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Prophet to help me wrap it up and carry it out after the last batch of looters were teleported out of here,” he admitted. “The nymphs only zap us around twice a day, so I waited for one of those times when most of the house was cleared out. Even the Philly crew drove away to get something to eat. When all the planets aligned, Prophet and I carried Henry out of here and drove him somewhere to be buried.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Because you’ve had enough on your mind.” When hesaid that, Cole glanced down at her right arm. After a particularly unsuccessful field test of the tattoo ink that still itched under his skin, Paige’s arm had been rendered close to useless. Her skin was still soft, but several discolorations that might have been internalized scars had begun appearing on the surface. Through a lot of hard work and base-level stubbornness, she’d moved beyond the need for a sling. Her arm was still stiff and gave her the occasional twitch of pain, which meant a lot if someone as hard-headed as Paige was doing the twitching.
    Balling her right hand into a fist, she said, “Don’t give me that bullshit. You knew I’d tell you what a stupid fucking idea that was.”
    “Yeah. Pretty much.”
    “So where did you take him?”
    “Aren’t you going to ask me why I took him?”
    “No,” she snapped. “First tell me where.”
    After a few seconds of deliberation Cole replied, “Nah. Everyone else seems to be able to do whatever they feel like no matter what, so now’s my turn. Some get to come in here and demand or just steal anything we fought and bled for. Fine. Others spend their time looking through every last bit of work that Lancroft did without so much as a thank-you to the ones who kept the old man from killing more people to spread his plague. I guess that’s supposed to be fine too. Those assholes across the street decide to come over and start their shit? Whatever. They might as well, right?”
    “Cole, things are just crazy right now.”
    “They haven’t been any other way since I can remember!” Lowering his voice and stepping closer to her, he placed a hand on Paige’s arm and rubbed the smooth lines of muscle beneath her skin. “When can we get some time for just … you and me?”
    “Seriously?” she asked. “With everything happening, all these people driving in, some of them
teleporting
in from all over the place, and all you can think about is getting quality time with me?”
    “Is that so bad? Seems like we could both use something to loosen the tension.”
    Once again Paige’s expression took a turn that Cole hadn’t been expecting. “You’re right. We could use a stress reliever.”
    “Really?” Cole gasped. “I bet nobody would even miss us if we—”
    “No, not that,” she said, casually dashing his highest hope.
    “What, then?”
    Instead of answering his question, she walked out the front door and toward the street. Cole stayed close to her, noticing how the group of local Skinners halted their conversation and glared defiantly at them.
    “What are you doing, Paige?”
    “Tell me what we’ve been doing since the whole Lancroft thing,” she replied.
    “It hasn’t been that long, but seems like a bunch of cataloguing and—”
    “Nothing,” she snapped. “Just going through a dead man’s house and squabbling over his leftovers. Meanwhile, Jory and those other two waltz back in from wherever the hell they’ve been and all these other jackoffs come here after finding out from Lord knows who that there’s a shitload of buried treasure here. And how do they get here?”
    “Through a magical teleportation system that we opened up,” Cole said.
    Stopping at the curb on the opposite side of the street, Paige spun around fast enough for the bobbed ends of her hair to whip against her cheek. “It’s not magic. There is no magic. You know I hate it when you write something off like that.”
    Cole grinned and showed her a quick upward nod.