“Good. To answer your question, almost never. But we’re in a hurry.”

There were high spots of color on her cheeks—technically cheek since he could only see one. On the bright side: at this speed they’d be there soon. On the other side, the less bright side: any idiot knew that the more energy burned, the faster it ran out.

He had to distract her or at least slow her down. “The other reason I was so jumpy . . .”

“Jumpy?”

“When you played pop goes the weasel . . .”

“Wizard.”

“Whatever. . . . in my apartment was that I’d just had a dream.”

The eyebrow he could see, waggled.

“Not that kind of a dream. A bad dream. I dreamed that the shadow was back in control and it took me through the gate.”

“To Oz?”

“To a room. It looked like a schoolroom or maybe a lab. There were books and blackboards with, I don’t know, equations covering . . .” When Arra hit the brakes, he realized distraction was relative. He tightened his grip as the car fishtailed across the wet asphalt and into a Timmy’s parking lot.

When the squealing stopped—and he was 99% sure the squealing had come from the tires—when the only sound was the rain on the roof and the swish/click of the windshield wipers, Arra turned to face him and said, “Were there more than equations on the blackboards?”

Their eyes were open and their expressions suggested they’d been alive for a very long time after they’d been nailed to the walls.

“Yeah.”

“People?” The steering wheel creaked under her hands.

Tony nodded.

She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again, he knew he wouldn’t have to describe what he’d seen. She’d seen it, too. “You weren’t dreaming. Those were images the shadow left behind. While it controlled you, you touched its memory.”

“I touched?”

“Yes. It explains why the shadow-stain is stronger on you than the others.”

Shadow-stain. Fucking great. Excuse me while I go home and soak my soul in cold water. And then he realized . . . “So that . . . what I saw, it was real?”

“Yes.”

“Who were they?”

“The last two members of my order who stood to face the Shadowlord.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything.”

“That was . . .” He sighed and sank back against the seat. “Forget it.”

A light touch on his arm drew his attention back to the other side of the car. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” He shrugged. “They were your friends.”

“Yes.” A simple acknowledgment carrying an emotional payload that filled the car like smoke.

Because he couldn’t look at her and because he had to do something, he checked his watch. Crap. 10:40. He’d just wanted to distract her, slow her down, not bring her back to a complete stop. “Arra, we have to get going or we won’t get to the gate in time.”