“I’ve never been as good as you are at search and rescue.” Free shrugged that statement off like it didn’t matter. “But I like to think that when push comes to shove, I’m good at taking care of people.”

NATO seemed to appreciate being included in “people.”

“Extreme Hide-and-Seek?” Free asked me. She’d mourned. She’d let me thank her. That was about all the sitting around she could take.

“I don’t know,” I replied slowly. “I was thinking…it’s an awfully lovely day for mischief. Think we could get a little creative in town?”

“Do I even want to know what that means?” Gabriel appeared to have even fewer qualms about eavesdropping than I did. Saskia walked beside him. He gave no signs of treating her like a danger or a liability, and I would have sworn she wasn’t so much as even entertaining the idea of eating his face.

“I hear you jumped the gun,” Free commented, shielding her eyes from the sun and giving Gabriel an assessing look. “Literally. As in, you literally jumped on top of an old lady holding a gun.”

“Not actually what the idiom refers to,” Gabriel countered. “But who am I to quibble?”

A loud and unmistakable sound—followed by an equally unmistakable smell—permeated the air.

“You’ll have to excuse Duchess,” Free said primly. “Cocky teenage boys make Her Ladyship gassy.”

“Her Ladyship?” Gabriel asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Duchess,” I explained, nodding to the dog. “Also known as Her Ladyship.”

“I hesitate to point this out,” Gabriel said, “but the proper address for a duchess is Her Grace.”

Free and I stared at him.

“What?” Gabriel muttered. “A former juvenile delinquent can’t enjoy the occasional historical romance novel?”

Free recovered before I did. “Pretty sure that makes it official,” she told me. “He’s definitely Miscreant material.”

* * *

An hour later, when Cady joined us at Silver’s grave, Gabriel made his exit. Cady watched him go.

“I believe Ness was telling the truth about Gabriel’s brother,” Cady told me after a moment. “He wasn’t one of her lost ones.”

I wondered if Gabriel believed that. I wondered if he was headed back to his place to stare at the maps on the wall.

“Still think he’s too volatile for us to be around?” Free asked, conveniently forgetting that Cady had only cautioned me to stay away from Gabriel.

Cady brushed a stray strand of blond hair out of Free’s face. “I’ll make you a deal,” she told Free. “You agree to ask for makeup finals, and I’ll forget about the hitchhiking.”

“Or,” Free countered, “I agree not to hitchhike again, and you forget about finals.”

Free enjoyed having the last word enough that I wasn’t surprised when she tossed Cady a triumphant grin and sauntered off.