“I saw a shadow over you. I remember thinking that it looked like a ghost Warrior. You opened your hand and the Guardian Sword appeared. Then the ghost-shadow guy grabbed it and it turned into a spear. I think it was bloody. It scared me, so I called spirit and chased the thing away. You woke up then and we uh…” My face felt hot. “Well, we made love and I forgot about it.”

“Z, I like to think I’m good in bed and all, but even so, how the hell could you forget about seeing a ghost guy with a spear hanging out over me?”

“Seriously, Stark. Right after that we walked into what Stevie Rae called one hot mess of bullpoopie here at the House of Night. I was busy.” I crossed my arms and glared at him. “Wait, I didn’t totally forget about it. I told Lenobia about the shadow guy.”

“Great, so a professor knows but I didn’t know.”

“You do now.”

“Well, what did Lenobia say about it?”

“Basically she told me to keep my eyes open here in the real world, versus gawking through the stone, which is what I did until last night when I saw Heath,” I said.

“Look through it at me again.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Fine.” I lifted the Seer Stone, took a deep breath, and peeked through it at him.

“Well? How do I look?”

“Grumpy.”

“And?”

“Annoying.”

“Nothing else?”

“Maybe kinda cute. But only maybe.” I put the stone back under my shirt. “Totally just you. I didn’t think I’d see anything. The stone wasn’t hot.”

“It gets hot?”

“Yep, sometimes.” I chewed my lip and thought about it. “That’s actually why I looked through it at you the first time. It got warm.”

“Was it warm when you looked through it at Aurox?” he asked.

“No, but I knew I had to look through it. It was like I was compelled to,” I said. “And it’d been warm before when Aurox was around.”

“Fucking old magick. It’s a pain in the ass,” he said. “You’d think there’d at least be a playbook that had the rules for it listed somewhere, but no.”

“I should call Sgiach. I mean, she gave me the stone. She deals with old magick. Maybe she’d be able to give me some guidelines.”

He gave a little snort. “Didn’t you ask her for that on Skye?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“If I remember right, she didn’t give you any real answers.”

“You remember right. She did say that she thought the only old magick left on this earth was on Skye.”

“She was wrong,” Stark said.

“Yeah, definitely.”

“You know what I think?”

Stark moved close to me again and put his arm around me. I rested my head against his shoulder and slid my arm around his waist and said, “That I’m Crazy Town?”

He grinned and kissed my forehead. “You’re not Crazy Town. You’re Crazy Metropolis. Hell, Z, you’re Crazy Universe. But I like me some crazy.”

“Now you sound like Stevie Rae.” We smiled at each other, relaxing back into the foundation of our relationship—our commitment to each other—our belief in each other. “So, what were you going to say? What do you think?”

“I think that I’m done with deciding what I’m going to do because of what other people say. Especially adult other people who hand us mysteries, or drop us off in the middle of a shitstorm without giving us any real help,” he said.

“Yeah, I get that. I’ve been feeling like that since Neferet lost her mind and I was the only one who knew it.”

“Okay, so, let’s figure this old magick stuff out ourselves. Z, you have an affinity for all five elements. No one can even remember the last time that happened. You’re a different kind of fledgling—a different kind of High Priestess. You’re a young warrior queen, and I’m your Guardian. Together there’s nothing we can’t take on.” His cocky smile was back. “We took on the Otherworld and won.”

“Yeah, except for the part about you dying and all,” I reminded him.

“Just a small detail. It turned out okay.”

I squeezed him, pressing myself against his strong side. “It turned out better than okay.” He kissed me and I drew strength from his taste and his touch and his love. Maybe Stark was right. Maybe there wasn’t anything we couldn’t take on together. I sighed happily and snuggled against him.

“Let’s go to the stables.” Stark jerked his chin forward at the long building not far from us.

“I guess we should. I’ll bet Erin’s there. Even from here I can see it looks soggy.”

“Actually, I haven’t seen Erin in a while.” Stark shrugged. “Maybe that’s because the stables are really better off than you’d think. Most of the damage was from smoke. All that really burned was a bunch of hay and bedding and one stall.”

“Persephone’s fine, right?” Twining my fingers through his, we started walking slowly toward the stables, letting our arms and hips brush against each other.

“She’s good. All of the horses are good. Well, except Bonnie. She’s acting pretty nervous. Lenobia put her in a turn-out with Mujaji to settle her down. Apparently the two of them get along. Which reminds me, a bunch of fledglings said they saw Lenobia kissing Travis before the EMTs took him away,” Stark said.

My eyes got giant. “Seriously? I can’t wait till Aphrodite and Stevie Rae hear that!”

Stark chuckled. “Stevie Rae already has—via Kramisha, who is telling everybody.” He bumped my shoulder with his. “All that time you spent at the tree made you miss out on some good gossip.”

I looked up at him, confused. “All that time? I was only there for, like, a minute.”

Stark stopped. “What time do you think it is right now?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. I’d have to look at my phone, but we got to Thanatos’s room at seven-thirty. We were probably there half an hour or less, so it couldn’t be any later than eight-thirty-ish.”

“Zoey, it’s eleven-thirty. We only have time to meet everyone at the stables and then go to Dragon’s funeral pyre.”

All of my insides went cold. “Stark, I lost more than three hours!”

“Yeah, you did, and I don’t like it. Give me your word that you won’t look through that damn stone again unless I’m with you.”

I was freaked enough not to argue with him. “You got it. I’m totally giving you my word. I’m not looking through that thing unless you’re with me.”

His shoulders relaxed and he gave me a quick kiss. “Thanks, Z. Something that can steal time from you is Not Good.” He gave the last two words special emphasis. “I know Sgiach said old magick could be good or bad, but I don’t care which one it is if it takes without asking.”

“I know. I know.” We’d starting walking again, but I kept a tight hold on his hand. “No wonder I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. I’d been stuck standing there, staring at those disgusting, smelly things for hours.” I shuddered.

“It’s okay. We’re going to figure out this old magick crap. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Stark squeezed my hand and I squeezed back. I wanted to believe him. I did believe in him—his strength and his love. It was the other side that I was worried about. The unknown side that Darkness sat squarely in the middle of. It kept creeping up and picking off people I loved.

I was thinking about how much I didn’t want to lose anyone else when the stupid Seer Stone began heating up. I stopped, pulling Stark to a halt with me. I pressed my hand over the spot it was warming on my chest.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s getting hot.”

“Why?”

“Stark, I have no clue. You’re supposed to be helping me figure that out, remember?”

“Okay, right. Yeah. We can do this.” He started looking around. “So, let’s figure it out.”

“How?”

“Well, I’m thinking,” he said.

I sighed and tried to think, too. We’d stopped under one of the big trees just outside the perimeter of the east side of the stables. I glanced up quickly, suddenly worried about lurking things with no eyes and sewn shut mouths. But there was nothing above us. Actually, it was really peaceful around us. All I could think of was that there was nothing to think of. Voices drifted to us from the stables and I could hear equipment and stuff running—like tractors and whatnot were being used to drag things away and clear up the debris. I heard the sound of another motor, this one coming from somewhere behind us and getting closer.