“I won’t linger.” Charlie took a deep breath and was very, very careful not to let anything that might possibly be considered coercion leak into her voice. “Please, Auntie Catherine.”

“Why not. I have nothing planned until Friday.” I want to help, but I’ll be damned if I let you see that.

Charlie pretended she didn’t hear the subtext. Safer that way.

Tossing her braid over her shoulder, Auntie Catherine stretched, slipped into the Italian leather sandals sitting beside the lounge, and walked to the edge of the pool. “I’ll meet you in the Wood.”

Then she stepped into the water.

And disappeared.

“Okay . . .” Charlie picked up her guitar and stepped back into the ornamental border. “. . . that was unexpected.”

“It’s a reflective surface, Charlotte.” Auntie Catherine looked wilder in the Wood. And completely dry. “If I can be Seen, I can pass through it.”

“Then you didn’t need the viburnum you planted in the courtyard,” Charlie realized.

“I knew that before I got to Calgary.”

“Why were they . . .”

“For you, of course.” The idiot was too obvious to qualify as subtext. “Now, let’s go reassure your dragon.”

His name. Charlie’s voice. Jack snapped from sleep into full consciousness.

“Whoa! Flame down, kiddo.”

“Sorry. I thought . . .” Actually, he didn’t know what he’d thought. Suspected he hadn’t. Reaching out, he repaired the sleeve of her jacket and the edge of the gig bag. “How long was I out?”

“Not very long. A couple of hours.”

“Okay, that explains why I still feel like I belly flopped off a cliff. Onto gravel.” He shuffled back, using his elbows to squash the pillows into shape behind him. “What’s wrong?”

“The aunties are pissed we told the Courts.” She shifted position on the edge of his bed, frowned, and shrugged. “Kind of understandably given the way it turned out. Anyway, Auntie Bea’s on the warpath, so I’m not going to be around much for the next little while.”

“If she’s trying to . . .”

Hand on his chest, she pushed him back onto his pillows. “She’s not. But I might if I stay. They’re all on edge because of the asteroid, and since they can’t push at it, Auntie Bea’s pushing at me.”

The Gales didn’t work the way dragons did. If a dragon took out a more powerful dragon, they became the dragon to beat. If Charlie took out Auntie Bea, the Gales would close ranks against one of their own who upset the order of things and the line between Wild and too different to belong was already pretty narrow. “And your impulse control sucks.”

“Yeah, well . . .”

They realized her hand was still resting on his chest at the same time. Jack grabbed for it, but Charlie pulled free.

“. . . I’m using it all for other things.”

“You don’t have to.” When her brows rose, he sighed. “Okay, whatever. If you’re not going to be around, what’re you doing to do?”