“Because you know everything.” She snorted explosively, then squared her shoulders and snapped. “Do you really think we can beat him or are you just throwing words at me in a desperate attempt to get me to help?”

Yes. “I think this time you’re going to have to fight him regardless. You open a gate, he’ll come through shadow and stop you.”

“Or I could kill you to clear the shadow away and then gate safely.”

“And he’ll have won because you’ll have become him. Like him. Evil.

She raised a hand as he searched for other synonyms. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Good. Because if you have to face him, why not go in believing you’ll win?”

Tony half expected her to say: Because we won’t.

She surprised him.

“All right. I won’t fight for you. But I’ll fight beside you.”

“All I’m asking.”

“I know.”

“It was all I was ever asking.”

“I know. Now help me up. I’ve got to get my cats back from that idiot Vera before they convince her that they always have fresh salmon for dinner.”

“And yet you were going to leave them with her when you bailed.”

Her hand tightened almost painfully around his as he helped her to her feet. “Don’t push it, boy.”

“Sorry.”

She tucked her arm into his as they walked toward the parking lot, graciously allowing him to support more and more of her weight as they traveled. Tony suspected she was making a point, but since he had no idea what that point was, he just braced himself and kept going. Maybe she was just making sure he wouldn’t drop her. Yeah, of the two of us, I’m the only one who’s never run out on an entire world. I won’t be the one doing the dropping. Maybe she was just being a pain in the ass because she could.

The latter seemed more likely.

“I know something else about the Shadowlord,” he said as the muscles in his arm started to protest. “Something you don’t know.”

“You have no idea what I know.”

“He’s gay.”

“You’re right, I didn’t know that.” Shifting her weight, she leaned far enough away to sneer up at him. “However, he’s an evil wizard from another world; I doubt very much your gaydar applies.”

“Never doubt the gaydar,” Tony snorted as they stepped over the concrete divider and into the parking lot. “But that’s not it. I told you, he’s touched me. I mean, talk about queer eye on the straight guy—every time I come in contact with a straight boy that’s being shadow-held, they go after my ass.”

“Do they now?”

“They do.”

“So that would be Lee and Mouse and Ben . . .”