He took his time giving me his name, letting the impossible syllables work tenderly, slowly, into me, until at last they settled and I exploded, shuddering against him. I stood in the alcove of BB&B, kissing him long after his name was mine again.

I was still glowing when I climbed the stairs and fell across my bed.

“Dude, what happened in here?”

I leaned my broom against a fallen bookcase and turned to see Dani framed in the open door of BB&B, cramming a protein bar in her mouth. Her eyes narrowed as she absorbed the destruction. Morning sunlight shafted into the alcove, framing her auburn curls with a halo of fire. Though the day was bright, nearly windless—a whopping sixty degrees after the recent snow—I couldn’t get warm, even with both gas fireplaces on.

“Close the door, will you?” I said. I’d dreamed of the Cold Place all night. Repeatedly, I’d been jarred to near-waking by some fright—a slip into a treacherous drift, a nameless terror stalking me—but each time the nightmare had sucked me back down.

I’d scaled icy cliffs, searching for the beautiful, sad woman, calling out, certain I would find her just over the next ridge. But at the crest of each summit, the only thing I’d found were dozens of hourglasses, with fine black sand rapidly trickling to the lower half. I’d raced from one to the next, frantically turning them over, but they’d kept emptying again in seconds.

Moments before I’d awakened for the final time, I realized the reason I couldn’t find her was because I’d waited too long. Time had been of the essence and I was too late. She was gone. Hope, like the fine grains of trickling black sand, had vanished, too.

I’d blown it.

I’d showered and dressed, failure weighing heavy on my bones. Desperate to make progress, to see accomplishment of any kind, I’d attacked the debris in the demolished bookstore with a broom and a vengeance. I’d been at it for hours, beating sawdust and splinters from Barrons’ rugs, sweeping broken glass into neat piles.

Dani swaggered in and closed the door. “V’lane said you wanted to see me. Don’t know what for, but seeing I ain’t too busy this morning, figured I’d give you a listen. But it better be different kinda stuff, ’cause last time I saw you, you weren’t talking like no friend of mine.” She preened. “He brought me chocolate. Dude—like I’m his Valentine or something. Me and him, we had a talk. Told him I’m almost fourteen and I’m gonna give him my virginity one day.”

I groaned. She’d actually told him that? Before I’d sent him for her, I’d made him swear to turn off the lethal eroticism. “We’re going to have a long discussion about your virginity and V’lane, as soon as things calm down.”

“News flash, Mac, they ain’t never calming. World is. What it is. This is lifenow.” Despite her casual swagger, her flippant tone, her eyes were cold. Wary.

Tough words. Tougher truth to swallow. I never would. “It’s not staying this way, Dani. We’re not going to let it.”

“What can we do ’bout it? World’s too big. ’Sides, ain’t so bad. ’Til you go and get all pissy. Thought you and me were, like, peas in the Mega pod and there ain’t no other veggies on the plate. Then you go playacting you’re humping the Lord Monster. Pissing me off.” She shot me a glare crammed full of the words she would never say: You abandoned me. Left me alone. I’m here, but this better be good. She pulled an apple out of her pocket and began munching it.

Last night, before V’lane left, I’d asked him to find her this morning and tell her Barrons had never been dead, that I’d been undercover, and I was sorry for the deception. But no apology-by-proxy could replace the real thing. She needed to hear it from me. And I needed to say it.

“I’m sorry, Dani. I hated hurting you.”

“Dude, get over yourself. Didn’t hurt me. It’d take way more than that. Figured you were PMS’ing. No big. Just wanted to hear you say you were a dick.”

“I was a dick. And it may not have bothered you, but it drove me crazy. Forgive me?”

She jerked and gave me an uncomfortable look. The precocious, gifted teen had been treated one of two ways at the abbey: ordered around or ignored. I doubted anyone had ever bothered to apologize to her for anything.

“Saying you’re a dick was ’nuff, already, jeez. Getting all touchy-feely like a grown-up. Gah!” She stepped around the wreck of the cashier’s counter and tried to flash me a grin, but it came out lopsided. “So, what gives? Mini-tornado blow through?”

“Lose the coat,” I evaded. I could hardly say, After I killed Barrons, he was so pissed off at me that he trashed the bookstore.

“Right. Forgot.”

She shrugged out of it, left it in a puddle of black leather on the floor. Beneath it, she had on skintight black low-ride jeans, a tight sweater, and black high-tops. Her green eyes sparkled.

“With the Book hitching rides, hiding on people, guess we’re all going to be dressing like skanks for a while, huh? Skintight or skin. Dude, everybody’s everything’s gonna be hanging out, and some o’ those fat chicks at the abbey are gonna gross my eyeballs right outta my head. Muffin tops and camel toes, gah!”

I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. That was Dani. Not an ounce of tact. Like the world around her, she was what she was, no holds barred. “Not everybody has superspeed metabolism,” I said drily. And what I wouldn’t give for it. I’d eat chocolate for breakfast, pastries for lunch, and pie for supper.