She realized what she’d been doing and slowly put her hand back on the railing. “Stupid things…I guess I’m just extra sensitive about doing things out of character. I’m afraid they might, I don’t know, change me. They’re not inert. They’ve saved my life, but they’ve never talked to me before.”

“Talked?” That was alarming.

She shrugged. “No words or anything like that, but the marks woke me up. They warned me about the monster’s presence this morning. I could tell they wanted me to be ready.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Julie…”

“Look at the timeline. I had to have woken us up the instant the Nachtmar appeared. It was like…I don’t know, like it was aware. Like it wanted me to go fight. They’re telling me things now. Are they progressing? Changing?” So far there had only been benefits to the Guardian’s magic, but in this business we had plenty of examples of how gifts from the other side worked out, and they seldom ended well.“I don’t know. What does it mean?”

I could sense her distress. I put my arm over her shoulder, pulled her close, and rested my lips on her forehead. “It means we’re lucky to have you.”

“Thanks.”

“Everything would’ve been a whole lot worse if we’d been caught with our pants down. Even then, only half of us actually had pants. Except for Milo’s footy jammies. I still don’t know what the hell to think of those.”

That finally made Julie smile a tiny bit. She put her arm around my waist and the two of us spent the next minute in silence watching the army below that would be killing us in twenty-three hours. “I’m just scared is all.”

“That’s normal.”

Now she did laugh, but it was a bitter one. “Now being scared about being quarantined with a monster would be normal. That doesn’t bug me in the slightest. All these people in danger, and I’m scared about being cursed. Go figure. Maybe I’m selfish.”

“Says the woman who risks her life daily protecting the clueless. Look, I’m okay with selfish. Selfish keeps you alive longer, and I want you around for a long time.”

“I suck at being selfish.” Julie sighed. “Have them send somebody up to replace me. I’ll go herd cats.”

“Thanks, hon. Just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“Keep me in the loop about this stuff. If anything else weird happens, I want to know right away,” and as I made that request, Julie stiffened against me. “What? I just want to help.”

“Nothing.” Julie slowly relaxed. “Anything else happens, I’ll tell you, I promise.”

Trip held up one fist, the signal to halt. I froze in place. “You hear that?”