I leave this dying world? Dancer?

Ryodan rubbed his jaw, hand rasping over his shadow beard, and I had a sudden vision of that jaw tearing into a human thigh, the sleek black powerful beast he’d become, and I shivered. Yanking out a protein bar, I tore off half of it in a single bite.

“I believe we’ve got a week, at most, before one of the holes touches ground,” he said. “It would take longer than that.”

A week? Mac hadn’t told me that! But then I hadn’t seen her in several days. “Does everyone know?”

He sliced his head in negation. “It would start panic. We’re moving people off world as quickly as we can. Tell me about Shazam.”

I surprised myself by complying. I meant to give him a brief sketch but once I started talking, it just came gushing out of me, like an ocean backed up behind a leaking dam. Shazam lived when I talked about him. I could almost feel him again, warm against my body, hear him muttering crossly, demanding grooming, attention, and food, always more food. God, how I missed him!

I told Ryodan about meeting Shazam on the planet Olean, with the teleporting trees, how he became my best friend and companion, the many worlds we traveled together and the adventures we’d had. I reminisced and laughed and lit up inside. Talking took me back to those worlds where we’d played with zest and abandon when circumstances had permitted.

I told him how I’d gone to sleep and woken up with Shazam every day. For four years, give or take, we were each other’s whole world. We hunted and cooked and groomed and battled and ran wild. He was my rock, my teacher, my champion, my constant companion, and a day without my beloved grumpy, funny, brilliant, depressive friend was like walking around with a limb amputated.

Ryodan listened, leaning back in his chair, boots on the desk, arms folded behind his head, and while I talked he changed. And the more he changed, the more I talked.

Those remote silvery eyes warmed and came alive, developed complex crystalline depths. He smiled, laughed, became fully invested in my tales, asking endless questions. Hours spun by as I regaled him with our zany adventures, and a part of me that had been frozen solid pooled into a gentle summer lake.

“But it wasn’t all fun and games,” he said finally.

I shrugged, kicking a leg over the side of the chair. “Whose life is?”

“Why did you have to leave him?”

I closed my eyes and told him in a hushed voice about the last world I’d leapt into, following Shazam. Each one had its unknown perils but this planet had several that in conjunction were a perfect storm.

The portal on Planet X—that was what I called it because I hadn’t been there long enough to learn its name—was on a small island in the middle of a lake. The inhabitants were primitive tribesmen with bizarrely advanced technology or magic, half naked with elaborately feathered headdresses. They’d been doing some kind of ritual dance around the mirror when we came through, and obviously had experience with people or monsters invading their world via the portal, because there was a powerful force field set up that captured everything the moment it exited.

The planet was also one of those that shorted out my powers.

We’d leapt through, outracing a horde of monstrous night creatures on the last planet, with no option to return, caught between a rock and a hard place. Shazam was instantly trapped in a shimmering cage. Either I’d sped up at the last moment and dodged it or, for some inexplicable reason, it didn’t hold me.

I know it was meant to, because when the tribesmen realized I wasn’t contained, they attacked me.

I heard Shazam behind me, hissing and snarling, trying to break free to protect me, but the force field held, and he started crying out that I should leave and come back for him later.

I closed my eyes, rubbed them, and stopped talking.

I’d never told anyone about this day. I hated this day. I’d relived it so many times trying to isolate my errors, figure out what else I might have done.

I fisted my hands and opened my eyes. Ryodan was watching me with such fierce, quiet intensity, it made me feel like he’d been living everything I’d been telling him.

“You know how my mind works,” I said finally.