glared at it in the bathroom mirror and decided on a hot bath and something tasty for dinner.
As I was laying out tomatoes and onions, the better to make some homemade Mexican food, the doorbell rang. I put the chopping knife down and tapped Sarah on the shoulder. She was sitting at the small kitchen table next to the water-rippled patio door, cutting tags off of her precious new acquisitions.
"Chop now," I said. "Clothes maintenance later."
She gave me an absolutely childish pout, but got to it. Sarah had taken culinary classes; it was one of those things you do in California when you're rich and bored. I paused on the way to the door to watch her take my knife and start a rapid-fire slice-and-dice of the tomato, as competent as any sushi chef.
The bell rang again. I sighed and pushed my curling hair back from my face.
Still damp. I used a tiny spark of power to evaporate the moisture, was rewarded with dry hair and a white-blue static discharge from my fingers to the doorknob when I reached to touch it.
"Who is it?" I yelled, and pressed my eye to the peephole.
My heart did that funny little thumpy thing at the sight of the tall, brown-haired man standing out in the hall, hands jammed in the pockets of his blue jeans. I unzipped the chain and swung the door wide with a genuine smile.
"Lewis!"
"Hi," he said, and came forward to fold me in a hug. He had to stoop a little to do it, and I wasn't all that short; where he touched me I got that familiar sensation of vibration, of energy feeding and building up between us. Lewis was, without any doubt, the single most powerful Warden I'd ever known. A friend.
More than a friend, that would be fair to say... if it hadn't been for David, probably a lot more. He fascinated me, and frightened me, too. He'd saved me and betrayed me and saved me again... complicated, that was my boy Lewis.
"What the hell happened to you?" I asked.
"What?" He stepped back, blinking.
"Last time I saw you, you looked like warmed-over death," I said, and studied him more carefully. He actually looked as if he'd gotten some sun and discovered food again. "Remember? Lobby of the hotel in Nevada? You were still-"
"Shaky," he supplied, and nodded. "I'm better."
"How?"
He gave me one of those smiles. "Earth Warden." He shrugged. "Rahel helped it along. I heal pretty quickly when I need to."
"I'm glad. I was worried," I said, and couldn't quite keep the smile from my face. He just had that effect on me. "Oh, try not to say anything, you know, confidential. I have company."
Lewis cocked an eyebrow toward the ceiling as he shut the door. "Male company?"
"Female. As in, sisterly."
"I forgot you had a sister."
"I spent most of my life trying to forget, too. But she's family, and she needs a little-help. So I'm helping. You said something about Rahel helping you. Is she-are you-um-"
"She's fine," he said, which wasn't an answer, and he knew it. Lewis wasn't one to talk about his personal life, even to me. "David?" Equal parts genuine concern and irony. He and David liked each other well enough, but Lewis and I had history, and David knew it. "Doing better?"
I cut my eyes toward the kitchen, where the sound of chopping went on, opened my mouth to reply, and was interrupted by Sarah yelling, "Jo! Is that Eamon?"
Which stopped me in my tracks for a second. I held up one finger to Lewis and backtracked a couple of steps to look around the corner at Sarah, who was finishing up chopping the tomato and sliding the mathematically perfect cubes into a bowl. "Excuse me?" I asked. "Why would it be Eamon at the door, exactly?"
She glanced up, then set the bowl aside and made herself busy rinsing off the cutting board of tomato blood before putting the onion on the chopping block.
"Did you tell Eamon where I live?" I pressed.
"Well, you know, I gave him my phone number and-"
"Did you tell Eamon where I live?"
She pulled her lovely, ripe lips into a stubborn line and started attacking the onion. "I live here, too," she said defensively.
"Wrong. You're staying here, and Jesus, Sarah, you barely unpacked and you're already giving out