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whilst letting the sacred beat of the music course through our souls.”
    â€œNo thanks,” I said, brushing past him and going straight to my room.
    A moment later, he followed sans girls.
    â€œOh, come on, Eug. It’s gonna be a blast. We’ve got a cooler of beer and everything.”
    â€œSorry, Tim. I don’t really feel like being a squaw tonight.”
    â€œThat’s a derogatory term.”
    â€œI know it is. Very much so. But your bleach-blond posse out there doesn’t deserve much better.” I eyed him askance. “Don’t even think about bringing any of them back here tonight.”
    â€œYeah, yeah, I know the rules.” He flounced into my wicker chair. “So what are you going to do instead? Shop on the Internet? Work puzzles?”
    I’d actually been thinking of doing both those things, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
    â€œHey, I’ve got stuff to do.”
    â€œFuck, Eugenie. You’re becoming a hermit. I almost miss Dean. He was an asshole, but at least he got you out of the house.”
    I made a face. Dean was my last boyfriend; we’d broken up six months ago. The split had been kind of unexpected for both of us. I hadn’t expected to find him screwing his real estate agent, and he hadn’t expected to get caught. I knew now I was better off without him, but some niggling part always wondered what about me had made him lose interest. Not exciting enough? Pretty enough? Good enough in bed?
    â€œSome things are worse than staying home alone,” I muttered. “Dean is one of them.”
    â€œTimothy?” one of the girls called from the living room. “Are you coming?”
    â€œOne moment, gentle flower,” he hollered back. To me he said, “You sure you wanna hole up here all night? It isn’t really healthy to be away from people so much.”
    â€œI’m fine. Go enjoy your flowers.”
    He shrugged and left. Once by myself, I fixed a sandwich and shopped on the Internet, exactly as he’d predicted. It was followed by a puzzle depicting an M. C. Escher drawing. A bit harder than the kitten.
    Halfway through, I found myself staring at the puzzle pieces without seeing them. Roland’s quiet, fierce words played over in my head. Let Jasmine Delaney go . Everything he’d told me had been true. Dropping this was the smart thing to do. The safe thing to do. I knew I should listen to him…yet some part of me kept thinking of the young, smiling face Wil had shown me. Angrily, I shoved some of the puzzle pieces aside. This job wasn’t supposed to be about gray moral decisions. It was black and white. Find the bad guys. Kill or banish. Go home at the end of the day.
    I stood up, suddenly no longer wanting to be alone. I didn’t want to be left with my own thoughts. I wanted to be out with people. Clarification: I didn’t want to talk to people, I just wanted to be around them. Lost in the crowd. I needed to see my own kind—warm, living and breathing humans, not undead spirits or magic-infused gentry. I wanted to remember which side of the fence I was on. More important, I wanted to forget Jasmine Delaney. At least for tonight
    I threw on some jeans and the first bra and shirt I could find. My rings and bracelets always stayed on me, but I added a moonstone necklace that hung low in the shirt’s V-neck. I brushed my long hair into a high ponytail, missing a few strands. A dab of lipstick, and I was ready to go. Ready to lose myself. Ready to forget.

Chapter Three
    I’d been people-watching for almost an hour, so I saw him as soon as he walked in. It was hard not to. The eyes of a few other women in the bar showed that I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.
    He was tall and broad-shouldered, nicely muscled but not over the top in some crazy Arnold Schwarzenegger way. He wore khakis with a navy blue T-shirt tucked into them. His black hair was not quite to