Nick, too, didn’t seem eager to leave. “Yes and no.” He squinted into the sun. “I was up sifting through old messages on a chat-room list after finding a mention of that book Al took.”

Immediately my attention sharpened. “Did you …” I stammered, pulse quickening.

My quick hope squished to nothing as he dropped his gaze and shook his head. “It was some freak wannabe. He doesn’t have a copy. It was all made-up nonsense.”

I reached out and briefly touched his arm, forgiving him for missing our morning run. “It’s okay. We’ll find something sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “But I’d rather it be sooner.”

Misery hit me, and I froze. We had been so good together, and now all that was left was this awful distance. Seeing my depression, Nick took my hands, stepping forward to give me a loose embrace. His lips brushed my cheek as he whispered, “I’m sorry, Ray-ray. We’ll manage something. I’m trying. I want this to work.”

I didn’t move, breathing in the smell of musty books and clean aftershave, my hands hesitantly going about him as I looked for comfort—and finally found it.

My breath caught and I held it, refusing to cry. We had been months searching for the counter curse, but Al wrote the book on how to make humans into familiars, and he had a very short print run of one. And it wasn’t as if we could advertise in the papers for a ley line professor to help us, as he or she would likely turn me in for dealing in the black arts. And then I’d really be stuck. Or dead. Or worse.

Slowly Nick let go, and I stepped back. At least I knew it wasn’t another woman.

“Hey, uh, the zoo is open,” I said, my voice giving away my relief that the awkward distance he had been holding himself at finally seemed to be easing. “You want to go in and get a coffee instead? I hear their Monkey Mocha is to come back from the dead for.”

“No,” he said, but there was true regret in his voice, making me wonder if he had been picking up on my worry about Al all this time, thinking I was upset with him and drawing away. Maybe more of this was my fault than I had guessed. Maybe I could have forged a stronger union between us if I had told him instead of hiding it from him and driving him away.

The magnitude of what I might have done with my silence fell on me, and I felt my face go cold. “Nick, I’m sorry,” I breathed.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, his brown eyes full of forgiveness, unaware of my thoughts. “I was the one that told him he could have the book.”

“No, you see—”

He took me in a hug, silencing me. A lump formed in my throat, and I couldn’t say anything as my forehead dropped to his shoulder. I should have told him. I should have told him right from the first night.