I withdrew my hand from his chest. “You should have told me.”
He levered himself upright on the couch. “Daisy, I swear, if I’d had any idea Emmeline was going to show up here, I would have told you sooner. I thought we had all the time in the world.”
“I know.” I blew out my breath. “But we didn’t and we don’t. We have one month to figure out how to keep your evil twin sister from setting a duppy on you. By the way, is that four weeks or a calendar month? Because it would be helpful—”
“Emmy’s not evil.” Sinclair cut me off, then backtracked, trying to lighten the mood. “Sorry. Look, did you ever see Legend? Vintage Tom Cruise? Ridley Scott film? Without darkness, there can be no light, right?”
“Of course I saw Legend!” I shouted at him, my temper flaring unexpectedly. I’d kept it on a tight rein for too long. “And I don’t need any lectures about light and darkness! What do you think I struggle with every day? And let me tell you, evil or not, your sister isn’t making it any easier!”
The air pressure in the living room intensified at my abrupt emotional shift. Dangling scraps of half-stripped wallpaper shivered.
“Daisy, I know,” Sinclair said in a low voice, calm and soothing. “Look, it’s one of the things I like about you. You may have been conceived in darkness, but you’re always struggling toward the light. I admire that. A lot.”
My anger dissipated. “Thanks,” I muttered. “Credit my mom.”
“I do,” he said. “Are you kidding, girl? I envy you your mother. I wish I had one like her.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s just . . . I need time to process this, all right? It’s a lot to spring on a person, Sinclair.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
And that was how we left matters. We talked a bit longer about pragmatic issues like meeting with the Fabulous Casimir to discuss studies in the magical arts, and the fact that Sinclair was really going to need a car to get around before winter and probably a part-time job to supplement his income in the off season, and maybe should consider taking in a roommate to help with the rent even though it was cheap on account of the work he was doing to improve the place, and whether the deadline for dear Emmy’s ultimatum meant four weeks from today or the same date in October, because I really did want to be prepared. Sinclair guessed it was the latter, but he wasn’t sure.
When I left, Sinclair walked me to the door and kissed me good-bye, his lips lingering briefly on mine. It was one of those indeterminate kisses that could mean anything or nothing depending on what I wanted to make of it, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about a lot of things.
Which did not include the pebble that stung my ear as I walked toward my Honda. That just plain hurt.
“Dammit, Jojo!” Clapping my hand to my ear, I whirled around, looking for her. “I thought we had a truce!”
She darted out from behind the slender trunk of a ginkgo tree, sling in hand. “Who said aught about a truce, you whey-faced scullion?”
I winced. “I assumed it.”
A look of disdain flitted across the fairy’s face. “You know what they say, lackwit. ‘Assume’ makes an ass of ‘u’ and ‘me.’ Although in this instance,” she added judiciously, “I’ll allow it’s merely you.”
“Okay, look.” I held up both hands, spreading my fingers in a universal gesture of peace. “I’m calling a truce. Can we talk for a minute? It’s about Sinclair’s sister.”
Jojo lowered her sling and tilted her head, regarding me. The afternoon sunlight angled into her cat-slitted eyes, turning them an eerie and luminous hue of lavender. “I am listening.”
“She’s leaving,” I said. “But she’ll be back in a month’s time. And you’re right—she wants to take Sinclair away. I want to stop her. And I want to know the minute she crosses the threshold into Hel’s territory. Can you help keep a lookout for her?”
The fairy sniffed. “I cannot be in all places at once.”
Funny, because it certainly seemed that way to me. The laws of physics appeared to be mutable when it came to the fey. “I thought maybe your brethren and, um, sistren could help.” Was sistren a word? I hoped so. Mr. Leary would know.
“I will ask,” Jojo said grudgingly. “None among us wishes him to