A wide, beautiful smile broke out across Zayne’s face. He laughed, the sound deep and familiar and warm like sunshine, stealing my breath. That was another thing I didn’t know if I’d ever hear again. His laugh, and it was beautiful.

My lips twitched. “I have a feeling you’re laughing at me.”

“I just told you that I know that I’ve changed and I don’t know exactly how much, and all you can think about is that I have two swords and you only have one.”

“Well, yeah. That’s a big deal. I’m an envious kind of person.”

He laughed again, the sound lighting my whole chest. “Only you would respond that way.”

That could be true.

A warm breeze caught the strands of his hair, lifting them from his bare shoulders as he looked around. Come to think of it, the abnormal chill was gone from the air. It wasn’t unbearably hot or muggy, but it was far more seasonable.

I watched him, wondering if he had something to do with the weather. How strange would that be? But it couldn’t have been a coincidence that it had been twenty or more degrees cooler than normal up until he’d been restored—well, mostly restored—to who he’d been before.

“This is the...what—third demon that’s come for you? Have there been more?”

“It’s only been the Ghouls, the ones from the other night and this dork,” I told him, thinking it was probably best not to mention that two out of three times I left the house I’d had a run-in with a demon looking for me.

“Why isn’t Dez with you?”

“The Crone told me that a Warden or demon’s energy could mess with the spell.” I started to reach for my phone. “I should call him. Share the good news.”

“We can do that later. Right now I want to get you home.”

Home.

The new apartment that Zayne had barely spent any time in, where he’d placed glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling for me. Home. My chest squeezed. Before it was just walls and a roof with my clothing still half-packed away in luggage. The stars had made it feel more, but it wasn’t until now that it felt like a home.

Before I turned into a weepy mess all over again, I got my mind back on track. “Gabriel obviously knows where I am. He’ll come again.”

“But you won’t be alone then,” he said, and my heart turned into a gooey mess. “We may have to figure out somewhere else to stay if it becomes too much of a problem.”

I nodded. “The Transfiguration—wait, you weren’t there for that part of his extremely long-winded speech on how he plans to end everything.”