bedcovers with me. I lay there frozen a minute—I couldn’t see her; had it been a dream?—and then pulled myself up to see the feral girl still curled up on my bed, looking straight at me.
“I let myself in,” she said. “I hopes that’s OK.”
“How the hell did you manage—” and then I saw overturned glassware in the kitchen: she’d let herself in through a second floor window. “Never mind. How did you find me?”
“I followed you. You gots the world’s lamest bike. It was easy to keep up—”
“My precious Vespa is a scooter,; not a bike,” I said, “and she gets like sixty miles to the gallon.” My brow furrowed. “You mean followed, like on foot?”
She smiled, her tail flickering up in the air.
“I find myself less and less enamored of were-whatevers,” I muttered, cracking my neck where the collar had kinked it in my sleep. I reached up to the desk next to my bed and batted at my computer mouse: after a moment the monitor turned itself back on, and I peered at the system clock. “Jeez! It’s like, eight in the morning! Who’s up at this ungodly hour?”
“The day is young,” she purred, slinking forward to peer down at me on the floor.
I eyed her warily. I didn’t like the way this was going. And in the light I could she was a lot younger than she’d looked at the werehouse. “What’s your name, kid?”
“You called me Cinnamon,” she said dreamily. “That will do.”
“Look, Cinnamon, the last thing I need is another spice-themed girlfriend, suitor or ex,” I said, standing up at last. “You had a name before I smelled your perfume. What was it?”
“They called me Stray,” she said. “Or Foundling.”
Oh, God. She was serious. That was horrible. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t—don’t you be sorrying me!” she said, face fierce and tragic all at once. “You didn’t talk down at me before!”
“I’m sor—” I stopped, and held up my hands. “I’m sorry you’re an orphan and I’m sorry I’m sorry. Get the hell over it.”
She started to get mad, then just smiled, a huge sunny smile. “Okay, DaKOta!”
I stared at her suspiciously. “How the hell old are you?”
“Twenty-three,” she said proudly.
“And how old are you when you’re not trying to buy beer?”
Her face fell. “Nineteen.”
“And how old are you when you’re not trying to get down my pants?”
Her face fell further. “Seventeen.”
“Not likely,” I said, looking at her face. Lots of baby fat, few lines even for a street cat. She had a lot of tattoos, but—”Not even fifteen. Maybe thirteen—”
“I am too fifteen,” she said indignantly, then held her hands to her mouth.
“Jeez,” I said. “You are not old enough to be alone on the streets—”
“I can take care of myself,” she said.
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “But being able to take care of yourself, and having to take care of yourself, are two different things.”
“I’m a foundling,” she said. “My mother spent most of her time as a beast during her pregnancy so… so I wouldn’t die when she changed. And after all that time.”
“She couldn’t change back,” I said. “I’m so sor—so, you know.”
“They say my dad went with her so…” She stared at her hands, at the tufts of fur between her fingers, then said, “So I don’t have any parents. The werehouse is my home, but I gots to take care of myself.”
“Look… uh, Cinnamon. Why are you here?”
“T-to get down your pants?” she stammered, eyes wide, a little shocked at herself. “I—I—means, I means like you said that you thought that—”
“You haven’t thought this through at all, have you?” I said quietly.
I just stood there, in pajama shorts and an old Emory t-shirt, staring down at her with my arms folded. Where I’d changed clothes—except for the damn collar—Cinnamon wore the same ghetto-chic vest and crop top, the same pants: probably the only ones she owned. She was on her own, on the streets at the same age I’d been a choir girl in Stratton Christian Academy, only Cinnamon had more tattoos than I’d had at twenty.
Finally she held out her hand, the one bearing the butterfly mark. “No? Then maybe another super tattoo to match this one?”
“I can’t do a tattoo on you, Cinnamon. You’re a minor.”
She actually hissed at me. “You gave me this—”
“When I thought you were older,” I said. “Technically, transferring a mark by magical means doesn’t count, but if I actually inked you—I could lose my license.”