He stared at the brand of light she held.

“This is the tracking glyph. I’m not sorry I did it—if not for this, Kos would be dead and so would you. But I understand why you’re angry.” The next bit was hard to say. “I had to depend on myself for a long time. I got used to being right, or thinking I was, because if I doubted myself I’d break. And rightness always felt like this all-or-nothing thing. It’s much easier to think everything I’ve done is justified than that I’ve done wrong things for right reasons. I don’t regret what I did. But I apologize for it.” She tore the glyph in half. It disintegrated, and the sparks swirled back up her fingers and through her skin.

“I understand,” he said.

“How can I find you if I need you?”

“Go to a rooftop at night. Speak my name. I will come.”

He spread his wings. Their wind made her blink, and when she recovered he was a curve of arched and moonlit stone, rising.

Okay, she told the moon. I have to admit, that was pretty cool.

She had documents to read, contracts to hunt, records to trace. But those could wait for morning, and she’d best catch what rest she could before time started running fast. She went below, and after a while she slept, with a goddess’s laughter in her dreams.

*   *   *

Donna was waiting when Matt came home. The boys were in bed and, speaking of miracles, asleep. Donna hugged him. “I heard.” She didn’t say from whom. She looked at his bandage, not underneath it, and pressed her temple hard to his, opposite the wound. She smelled of sage.

Before he could reply, she slipped from his arms and turned to the Rafferty girls, offering drinks, blankets, taking their threadbare coats. The teakettle cried from the kitchen and she swept back bearing a tray of mugs of chamomile and honey with a drop of whiskey in each. Ellen and Hannah accepted. Claire refused the tea, asked for water instead. Sandy Sforza waited by the front door, out of the way. Matt got her a beer. She drank half as Donna woke Peter and hustled him to his brother’s room—the oldest gives the most, Donna said when Peter groaned. The girls would have Peter’s bright green room, with its narrow bed and a low bookshelf that bore only textbooks and a heavy rubber sphere for ullamal. The bed slept one; Donna made Hannah a pallet on the floor with good blankets and a stiff pillow. Claire took the couch.

“You’re okay,” Sandy said. Matt didn’t know if it was a question, but he answered yes anyway. “I can’t stomach the rest of this.” She passed the beer back, gave him an open half hug to spare her ribs where Corbin had hit them.