“You can deplete yourself really quickly. Or, if you take too much in and don’t offload it somehow, that can be dangerous,” she said. “Any sort of energy work puts stress on your body—your cardiovascular system, your nervous system, your organs. Generally speaking, with the jobs I’m usually working? It’s pretty minor. A slight increase in heart rate and blood pressure that you can cancel out with the right teas and meditation. Or if that fails, chocolate usually does the trick for me.”

“That makes sense,” he agreed. “Everybody who tries to get too close to it ends up in a six-month coma while they heal from the internal trauma caused by . . . whatever the hell the rift is made of. The closest we magique can get to it is about three hundred yards. Humans? You can get five hundred or so.”

“You might be surprised how close I can get. But I will be careful, I promise. With a case like your rift, the physical side effects could be, well, fatal. Someone could stroke out pretty easily if they didn’t prepare themselves. Someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing could end up dead. I don’t mess around with that.”

Something in Dani’s pocket beeped. She pulled out a chunk of glass and plastic considerably thicker than the average smart phone, and seemed to be checking her text messages. “Sorry, it’s my aunt. Just some family business.”

“You’re getting texts? How do you get a phone signal all the way out here?”

Dani held the phone up for his inspection. It was an ugly, utilitarian thing, without any of the cute little touches women tended to pretty up their phones with, no decorative case, no apps, no photo background, nothing. “Satellite phone. You travel around the world long enough, you learn the tricks. I can make a call from the Amazon River basin and you’d think I was calling you from the next room.”

Zed cringed. “I’m suddenly afraid of what will happen if you and Jillian become friends. You know too much about too many things. If you organized, you’d be dangerous.”

“Reasonable response.”

“Well, good, now, how about I take you into town? Get some pie, recharge your witch-y cells?” Zed stood, offering her his hand to help her up. Even with assistance, her legs were pretty wobbly and she stumbled forward like a baby deer, face first into Zed’s T-shirt. Zed caught her arms but not before her full weight fell against his body. She was so soft. The last couple of girls he’d dated had been all sharp angles and bone. It was nice to pull a warm, soft shape against him. He wanted to burrow against her and press his face against the curve of her hip. But that would probably be considered forward, definitely not something you did before the first date.