I waited for a couple of minutes while the boat was rocked by the waves of the lake. Now that we weren’t moving under power, I thought that they were rocking the boat to a really alarming degree, but I wasn’t going to be the one to start whimpering.

“Well?” Sanya demanded, about five seconds before I would have cracked. “What are we waiting for?”

“A signal,” Rosanna murmured. “I would as soon not tear out the boat’s bottom on rocks and drown us all, dear animal.”

I reached into my duster pocket and took out a chemical light. I tore it out of its package, snapped it, and shook it to life. Up sprang a greenish glow that lit up the immediate area well enough, considering how dark it had been for the past half an hour or so.

Rosanna turned to look at the light. Sometime during the trip her human form had changed, vanishing back into the shape of the scarlet-skinned, goat-legged, bat-winged demoness I had seen at the Aquarium. Her eyes, both the brown ones and the glowing green pair, focused on the chemical light, and she smiled, revealing white, delicately pointed fangs. “No magic, wizard? Are you so fearful about husbanding your strength?”

Out this far from shore, floating over this much water, it would have been difficult to put together a spell of any complexity—but I was sure Rosanna knew that as well as I did, if the flames I’d seen her tossing around back at the Shedd were any indication. It would have been a waste of energy I might need later. But I reminded myself about the ice water alleged to be in my veins.

“Mostly I just think the glow lights are fun,” I said. “Did you know that they used these things for the blood of the Predator in that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger?”

The smile faltered. “What are you talking about?”

“That’s the problem with you nearly immortal types,” I said. “You couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus.”

At the back of the boat, Sanya started coughing.

Rosanna stared at him for a moment, her eyes unreadable. Then the barest shadow of something mournful touched her features, and she turned away from him. She walked to the front of the boat and stood facing east into the darkness, her arms folded across her body in a posture of tightly closed insecurity, her wings wrapping around her like a blanket.

Sanya didn’t miss it. He’d been forcing himself to conceal a grin, but it faded into uneasy discomfort at Rosanna’s reaction. He looked like he was about to say something, then frowned and shook his head. He turned his face to stare out over the water. Large flakes of snow continued to drift down, flickers of crystalline green in the glow light. Michael started humming contentedly—“Amazing Grace.” He must have learned the song from some Baptists somewhere. He had a nice voice, rich and steady.