in cape and horse-blanket. The horse-blanket was less wrinkled.
I’d had no plans last night, but I did when I opened my eyes. Back in January, when Atlas and I returned to Los Angeles I’d left behind all the civilian clothes I’d bought just for the scandal-inducing getaway. I’d optimistically anticipated a lot more time spent here. Now the mountains were green with spring, the meadows covered in wildflowers, and I had the day free. Two days if I blew off class for once.
Going back inside, I showered and changed into cargo shorts and a pink cotton cami with Bow to the princess written in white sparkles. Bouncing down the stairs, I almost screamed when I ran into Artemis coming up from the cellar.
“Morning, Hope. So what kind of coffee did Atlas stock, anyway?” she asked.
“I— What? The who?”
“Shelly thought you might need some big-girl talk, and I got to test Vulcan’s new carrier drone. He designed it to drop Galatea, but I stepped out a few thousand feet up and floated down. Thought I’d let you sleep.”
She’d changed into a civilian version of her daysuit—skintight and covered by sailor pants and a long-sleeved turtleneck sweater. She had the gloves and mask ready, but with the bay-window curtains drawn she was fine inside the cabin.
“Thanks? I… Coffee?” I pulled in my scattered thoughts while Artemis stood there, completely unconcerned at having invited herself to join my getaway. “Just canned stuff.”
She smiled, held up a bag. “I came prepared.”
Being a vampire limited Artemis to a liquid diet, so she’d become a lover of all things drinkable. Coffee, hot chocolate, wine, beer, coolers, ale, even ice-cream (frozen liquid after all). She could brew coffee that made gourmet baristas cry, and I’d kill for her chocolate concoctions.
Ten minutes later, the kitchen filling with the brain-melting aroma of hand-ground bean, Artemis threw herself into a chair.
“So?” she said. “Why is Shelly worried about you?” Birds sang outside, wind rattled the leaves, and my super-duper hearing picked up the soft step of a deer. Two? A doe and her fawn? When I focused I could hear the wildlife around the cabin, but I couldn’t hear Artemis’ heartbeat. Because being dead, she didn’t have one. And though she hadn’t inherited any of the traditional vampire phobias from the psychotic and delusional breakthrough who’d “sired” her, naked sunlight would burn her like a blowtorch. But she sat across from me, up in the daytime and far away from her safe urban haunts.
“Hey,” she said. “Little Miss Sunshine can’t go watery on me.”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes. “And fiends of the night shouldn’t be up past their bedtimes. You still haven’t told me where you’ve been.”
She’d disappeared right after the public funeral for Atlas, Nimbus, and Ajax. All Blackstone would tell anybody was that she’d been “helping the DSA with an investigation,” and although she’d texted a few times she hadn’t spilled any details.
And she’d stayed strictly nocturnal since getting back two weeks ago. We hadn’t resumed our weekly outings to The Fortress, and we hadn’t really talked. About anything. I’d thought she’d been avoiding me. Which I could understand, since I had almost gotten her killed.
She read my face. “Hey. You didn’t drag me along—I volunteered, remember? Hell, I owed the Anarchist big-time. If that meant going into a daylight fight, my biggest problem with the way it turned out is I didn’t get a chance to shoot anybody. Not even a little.”
That surprised a laugh out of me.
“Better,” she said. “Want me to shoot a few newsies for you? Just a little?”
“Aagh.” I clutched my hair, sliding down in my chair. “Just a little. You’d think they’d leave me alone.”
“In what bizarro alternate world would they do that? After the Burnout scandal with all those underage ‘sidekicks’ last year? And we’re talking about Atlas, the Great American Hero? You can’t just show your birth-certificate, so the tabloids can claim you’re jailbait, and you’ve got to admit that the ten-year age difference between the two of you made it look a bit squicky.”
“Nine! Nine years! And I thought you were all for it.”
“I was. When you’re in The Life you carpe the diem when you can. I didn’t know Atlas well, but Blackstone didn’t even blink at the thought of you two. Chakra wouldn’t have cared if one of you was a duck, but if Blackstone had thought it the least hinky he’d have warned you away from it.”
“Then what did I do wrong?”
“Disappearing with Atlas for