Gary was my older half brother. My very-much-older half brother who was smitten with Honey and had made no bones about it—he wasn’t, strictly speaking, a bad guy. On the other hand, he wasn’t a poster child for the heavenly choir, either.

Honey flushed, raised her chin, and said, “Like Gary. Are we mediators? A hotel for the night? And how will we deal with expenses?”

“Do you really think that it’s going to get that big?” I said, taken aback. “I was looking upon it more like a line in the sand. A ‘this is our territory and we will defend it’ rather than a clarion call of blanket protection for anyone who wanted to show up.”

She examined me with a small smile. “Who knows?” she said. “I was just trying to distract you from your intention of cornering Adam in a private place and ripping him a new one. I figured it would be easier for me to do it than whatever Warren had planned.”

Warren grinned at her, but when he turned to me, his face was sober. “He had to do it, Mercy. I’m surprised he let it go this long, but he was worried that you would run if he stepped in too soon.”

That startled me. “Did he tell you that?” I asked.

“Today,” Warren said. “Darryl and me both, while he was getting fixed up. And Zack, too, I guess, because Zack also needed repairs. You were a tough hunt for him. He had to all but turn himself inside out not to scare you away.” He looked up at the ceiling, then he looked at Honey. “The rest of this conversation is private, I think. You’ve distracted her from her panic, thank you.”

Honey nodded her elegant head and left, the foggy shape of her dead husband’s ghost followed her. Peter was fading now, I thought with sad satisfaction. It wasn’t safe for the living to cling too hard to the dead; it pulled the living in the wrong direction.

She shut the door behind her.

Warren closed his eyes a moment, and I felt when the pack magic slid back into place, locking us into a private space where no one could overhear.

When he opened his eyes, they were yellow, but that faded. “When you found me alone all those years ago and sent me to Adam, I thought that it would be the usual talk—don’t get in our way, don’t make a stink, and we might not come for you some night and run you out of our territory.”

“That’s not Adam,” I said.