us to know the truth.”
“How far did the visions go?” I asked.
“Just around Rockabill. Caleb called Ryu and a few other contacts, and no one outside the town saw anything.”
“Did the humans?” I asked, horrified, and then I realized how inaccurate that question was.
“If you mean our nonmagical brothers and sisters, then yes. They did. But we’ve glamoured everyone to think that some addled hipsters from New York came and dumped LSD in the water. We’re stretching that story to cover the possessions, too.”
“Who came up with that? It’s terrible,” I said.
“Amy,” Anyan responded. “She likes to blame everything on drugs, ironically enough.”
“And hipsters,” I affirmed. “Anyway, so you know that we’re all just humans? But like mutated or whatever?”
He smiled at me. “I’ve always had a hunch.”
And then I remembered that night after my mom was murdered when he told me that I had to stay human, that all of us had to stay human. I thought he’d meant something all philosophical and hippie-dippie, but he was being literal.
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“Well, people like you, for starters. We couldn’t be all that different if we could breed together and make little Janes. Plus, I’ve seen others do what Carl’s done.” Carl was Capitola’s dad, who’d cut himself off from magic to die with his human wife.
“He’s just like a human, isn’t he?” I said.
“Exactly. Anyway, I had my theories.”
“And they were right,” I said, nuzzling my nose against that beautiful crooked thing protruding from the center of his face.
I left a big streak of black dirt on his flesh.
“I think I need a shower,” I said. Then I yawned.
“And bed,” he replied.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“For sleep, little minx” he said, smiling at me. But I could see the heat in his eyes.
He stood, still cradling me in his arms, and then headed upstairs. To be honest, I was grateful. As soon as we’d sat down together, and the warmth of his body had started to seep into my bones, I’d become unspeakably tired.
I did make sure my ax would be safe on his chair, and that his chair would be safe from my ax, before I let him whisk me away to his bathroom.
To my disappointment, he left me to my own devices to shower after rustling me up some towels and a toothbrush. I cleaned myself up thoroughly, depositing what appeared to be about ten tons of mud down Anyan’s drain, and then brushed my teeth and dried my hair as best I could before combing it out with my fingers and one of Anyan’s much-too-small combs.
And I was not at all disappointed to find, when I walked out of the shower wrapped in one of Anyan’s huge towels, what appeared to be a deliciously naked barghest waiting for me under the sheets. His room was dark, in a dark house, which held no one else.
No one who will need milk, I thought, shifting nervously on my feet.
I gaped at him for a moment or two, trying to resolidify my knees and make my mouth work.
“If this isn’t what you want, please tell me,” he said, his voice quiet in the dark room.
I took a deep breath, forcing my lungs to breathe. I hoped to say something elegant and sexy. Instead, I said:
“I want.”
Luckily, it worked. He smiled. I nearly swooned.
“Um, I forgot to borrow a shirt,” I said, not moving from the doorway to the bathroom.
“You don’t need a shirt,” he said, his voice low and gentle. “Come here.”
I walked toward him, feeling like my legs were made of wet noodle. When I was standing next to his side of the bed, he reached out a hand and slid it over my knee, up my thigh, to the edge of the towel. Then he tugged, gently.
“Off,” he commanded. I held on for dear life.
“Off,” he repeated, meeting my black eyes with his iron-gray ones. This time I let him tug the towel away from my body so that it pooled around my feet.
“C’mon in,” he said, scootching over to give me space.
I laid down next to him, but he wouldn’t let me pull up the sheet that, unfairly enough, covered the lower half of his body.
“You, my love, are a mess,” he said, as he ran his hand up my rib cage, causing me to wince.
“Huh?” I asked, looking down. Sure enough, he was right. Cleaning all the mud off had revealed a mass of bruises covering my torso, arms, and legs. A particularly