He just stood there, quiet. Finally, “You’ll do what’s right. Even if you don’t like it.”
“Don’t be too surprised when you find out you’re wrong. Jingo gives me the creeps.”
I pulled a couple mugs out of the cupboard, peered inside them to make sure there wasn’t rock dust in there. Not that Stone shed or anything, but he was getting sneaky about putting away the things he played with while I was gone.
I poured us both coffee.
“Allie—”
“Yes, fine. I’ll tell him. Again.” Not that it will do me a damn bit of good, I thought. “And it’s time for us to go.”
I grabbed my heavy coat off the back of the door, because it was obviously freezing out there, and took the time to stuff my journal in the pocket. With coffee cups in hand, we left the apartment, locked the door, and were down the stairs and outside in short order.
We ducked inside Zay’s car and headed off. We both held on to our coffee cups tucked against our palms. It was cold, February still dipping below freezing, but not quite cold enough for ice. There was something about the cold in Oregon that sank in deep and didn’t let go.
“Maybe I’ll just talk to Shamus instead,” I said, carrying on the conversation from the kitchen.
“Shame can’t look in your head as well as Jingo Jingo can.”
“We don’t know that,” I said. “We haven’t tried.”
“True.” Zay took a drink of coffee.
I thought it over. Shamus was good. I had a hunch he was a lot better at Death magic than he liked people to know. The first time my dad, through my eyes, had seen Shamus, he’d said he was a master. I think the slouchy goth bit was just so he could get out of doing work. Stay beneath his mother’s notice, maybe, or stay beneath his teacher Jingo’s notice.
Shame could probably do the job, but he might not want to.
“Jingo Jingo is a good teacher,” Zay said.
“I didn’t say he wasn’t.” I drank coffee and stared at the wet city lights through the window. “I just don’t like him in my head.”
Zay nodded. “He is . . . thorough.”
I would have said creepy, dangerous, maybe even disturbed , but I still hadn’t figured out why Zayvion felt the need to defend him. Shamus willingly admitted to thinking Jingo Jingo was a freak. Zay kept any strong opinions about Jingo Jingo to himself. Of course, Zayvion kept most of his strong opinions to himself.
“I don’t think I can do much to help with the storm,” I said, switching subjects. “I’m probably the least trained out of everyone.”
“It isn’t just training that makes a person good with magic.”
“True. Blind stupidity and a high pain tolerance helps. Still don’t think I’m going to be all that useful.”
We were on the other side of the river at Maeve’s inn. The drizzle had let up, and the sky was covered by clouds turned webby and gray by the city lights. Zay parked near the tree line by the river.
He didn’t look at me, just stared out the window into the darkness. “You channeled the last wild storm. You tapped into its magic, and used it to heal me. And you didn’t die.”
Oh. Right. That. Magic had taken all my memories of that storm, but Nola—and later, Zayvion—had sort of filled me in on the basics. I may not have died, but I very nearly did. A month in a coma is not a successful magical event, though. I’d paid for that like hell.
“They’re not going to ask me to do that again, are they?”
He breathed in, his nostrils flaring. He still didn’t look at me, didn’t move. “I’m asking you not to do that again.”
I laughed, one hard choke. “Like I would.”
That wasn’t enough for him. He finally looked at me. “I’m asking you to not step in. Not to help. Even if you think you have to.”
I raised an eyebrow and opened my mouth, but he kept going.
“I know you’ll do whatever you want. But there will be many storms in the future. This is the first time you’ll be involved. The first time you’ll see what we can do when we all work together and what damage the storm can do, even if we’re at our best. I am asking—” He paused, thought it over. Maybe he noticed the challenge in my