"Hi Cyrus, it's me. Carrie." I winced at how lame I sounded. "Listen, we got more news about what the Oracle is up to. I could really use your connection to Dahlia right now. But be careful with her, okay? I mean, I don't want her to know that you're looking for the information, because she'll know that I know that she's working for the Soul Eater."

I hesitated a minute before I hung up the phone. It's a shame they didn't make answering machines with a "never mind, erase that" feature.

"And maybe after that, you two can go to the soda fountain and get a milk shake," Nathan said without looking up from his book.

I wished I had something to throw at him.

We spent the rest of the night thumbing through texts. I'd become a bit fed up with this hurry-up-and-wait scenario. The sun came up just about the time my eyes were too tired to keep reading. "I'm sorry, but I have to go to bed."

Nathan closed the book he'd been thumbing through, and rubbed his eyes. "I'm right behind you."

As we climbed into bed, I'd never been more appreciative of the too-soft mattress and worn sheets. "You can go ahead and let me sleep through tomorrow night."

He flopped against the pillows with a loud groan. "No way. If I'm going to suffer through another night like this, so are you."

I snuggled against him, rubbing my face against his T-shirt. It was thoroughly bizarre, going to sleep with him like a normal couple. We'd spent so long trying to maintain our independence from each other that the only way we'd ever wound up sleeping in the same spot was if we got naked and sweaty together. Sleeping beside each other, with no sex involved, clothed in sleepwear, seemed more intimate than lying together in a naked tangle of limbs.

He must have sensed part of my thoughts through the blood tie, because he chuckled. "Don't get used to this. Now that I can finally have you without the inevitable guilt that I'm using you, you're not going to leave this bed for days."

It took me a minute to decipher his words in his sleep-thickened accent. "You felt guilty about using me?" I'd known he felt guilty,

"Oh, aye. I'm a Catholic. We feel guilty all the time." He reached up and clicked off the bedside lamp, muttered something, then fell onto the pillows and was instantly asleep.

Though Nathan had no trouble sleeping through the day, I hovered stubbornly on the edge of unconsciousness, trying to stay alert for Cyrus's call. Every noise or creak of the apartment woke me, and once I even stumbled from bed before realizing that the phone I heard ring had just been a dream.

Finally, because I feared my tense state was disturbing Nathan's rest, I wrapped up in his bathrobe and padded to the living room.