“Glad to hear it,” Garth said with a dry laugh. “Alright, I should go. My family’s going to be disappointed, but . . .” He sighed. “I made this girl a promise . . .”

Eye roll number three. In the kitchen, I could hear Nik choking on a laugh. I’d forgotten he was in there. Flustered, I quickly ended the call, stood, and marched into the kitchen, where Nik was in the process of washing the dishes. “You’re such an ass-turd,” I said, then chucked the phone at him.

He caught it with wet, soapy hands, easy peasy, his expression all concealed amusement. “As opposed to all those other kinds of turds?”

“Har har.” I leaned my hip against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest and tossing out eye roll number four. Apparently I was going for a record.

“You should get some rest.” Nik tucked a plate into a free slot in the dishwasher. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even had enough dirty dishes to warrant using the dishwasher. “Take the bedroom. I’ll grab some shut-eye out here.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Did you really just offer me my bed?” Shaking my head, I pushed off the counter and headed for the bathroom to brush my teeth before crashing. “Barely here a week, and you’re already acting like you own the place . . .”

He laughed quietly as I walked away, and the sound was unexpectedly reassuring. Having him at my side meant the world to me. It meant that maybe, just maybe, my plan would work. I couldn’t help but smile. Just a little.

“Almost done,” I mumbled around the cap to my second-most-faded black Sharpie. Chewing on the plastic helped me focus, allowing me to think less and let the electric hum the universe was channeling through me take over. My knees ached from kneeling on hardwood for so long, but I pushed through the pain.

I was almost done with the gateway, just in the process of shading the glare on the polished composite floor in the lobby of the offices on the sixtieth floor of the Columbia Center, the Ouroboros Corporation’s Seattle base of operations. The lobby was the closest place to the boardroom that I’d ever been, and I’d never tried to create a gateway to somewhere entirely new to me. I wasn’t sure the magic would work if I didn’t already have some frame of reference. And now certainly wasn’t the time to test the extent of my gateway-creating power.

“That was fast,” Nik said from the kitchen. He was fixing grilled cheese and tomato soup for our pre-ambush lunch. “Just under forty minutes,” he added, sounding impressed.

The corner of my mouth lifted in the tiniest of smiles. I squashed my peacocking pride and refocused on the drawing on the hallway wall. In less than a minute, that extra-powerful zing of otherworldly energy pulsed through me, and the drawing bled to life. Janelle, the icy receptionist I’d grappled wills with last week, sat behind the long, curved reception desk, fingers clacking away on a computer keyboard as she spoke into her headset. Something about making sure everything was in place for the meeting. Apparently there would be bagels and fruit. Oh . . . and donuts!