“I cannot believe you just did that,” I said, aiming my glower at him. “Way to miss the point.”

He gave me an innocent look. “Which was?”

“You know what it was.” I narrowed my eyes. “So much for not abusing your powers.”

“It was for a good cause.”

“Annoying me?”

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

I moved to punch him in the shoulder, but he caught my fist, pushed my hand to the counter, and kissed me.

Immediately, I leaned in to him, kissing him back. He still had my right hand trapped, but I lifted my left, trailing it down along his chest. Beneath my fingertips, I felt the thud of his heartbeat; through the fabric of his shirt, I felt the heat of his skin. Carefully, gently, I tested each of the buttons on his shirt until I found one that seemed loose. My fingers tightened around it. I gave a quick, hard yank. The button came free, sitting snugly in my hand.

Leon drew back to stare at me.

“Oops?” I said.

“Is there a reason you’ve progressed to destruction of property?”

I shrugged. “You should’ve known better than to thwart my will.”

His gaze dipped to where the cloth gapped open, revealing his undershirt. “I guess I’ve learned my lesson.”

“I guess you have.” I set the button aside. “I’ll sew it back on.”

“I’ll hold my breath.”

His mouth found mine again. He kissed me harder this time, capturing both my hands and holding them flat against the top of the counter. Unable to loop my arms around him or run my fingers through his hair, I focused all my attention on the kiss. I inched closer to him, trying to erase all the space between us. For a minute he kept me pinned, but then his hand moved up my back, slipping beneath my tank top. His fingers were hot against my bare skin. I didn’t realize his objective until he deftly unhooked the clasp of my bra. Then both of his hands rose to my shoulders. Still kissing me, he slid the straps out along my arms, freeing first one and then the other—and then removing the bra entirely.

When he broke the kiss and stood back, my bra was dangling from his thumb. He used his other hand to slide his shirt button across the counter toward me. “Nice trophy,” he said. “But mine’s better.”

He looked entirely too pleased with himself, I decided. I raised my eyebrows at him. “Mom is going to dismember you if she finds you undressing me in the kitchen.”

“You started it.”

I tried to give him a chastening look, but a laugh escaped me instead. He grinned again, then set my bra on the counter beside his button, dragged me against him, and stopped my laughter with his mouth. He probably would have gone right on kissing me for some time if my phone hadn’t started ringing.

I knew by the ringtone that it was my mother, so I planned to ignore it, but Leon released me and took a step back.

“It’s Mom,” I said. I caught his hand and laced my fingers through his, pulling him back toward me. “I swear to God, she has kiss radar or something.”

“You’re not going to answer it?”

“I’m busy.”

“She’s just going to call me if you don’t.”

“You’re busy.”

But Leon, being Leon, dutifully answered the phone when she called him a second later.

“Suck-up,” I muttered, disentangling our hands and hopping down from the counter.

I walked over to the window, leaning toward the screen and staring out into the darkness. The evening had cooled slightly, but what we really needed was rain, I thought. A big thunderstorm to roll in and clean all the humidity out of the air. Or at least drop the temperature.

I was about to return to my green pepper when Leon ended the call.

“Audrey,” he said, touching my arm lightly, concern etched on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. I felt a prickle of apprehension along my skin. Not a Knowing, precisely—just the slightest sense of unease, which Leon’s next words did nothing to dispel.

“You don’t need to worry,” he said quickly.

I narrowed my eyes. “Right. I’ll take ‘Sentences Designed to Make People Worry’ for two hundred, Alex.”

Now he looked rueful. “We could have avoided this if you’d just answered the phone.”

“Avoided what?”

“Me, attempting to break news gently.”

“And failing spectacularly,” I said with growing alarm. I grabbed at his arm. “Did something happen to Mom? Was there another attack? Did she get hurt?”

“No, Lucy’s fine.”

“Would you just tell me?”

“It’s Esther,” he said. “She’s in the hospital.”

“If you must hold a vigil,” Esther said, “be kind enough to do it elsewhere. I am not about to expire. I won’t have the lot of you hovering about me as if I’m on my deathbed.” She divided a peevish glare between my grandfather and Elspeth—who were, in fact, hovering—but neither one moved away.

Esther wasn’t on her deathbed, precisely, but she was in a hospital bed—propped up on pillows, with one arm hooked to an IV. According to my grandfather Charles, she’d collapsed following a dinner meeting with some members of the Kin. Her blood pressure was dangerously high, and she was dehydrated, so she was being kept in the hospital a few nights for tests and observation. Esther herself preferred to call it an episode. A minor episode, at that. And she clearly wasn’t happy about all of us crowding into her hospital room the next morning.

I was hanging back slightly, near the window, where the open curtains let in a thin slant of daylight. Leon stood by the door, looking uncomfortable. He would’ve remained in the waiting room if I hadn’t dragged him with me. I felt a little uncomfortable myself. Mom had insisted that I should visit Esther, and then had declined to come along. I’m certain the last thing Esther wants or needs is me invading her space when she’s feeling vulnerable, she’d said. Well, Mom was apparently correct—though it didn’t seem that Esther was feeling particularly vulnerable.

She certainly looked it, though. It was strange, and a little startling, to see her there, surrounded by monitors, her face pale and gaunt beneath the room’s fluorescent lights. The hospital gown she wore emphasized how thin she was, how bony. She seemed frail almost, and I was used to thinking of her as strong. Now I noticed the hollows of her cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes. The subtle trace of colors that painted her left wrist, burned there by Guardian lights over long years, showed the outline of her veins, the translucence of her skin. Her voice had a raspy quality to it that unsettled me.

When none of us made any move to leave, Esther’s eyebrows snapped together. “Charles,” she said, favoring him with a glower and removing her hand from his grasp. Then her face softened. Charles bent his head and kissed her briefly, stroking her hair. After he’d straightened up once more, Esther nodded and waved her hand toward the door. “Now. Out.”

Charles walked around the side of the bed and laid his arm around Elspeth’s shoulders, guiding her out of the room. Leon, I saw, had already exited. I was turning to go when Esther spoke again.

“Esther, you stay.”

It took me a second to realize she meant me. Though she and I technically shared a first name, I’d only ever used my middle name, Audrey.

“I’ve not gone senile, so you can stop giving me that look,” she said when I swung back toward her. “I merely wanted to remind you of who you are.”

That didn’t bode well. Esther’s reminders usually came along with commands. “Can you not make a habit of it?” I said. “Having two Esthers and an Elspeth might confuse things.”