“Yeah. I was kinda proud of that one, myself.”

She huffed out a quiet breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and leaned her cheek down onto my hand. “The stupid part,” she said, “is that he isn’t interested in…in getting serious. We get along. We have fun together. For him, that’s enough. And it’s so stupid for me to get hung up on him.”

I didn’t think it was all that stupid. Murph didn’t want to get too close, let herself be too vulnerable. Kincaid didn’t want that kind of relationship either—which made him safe. It made it all right for her to care.

It also explained why she and I had never gotten anywhere.

In the event that you haven’t figured it out, I’m not the kind of person to be casually involved in much of anything.

I couldn’t fit any of that into words, though. So I just leaned down and kissed the top of her head gently.

She shivered. Her tears made wet, cool spots on the back of my hand. I knelt. It put my head more or less on level with hers, where she sat beside the bed. I put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against me. I still didn’t say anything. For Murph, that would be too much like I was actually in the room, seeing her cry. So she pretended that she wasn’t crying and I pretended that I didn’t notice.

She didn’t cry for long. A couple of minutes. Then her breathing steadied, and I could feel her asserting control again. A minute more and she sat up and away from me. I let her.

“They said you were under the influence,” she said, her tone calmer, more businesslike. “That someone had done something to your head. Your apprentice said that. But Michael didn’t want to say anything in front of the other wizard, I could tell. And no one wanted to say anything in front of me.”

“Secrets get to be a habit,” I said quietly. “And Molly was right.”

Murphy nodded. “She said that we should listen for the first words out of your mouth when you woke up. That if something had messed with your mind, your subconscious might be able to communicate that way, while you were on the edge of sleep. And you told us to listen to her.”

I thought about it and pursed my lips. “Huh. I did. Guess I’m smarter than I thought.”

“They shouldn’t have suspected you,” Murphy said. “I’m a paranoid bitch, and I gave up suspecting you a long time ago.”

“They had a good reason,” I said. I took a slow breath. It was hard, but I forced the words out. “Nicodemus threw one of those coins at Michael’s kid. I grabbed it before the kid could. And I had a photocopy of a Fallen angel living in my head for several years, trying to talk me into picking up the coin and letting the rest of it into me.”