how long I’d delayed dinner time. It was definitely time to eat.
I fit my key into the lock, singing to myself: “When the meal’s in sight, I’m gonna run all night, I’m gonna run to chew…”
I pushed open the door half expecting my new shadowkind roomies to be waiting on the threshold all but wagging their tails to see me home. Instead, the hall was vacant, the apartment totally silent, no movement even in what I could see of the kitchen.
For just a split second, my spirits lifted with the hope that the trio had changed their minds about the whole glomming-onto-Sorsha plan and gone off to pursue their rescue efforts on their own. Just a split second, because an instant later, three distinctive forms wavered out of the shadow cast by the front door like watercolor paints condensing into a sharpened image.
Pickle scampered out of my bedroom, saw the much larger shadowkind, and cringed before flinging himself the rest of the way toward me. I’d have been surprised he didn’t flee right into the shadows, except he’d gotten so attached to me that he stuck to his physical form all the time these days. I wasn’t sure he even remembered how to vanish into the darkness.
I scooped him up to set him on his preferred shoulder perch and eyed my obstinate guests. “You decided you’d rather lurk?”
Thorn was wearing the dour expression that seemed to come so naturally to his rugged face. He squared his broad shoulders as if his form wasn’t intimidating enough up close. “It’s much easier—and more discreet—for us to travel through the shadows.”
Snap’s moss-green eyes were lit with a neon sparkle. “Such a fascinating place,” he said with an errant flick of his tongue that, yes, I was sure now was slightly forked at the tip. “So many chairs—and what is the purpose of them swinging up?”
Chairs that swung up…? My stance tensed, Pickle’s claws jabbing my collarbone as he echoed my reaction. “You followed me to the theater?”
Thorn gave me a baleful look. “We could hardly ensure your protection if we stayed in the apartment when you’ve left it, m’lady.”
I’d definitely heard him right that time. “M’lady?”
“Excuse the archaics,” Ruse said with his typical amused smirk. “Our friend here hasn’t spent much time mortal-side since the Middle Ages.”
Thorn had said it so stiffly I got the impression he resented the honorific anyway, not that I’d required it. “Well, I’m not your lady,” I said to him. “And I told you I don’t need your protection. You can’t go sneaking around after people without them even knowing—”
Except they could, because they were shadowkind, and that was how they worked. Even now, in the face of my irritation, Thorn and Snap only appeared to be various degrees of puzzled. I had the feeling Ruse understood my protest, but that didn’t mean he sympathized. His smirk suggested the opposite.
“We didn’t interfere with your activities,” Thorn said. “I would like to know, though, what business that congregation of mortals has with the shadowkind.”
“And how were those images put on that wall?” Snap put in. “So large and—moving!”
He drew in a breath as if to exclaim more, but Thorn cut his gaze toward the slimmer man with a firm glower. Snap shut his mouth with an apologetic dip of his divine head.
Suddenly I was twice as annoyed as before. Who’d put Mr. Brawn in charge of any of us? If their “boss” had brought all three of them on, then no doubt the apparent sun god here was just as capable as the others no matter how much the mortal realm amazed him. I’d rather answer Snap’s awed questions than listen to Thorn’s demands for information.
“You should have been able to figure that out if you’d been paying any attention,” I said to the hulking guy, brushing past him on my way to the kitchen. They weren’t going to stop me from grabbing the dinner I’d been looking forward to, even if my enthusiasm had dwindled. “The Fund is an organization of mortals who are aware of the shadowkind’s existence and do what they can to help the creatures who’ve run into major trouble here. Whoever nabbed your boss, they’d be among the most likely to have heard something.”
I snatched a frozen dinner from the freezer and shoved it into the microwave. I definitely wasn’t in the mood for an extended cooking session right now.
The trio had followed me into the kitchen, Thorn in the lead. He folded his