That night, the little sign behind the cash register, which she hadn’t noticed at all during her earlier visit, suddenly seemed to leap out at her. APARTMENT DOWNSTAIRS FOR RENT, with no other information. “It was waiting for the right person to read it,” Lemuel had said afterward, and Olivia believed that was so.

They hadn’t become lovers right away. They were both cautious people, even when biology and inclination were herding them in the same direction. It was like they took their honeymoon first, their time of learning each other, in a bubble large enough only for two.

Lost in remembering something rare, Olivia only came back to the pawnshop and the little boy when the Rev said, “When is Lem coming back, Olivia?” That was very direct, for the Rev.

Olivia said, “He’s taken those books and gone to consult friends of his. Right now he’s in New York.” She didn’t spell it out; the magic books, the ones Lemuel had been searching for in the pawnshop all those years, had been found by Bobo by sheer accident, and Lemuel was having a wonderful time looking through them. But some had been in a language so ancient Lemuel didn’t have a clue as to how to translate the text, so off he’d gone, the first time he’d left Midnight for any length of time in over a hundred years.

She hadn’t offered to go with him. He’d have asked her to go if he’d wanted her to, and though she’d hoped, and mentally shifted her obligations around just in case, he hadn’t mentioned it.

The Rev waited, expectant.

“I don’t know when he’ll return,” she said calmly. “When he’s done what he set out to do, I suppose.”

“Can you call him?”

“I can, but I won’t,” she said. “He’s having a great time, and he deserves it.”

She did not know that at all. She had heard from Lem only twice since his departure: once after he’d found no help in Atlanta, and again when he’d tracked down a possible translator in Minnesota, who’d not been able to help but had referred him to a vampire in New York.

She had told herself that to Lemuel, a week was like a moment. To her, it was like a week. Or two. And she had reminded herself that he did not like the telephone, though he knew how to use it. Lemuel had a cell phone, and from it he had texted her briefly at each stop. Nothing else.