“What, you’re going?” Eve called from the top of the stairs, and jumped down past Claire in her eagerness to get to the bottom. “You can’t! Kim, we need to run lines and stuff!”

“No, Shane’s right. It’s really late. How about tomorrow? I can meet you at Common Grounds—how about three? You’re working until about then, right?”

“Yeah,” Eve said. She still sounded disappointed.

“Sure, that’s okay. Hey—you want to go out tomorrow night? Maybe catch a movie? Um—Claire, you want to go, too?”

Great. She was officially an also-invited. “No thanks,” she said. “I’ve got plans.”

“Seriously? What?”

Claire looked at Shane, and he took one for the team. “Dinner with me,” he said. “It’s kind of an anniversary.”

“Awwww, really? That’s so sweet!” Eve leveled a finger at him. “Do not take her to the chili dog place.”

“A real restaurant. With tablecloths. Hey, I’m not a complete idiot.”

Kim stared at Shane, and in that moment, Claire realized this wasn’t just an act. . . . Kim really did like Shane—a lot.

She recognized pain when she saw it.

“So,” Eve said, and turned to Kim. “Movies, right? Something scary?”

Kim got herself together before Eve could see the same thing Claire had noticed. “Sure,” she said. “What ev. You pick. No girly movies.”

Eve looked deeply offended. “Me? Girly movies? Bite your tongue off. No, seriously. Right now.”

Kim laughed, and Eve walked her to the door. Claire said to Shane, “Anniversary?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Depends on how you count things,” he said. “Yeah. It’s got to be some kind of anniversary. Probably of one of us not getting killed.”

Michael said, “Speak for yourself, man.” He picked up the controller and restarted the game. “I can’t believe you almost let her win.”

“Man, I almost let you win sometimes,” Shane said, and dropped into his spot on the other end of the couch. “Game on.”

Chapter 7

7

The next day, Claire sat through classes without any real sense of accomplishment, took a quiz—which she aced—and dropped in on Myrnin’s lab around noon. It looked neat and clean again, which was two miracles in a row as far as she was concerned. She went to the bookshelves and started looking over journals, trying to find the most recent ones, although those would be the most difficult to figure out, given that most of his notes would have been taken when he was sick, and mostly crazy.

But she was curious.

She was struggling through last summer’s book when Myrnin popped in through the portal, wearing a big floppy black hat and a kind of crazy/stylish pimp coat that covered him from neck to ankles, black leather gloves, and a black and silver walking stick with a dragon’s head on it.