Mouse flicked his ears and turned his nose away from Thomas with great nobility.

“What?” I asked, looking between them. “What did you say?”

“I’ll warm up the car,” Thomas said, and retreated to the frozen grey outdoors.

“This is my home ,” I complained to no one in particular. “Why do people keep making jokes at my expense in my own freaking home ?”

Mouse declined to comment.

I locked up behind me, magically and materially, and scaled Mount Hummer to sit in the passenger seat. The morning was cold and getting colder, especially since I was fresh from the shower, but the seat was rather pleasantly warm. There was no way I’d admit to Thomas that the luxury feature was superior to armored glass, but gosh, it was cozy.

“Right,” Thomas said. “Where are we headed?”

“To where they treat me like royalty,” I said.

“We’re going to Burger King?”

I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead and spelled fratricide in a subvocal mutter, but I had to spell out temporary insanity and justifiable homicide , too, before I calmed down enough to speak politely. “Just take a left and drive. Please.”

“Well,” Thomas said, grinning, “since you said ‘please.’”