“To save the world.” Charlie shrugged into her jacket and looked at Allie with eyes that seemed too dark for thirty. “Or at least to save Alberta. And part of Saskatchewan. Maybe a bit of Montana. You have issues, Allie, and while I’m not saying you don’t have the right to issues, don’t drag me into them.” Her words lingered as she headed out the door. “I doubt I’ll be long.”

Allie probably wouldn’t have seen Jack following had she not been staring after Charlie. Once she noticed him, he stopped blending with the furniture and the walls and paused, hand on the doorknob, looking sheepish. “Where are you going?” she demanded, then added before Jack could speak, “You can chase after her all you want, but she’s not going to take you with her.”

Jack might have been wearing a mask for all the expression his face showed. Scales glinted across the upper curves of his cheeks and across his brow. “There are those under my protection who need seeing to.”

“Jack, I didn’t mean . . .”

His eyes flashed gold. “Then I’m going to kill a large animal and eat it.” He closed the door quietly, gently, the dragon barely contained within his skin.

When she turned, Auntie Gwen released Evan to join his brother under the coffee table and said, “That was cruel, Alysha.”

“I know.” Allie dropped into the closest chair. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

The snort made Auntie Gwen sound terrifyingly like Auntie Jane. “Yes, you did.”

“Yes, I did. I’m a horrible person. I mocked a seventeen year old who’s having his heart broken.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that. I know how he feels. I know how Charlie feels. I know how Aunt Judith feels about Richard learning to ride a bike. If I extend a little, I know how the city feels about that pothole the works department still hasn’t gotten around to filling in the intersection of Macleod and 11th. I know, but I can’t say anything because they haven’t told me, and I can’t ask because I’m afraid Charlie won’t tell me. You’re right, I’m afraid I’m losing her.”

“Of course, I’m right.”

Allie lifted her head far enough to give Auntie Gwen a narrow-eyed glare. “That’s what you’re going with?”

Auntie Gwen smiled and set a block of shortening on the kitchen island. “It was the important point.”

Two days ago, Charlie would have been out the back door and into the Wood before Jack could catch up. Today, she waited at the bottom of the stairs, keeping the promise she’d made. No leaving without saying good-bye—even if he knew where she was going and why. As her exit had prevented her from saying good-bye to him upstairs, she was sure he’d be down in a minute.