“Finding her is bigger than us right now,” I said.

“I know,” he said, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “And part of why I love you is that there’s no question you have to do this. And that you’d let me if our roles were reversed.”

“It’s what we do,” I said simply.

“I swear it, as soon as I feel like I can sneak out safely, I’ll come to you. You won’t be alone.”

I touched my heart. “I never am. I always feel you in here.”

He brought his lips down to mine in a long, exquisite kiss, the kind that sent heat all the way to my fingers and toes and made me very conscious of the fact that there was a bed behind us. I pulled back before we accidentally got distracted.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” I said, giving him one more hug. “And if all goes as planned, Jill will be with me.”

“If all goes as planned,” he countered, “we’ll get a call any minute now that whoever’s holding her has released her after the law change and she’s on her way home.”

I smiled at that, but there was no true joy in it. “That would be nice.”

We kissed again and returned to the others. I realized then that although Adrian and I were on good terms again, we hadn’t exactly resolved the fight from before. There were still a lot of issues to deal with—the biggest one being his continued flirtation with spirit. I’d missed my chance, and now I could only hope for the best with him.

Meanwhile, Ms. Terwilliger had already made herself busy converting our kitchen into a spell workshop. Bottles and bags of components were set out on the table, and she was busily boiling water on the stove. She sprinkled something into it, and the steam soon took on the fragrance of star anise.

“Good, good,” she said, barely looking up. “You’re back. Would you measure two teaspoons of that beetroot powder for me?”

I fell in beside her and had a brief sense of déjà vu. It was easy, momentarily, to feel like I had slipped back into those old days together. Not that they’d been exactly stress-free. Learning magic from her had been difficult both mentally and physically, and I’d always had the added pressures of my struggles with Adrian and the others. Still, the familiarity was nice, particularly since I’d missed this sort of magic-working. I still practiced but rarely cast anything of this magnitude here at Court. The spell she had in mind to make my escape work required both of us and a few hours of labor. Adrian and the others tried to distract themselves as best they could, and Eddie left once to grab an overnight bag, since none of us knew exactly what would happen in Pittsburgh.