Rosemary and Rue

“Manuel said we had time—” she protested weakly.

That was enough. Maybe I loved the man and maybe I didn’t, but no matter how scared he was, there was no reason for him to go taking it out on Dare. Using my right arm as a brace, I pushed myself upright. “Be nice to them, Devin. They did their job.” It felt like I was talking through a mouthful of cotton, but nothing hurt—at least not yet. I was sure the pain would be catching up with me soon.

“Toby!” Devin let go of Dare and rushed to kneel beside me, anxiously scanning my face. “Toby, what happened? Why did that thing attack you? Are you all right? What did it want? You’re awake!”

“Talking usually indicates consciousness,” I said, reaching out to gingerly pat his shoulder. “I’m okay. For meanings of the word that include ‘just got the crap kicked out of me by a Doppelganger,’ that is.”

Manuel turned toward us, smiling wanly. “Hello, ma’am.” Dare just kept clinging to his arm, shivering. She looked terrified, and I couldn’t blame her. Devin could be pretty scary when he put his mind to it.

“Hey, guys,” I said, matching Manuel’s smile with one of my own. Looking back to Devin, I added, “Those two saved my life, so knock it off. Stop yelling at them.”

His expression twisted, turning dark. “They were the ones that let your life be put in danger in the first place. If they’d been there when they were supposed to be . . .”

“I would have still been in bed,” I said, and shook my head. “It used my daughter’s face to get into the apartment, Devin. It was Gillian. I’d have let it in whether or not they were there. Hell, if they’d been there when it showed up, I would’ve thrown them out. If they’d been there when you wanted them to be, I’d be dead now.”

He froze, expression faltering as my words sunk in. I was right and he knew it: it wasn’t fair to blame them for my stupidity. He settled for folding his arms and glaring, saying, “You should be more careful.”

“How?” I asked. “Stop talking to people? Don’t leave the house—or what, better yet, just stay here forever? I can’t find out what happened to Evening if I do that, and if I don’t find out who killed her, you don’t get paid.” If I don’t find out what happened, paying you is going to be the least of my worries.

Devin sighed, reaching out to lay the back of his hand against my cheek. “I’d rather have you alive than get paid, Toby. There’s still time to walk away. If you don’t want this in the hands of the Courts, just tell me what you have so far, and I’ll make it someone else’s problem. You can let it be, and know that you did what you could.”

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “I gave her my word.”

That was a lie: I didn’t give my word, Evening took it. Devin didn’t know that. There’s nothing shameful or embarrassing about getting caught in a binding, especially one thrown by someone as powerful as Evening, and I’d been planning to come Home to tell him everything. I opened my mouth to tell him and stopped. Something wasn’t right. The idea of telling him just seemed wrong.

“Toby . . .” he sighed.

“I know.”

We sat there looking at each other for a few minutes, Dare and Manuel watching from their seats. The poor kids must have felt like they were sitting on a nuclear testing site. Which of us was scarier—him or me?

I was almost ready to start apologizing for being dumb enough to get myself cursed when Devin shook his head, turning his face away. “If anything happens to you . . .”

“We’ll just run on past experience and assume I’ll be back in fourteen years. You can yell at me then.”

He didn’t look at me. Apparently, this was one of those situations that humor couldn’t defuse. I’ve never been very good at spotting those. “That’s not funny.”