Daniel leans in. “I like you, Cat, not just because you’re different from Madeline. I like the way you put your head down when you’re thinking and your hair falls across your face. I like how quiet you seem, but when you do talk, it’s because you have something to say—you’re not just trying to fill space. I like how open you are about everything, even your family and your past and things other people might be too scared to talk about. I like that I can be myself with you. I don’t have to perform. And you laugh at my jokes. You get me.”

“Oh, no, I was laughing at you. Did you think I was laughing with you? There’s a difference, Daniel.”

“I see how it is,” he retorts. After a moment, he leans away. “So, we good?”

“I like you too. I like working with you, and I like seeing you, and I like that you’re helping me sort through some really sordid shit.”

“But?”

“But nothing,” I tell him, meeting his eyes. “I’m just not sure what comes next.”

Daniel leans in, grazing his fingers across my cheek. I part my lips to speak, but his are on mine before the words even form. My eyes close instinctively. My breathing slows. Everything goes dark and soft, like crushed velvet around me. His lips are slow and gentle against mine. I’m only just getting going when he pulls away.

“That is what comes next,” he tells me.

XIX.

MY FINGERS ARE ON MY LIPS, WHICH ARE STILL BUZZING, as I step into the courtyard. He’s in the shadows, so I don’t see him, and I’m grinning like an idiot with my eyes on my feet. I nearly fall over him on my way to the stairs.

“Careful there,” Butcher says. He raises his cell phone, using its flashlight to help me see my way. “Wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”

I pause, embarrassed. What did he see? How long has he been out here like this? I remember the burn of his cigarette when we first pulled up. “Sorry, just tired. It’s late,” I mumble for an excuse.

“Mmhmm,” he replies.

I start to turn away, but something about him standing there like that—one arm raised with his cell phone lighting up the courtyard, his cigarette dangling from the other hand, the navy beanie on his head, the wraparound beard of white—strikes me as so familiar that I stare uncomfortably long. I can’t place him, but I know I know Butcher somehow. From before New Orleans. Before Moony died.

Our eyes meet, and I realize for the first time that his are a gray blue, like seawater. But almost one third of the bottom of his left iris is light brown, like an algae bloom creeping over the surface of a pond.