"I will, I will. Now go."
She went. I reached out for Tao's hand, wincing a little at the heat of his fingers. How it wasn't actually killing him I had no idea.
I spent the next hour simply talking to him—updating him on the restaurant and everything that was going on with the keys and our search for the mysterious third man behind the consortium. Maybe he heard, maybe he didn't, but in the end that really wasn't important. He was in there somewhere, and I just wanted him to hear my voice and know that we were near, waiting for him.
Ilianna returned just after two o'clock. She looked flushed and happy, and I very much suspected she'd gone home to see Mirri, her partner. Her apartment was only fifteen minutes away, if that.
"Feeling better?" I asked, amusement teasing my lips.
"Totally," she said, dumping her purse beside her chair before sitting. "I'm so glad you forced me to go eat."
"I hope you actually did remember to eat," I said dryly. "Otherwise I'm going to tell Mirri off."
She briefly looked startled, then chuckled softly. "I should have known a little afternoon delight would not escape the attention of a werewolf."
"Not when you're wearing such a satisfied smile. How's Mirri doing?"
"Good." She made a face. "But she's on nights all this week."
I frowned. "I thought there was some rule against giving mares too many night shifts?" Apparently because mares—which, like their animal counterparts, was what female horse-shifters were called—coped worse than most shifters when it came to nights. Something to do with their being more day balanced than night—whatever the hell that meant. Certainly Ilianna coped well enough with night shifts at the café, but then I guess she never did more than two nights in a row, since we rationed them out among the three of us. Or had, until Tao's incident with the fire elemental. These days, it was mostly me, with trusted staff filling in for both Ilianna and Tao.
"There is, but with the ongoing strike, they're running on skeleton staff to cover essential areas, and Mirri's number came up." She shrugged. "It's only for five days, then she's got five off. She'll be fine."
"Hopefully the strike will end before then." The government surely couldn't keep cutting nursing numbers and expect the hospitals to keep providing the same level of care. But there again, this was the government we were talking about. I was sure none of our elected officials actually lived in the real world.
"What are your plans for the rest of the day?" Ilianna asked.
"I'm working tonight, so I might just go home and grab some sleep."