“I’m just a little tired.”

“You look like shit. You should not be here. Go home.”

Blunt, but accurate.

Apparently Arra thought so, too. “I think I will.” Rummaging in the pocket of her raincoat, she pulled out her car keys. “Tony, you’re driving.”

“Sure.” He ignored Sorge’s dramatically raised eyebrow and obvious assumption—Hello, gay! And she’s old enough to be my grandmother so eww—and fell into step beside the wizard. Her fingers closed around his arm. He bent it up and a step later was holding about half her weight. As soon as they were far enough away so they wouldn’t be overheard, he bent toward her and murmured, “Are you okay?”

“Maintaining that glamour took about all I had left.”

Tony paused as she staggered and walked on a little more slowly.

“It’s been too long since I’ve been what I am. Too long since I shaped a world’s energy to my personal use. I shouldn’t have wasted all that power this morning.”

He shrugged, carefully so as not to dislodge her. “Everyone has shouldn’ts. You drag them around with you, they just weigh you down.”

They were at the back door. She patted his arm as she released him. “You’re a good kid.”

“I’m twenty-four.”

Her turn to shrug. “I’m a hundred and thirty-seven.”

“No shit?”

“If you’re asking about my bowel movements, that’s none of your damned business.” She reached up and tore a taped piece of paper off the wall. “Here, you’ll need this tonight.”

It was the new code numbers for the lock.

“You know, I was thinking . . .”

Arra snorted. “Well, it’s a start.”

“. . . if one of the shadow-held showed up to use the gate, they wouldn’t be able to get in. You know—new code . . .” He waved the paper and shoved it in his back pocket. “New front door lock. And if they didn’t know about the carpenter’s door . . .” Fuck. “Except it was open.”

“I closed it behind me.”

“Okay, then. They couldn’t get in, so they could still be out in the parking lot.” He threw open the door. The sun had come out, puddles sparkled, and a pair of pigeons stared up at him with vapid avian indifference. “Or not.”

“Or they could be returning to their car,” Arra allowed. “You’d better run and check. I’ll follow as fast as I can.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be better if I can kick shadow ass.”

“But you look . . .”

“Go!”

So he went. The pigeons took flight, their shadows trailing earthbound behind them.

There were half a dozen vehicles in the parking lot and an unshaven man in damp, rumpled clothes about to get into one of them.

“Hartley!”

The boom operator didn’t even look up. Fortunately, the car locks seemed to be giving him a little trouble.