First thing I've got to do is wait for nightfall. It was a relief to have a single, clear, definable thing to do in the complex mess my life had become.

Then I've got to go see Abracadabra.

I lay curled on my side, my sword clasped in my hands, my rig at the end of the bed near my booted feet. I puzzled over the idea of the Key and the Roof of the World, I thought of what I would do when I saw Abra, and I thought of what I would do to whoever had hurt Gabe.

I brooded most on that, and on how I would find Gabe's daughter. I chewed over the problem in my head, not coming up with anything new.

I tried not to think about acting like a spoiled little brat. I was beginning to deconstruct under the stress. I needed a good clean-out meditation session to keep my head straight. The faster and harder I ran, the more I'd need a clear head and a sure hold on my temper.

First, though, I had to rest.

A twilight doze fell over me near dinnertime, just as I heard Japh and McKinley speaking in the other room. It was hard to ignore, my hearing was so acute, and I strained for the sound of Japhrimel's voice despite myself.

"Tiens is right. You should-" McKinley, getting braver by the moment.

"I did not ask for your opinion on this matter, McKinley." Japhrimel didn't let him finish the sentence, which was irritating in the extreme. "I asked for your loyalty as my vassal. There is a difference."

A long pause. "I've served you faithfully. I'd be remiss in my duty if I didn't warn you it is dangerous to allow her to treat you like this."

"What do you suggest? I should chain her in a sanctum like a Nichtvren's plaything? Or that I should allow her to commit a foolhardy suicide and fall with her into darkness?" Each word was underlit with savage anger. I snuggled deeper into the softness of the bed, drowsily glad Japh never spoke to me like that. And fuzzily alarmed at what I was hearing.

Foolhardy suicide? Just what does he think I'm going to do? Of course, he can't have too high an opinion of my maturity right now. Iactually winced at the thought.

It was time to get a few things straight with him. I lay utterly still, pieces of both puzzles revolving inside my head. Waiting for dark, when I could uncoil like a snake under a rock. And begin hunting.

"You put it that way, it gets a lot clearer." McKinley sounded like he was smiling, for once.

I was tired. My eyes were heavy, and the mark pulsed and rang with soft Power, sliding down my skin, easing me into relaxing. I couldn't cry anymore, could barely dredge up the energy to keep listening.

I listened anyway.

"It is no small choice." Japhrimel sounded heavy, and sadder than I'd ever heard him. "Her hatred or her pain, I do not know which is harder to bear."

If you'd just talk to me, Japh. Precognition tingled along my skin, prickling with tiny diamond feet. It isn't my strongest talent, not by a long shot, but sometimes when the quicksand is getting deeper and deeper I can get a flash of something useful.

Sometimes. But not when my heart was aching this badly. Not when I all but vibrated with the blood-deep hunger for revenge. I wanted to start killing, and I wasn't too choosy about who I started with.

Anyone would be fine. And that alarmed me a little. The precog refused to come. Just the sense of danger, and a creeping sensation against the flesh of my wrist, above my datband. I'd taken the Gauntlet off, but my skin still tingled with the feel of it. Loathing touched the back of my throat, I forced it away.

Relax, Dante. Nothing you can do right now. Just breathe, and wait. Hold yourself still. Don't even think. Just breathe.

I did.

I tipped over the edge into gray nothingness. It wasn't the dead unconsciousness Japhrimel could lull me into, the sleep that was a restorative for my human mind. No, this sleep was more like the restless tossing I'd had all my mortal life, my conscious mind paralyzed by too much stress and sliding out of commission like a disengaged gear, spinning fruitlessly while the deeper parts of me worked, intuition and insight grinding finer and finer until they would present me with the wrench jamming the works.

Inducing a precognitive vision is hard goddamn work, and I failed miserably. But something else happened, something I hadn't done since I'd been human.

I dreamed.

This was not the hall of Death.

I gathered up my skirts as I negotiated a wide, sweeping staircase; the vast parquet floor of the ballroom below shimmered mellow under many layers of wax and care. I recognized this place.

It was the Hotel Armeniere in Old Kebec. I'd stayed here once on a bounty hunt ending with a clean collar in the teeming sink of the Core in Manhattan. The Armeniere was expensive, but a Hegemony per diem had covered it and right after Doreen's death I hadn't cared if it was pricey; it was magshielded, had a sparring hall, and the staff were mostly psi friendly. That was worth a little credit. Besides, I'd just been knifed, shot at, and hit on the left arm with a ringbar while engaging in a slicboard duel with the bounty I was tracking. I figured I deserved a little relaxation while I waited for him to screw up and give me something to work with to bring him down.

The ballroom had been one of my favorite places, mostly deserted during the day; quiet and full of space where I could run through katas without being gawked at or challenged to a sparring match I wasn't in the mood for. Long narrow windows looked out on a night pulsing with neon and citylife, I heard distant traffic and the thump of a nightclub on the other side of the wall by the stairs. That told me it was a dream-the Armeniere was on a busy street, but the walls were thick and you would no more hear a nightclub than you would hear the staff whistling the Putchkin anthem.

The other clue that I was in a dream was the fantastic pre-Merican-era illustration of a dress. Red silk long whispering skirt, a bodice just short of indecent, and long sleeves that belled over my hands.

My human hands, not gold-skinned demon hands. I saw the well-healed scar on my right thumb, the different texture of pale human skin, the crimson molecule-drip polish I used to use. A fading bruise was turning yellow on the back of my right hand.

With the fuzzy logic of dreams, it all made perfect sense. Even the dream-copy of the necklace Jace made for me, silver-dipped raccoon bacula and blood-charged bloodstones, was there. The real necklace was on my sleeping self, but this copy hummed with Power, throbbing against my collarbones.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, my pulse pounding like the thump of bass coming through the wall. I felt naked-I had no sword, none of the familiar weight of a rig against my shoulders. Crimson silk mouthed the floor as I moved, cold waxed wood and the grit of dust against my bare tender human feet.

You look beautiful.

The necklace's throb settled into a sustained heat. I whirled.

He leaned against the wall between two windows, his face in shadow except for the bright points of light in his blue eyes. A stray breeze touched a sheaf of wheat-gold hair, and my mouth turned dry and slick as desert glass.

Jace Monroe hooked his thumbs in his belt. He wasn't armed either. Hey, Danny. Spare a kiss for an old boyfriend?

I'm dreaming, I thought. Dreaming. Have to be.

Of course you're not dreaming. His lips shaped the words, but the air didn't move. Instead, the meaning resounded inside my head. Like the tone of psychic music that was a god's communication, fraught with layers on layers of complexity. A wash of amusement, bitter spice of regret, a thin thread of desire blooming through and sparkling like an iron wire to hold it all together. Under it, the smell of peppered honey that was Jace's magick, the smell of a Shaman, the smell I'd missed without knowing.