It was Tony’s turn to stare for that long moment. Arra seemed to be doing her best to make him believe that she wouldn’t be sitting here if she’d only known it had gotten that bad. Just another lie to make it easier to live with herself. With what she’d done. Lie to yourself if you have to, but leave me out of it. “Don’t give me that crap. You had to have felt him come through the gate this morning. You couldn’t have missed that kind of an energy . . .” There was a word. He couldn’t think of it. “. . . thing. You had to have known he was here while you were moping around getting sand in your knickers.” And drawing gate patterns with a stick, he realized suddenly. Reaching out in front of her, he rubbed them out with the side of his hand. “What you might not know is that the moment you open the gate, he’ll know where you are and he’ll be on you like a dirty shirt.”

“And you know so much, Mr. Smart-ass!” She shook her head, looking old as the burst of anger faded. “As it happens, you’re right; he’ll know, but he won’t be able to manipulate enough energy to jump here.”

“He doesn’t have to.” Tony pointed at a gull’s shadow skimming over the beach. “He controls shadows.”

“Not the ones he hasn’t touched.”

The shadow of Tony’s arm lying on the sand, waved. Tony stopped waving as Arra got the point. “He’s touched me. A couple of times. Touched me; touched my shadow. That’s why he let me leave, knowing what I know about him. Because of what he knows about me. Why should he exert himself to find you when I will? Especially since when I find you, he has a weapon handy.”

Arra’s pale eyes narrowed as she stared at a darker patch of sand. “So you’re a threat to me. I could remove that threat.”

“I don’t think he’ll do anything until you try to gate,” Tony told her hurriedly. This was the weak point in his presentation. She could take him out and open the gate and leave this world. Except that running was one thing. Killing a friend . . . ally . . . coworker, at the very least . . . first was something else again. He hoped. Apparently, the Shadowlord thought so. Or at least he thought Arra thought so because evidence suggested he was definitely the kind of guy who’d cheerfully skin a friend, ally, or coworker alive. “If you’d gone before I found you, you’d have probably been fine.”

“You knew that and you came after me anyway?” she asked, lifting her gaze to Tony’s face. The clear subtext in both tone and expression said, I don’t like being manipulated.