"If she can't go with me, she has to go alone. You've already made it clear you don't like that option, either." Cyrus sighed. "Neither do I. But it is our best option."

"Cyrus—" I began, but he cut me off.

"I'm still susceptible to him" He looked down, as if ashamed. "He's a very… charismatic man."

"She managed to fight off your charms for a while, anyway. Maybe she has a chance against him." Nathan sounded resigned and very, very unhappy. "I've got to go downstairs and open the shop. If you promise not to be trouble, the two of you can come down and help me find the ingredients for these spells. Carrie, you'll have to practice."

He sounded like a music instructor. Practice! As if I could practice for something so dangerous. In fact, the less I thought about it, the less likely it would be that I would back out.

"Fine. You two see what you can do. I'll rejoin you shortly." Cyrus issued his proclamation with the air of someone who knew exactly how to order people around.

"What are you going to do? Wish us luck?" I planted my hands on my hips.

"No, I'm going to take a shower. Unlike others in this apartment, I don't let personal hygiene fall by the wayside when catastrophe strikes." He nodded to Nathan and me and disappeared down the hallway.

Nathan said very little as we walked down to the shop. He unlocked the door, and I stepped inside and waited for him to turn on the lights. I never touched the switches behind the counter. They always gave me static shocks.

The banks of fluorescents clicked and buzzed, illuminating the store from the back to the front. I blinked against the changing light and headed toward the counter.

On the floor behind the glass display cases containing gaudy pentacles and ridiculously expensive crystal wands, I spied a sleeping bag. Nathan stooped down and began rolling it up. I watched for a moment, until he glanced up and asked, "Well, are you going to give that spell a look?"

"You've been sleeping here ?" I winced, imagining what the hard wooden floor would have done to my back had I been in his place.

He zipped the sleeping bag with great purpose. "It's not permanent. I'm not going to just hand my apartment over to you."

"I would never ask you to." My fingers flexed on the edge of the countertop. "I never asked you to."

There was a long silence. When Nathan looked at me again, his eyes were rimmed with red. "Why him, Carrie?"

My voice caught in my throat. "Would it have been better if it was someone else?"

"No." He didn't turn away, just kept staring at me with an intensity that burned. "No, it wouldn't have been."