I threw my jacket on the sofa. What the hell was Tina thinking? One thing I had asked of her. One. Let Mab rest. And there she was, in the bedroom, bothering my aunt. As I stormed down the hallway, Kane slunk off in the other direction, into the kitchen. I couldn’t say whether he was avoiding my scowl or Tina’s “nice doggie” routine. Either way, I couldn’t blame him.

Outside my bedroom, I paused to take three deep breaths. Calm. I had to stay calm and reasonable for my aunt’s sake. No point in upsetting Mab because I was annoyed with Tina. One more deep breath and I stepped through the doorway.

Tina sat on the edge of my bed, one leg tucked under her, facing Mab, who sat propped up against the pillows. I flung a peeved glance at Tina. “How about you let me talk to my aunt?”

Tina stood up slowly and stretched like a cat. Well, stiffer than that—a zombie cat. I had to squeeze past her to get near Mab.

My aunt didn’t look any better. A little more rested, maybe, but so old and ill. Her hands, folded on top of the sheet, were rough and crisscrossed with veins. Those hands had always been so strong, able to deal any problem, from treating scrapes and bruises to fighting off Hellions. Now they were frail and trembling. It was hard to imagine them lifting a cup of tea.

I sat where Tina had been and patted Mab’s hands. They were cold. “How are you feeling? Are you warm enough?”

“Don’t talk to me as though I’m an invalid, child.” Coming from Mab, the quavering voice still managed to sound sharp.

Behind me, Tina brayed a laugh. I turned around to tell her off at the same time Mab said, “Be respectful, young lady.”

“Sorry,” Tina mumbled at the floor.

“Wait for me in the living room,” I said, pointing. “I’ll be there in a minute. I want to speak to you before you go.”

Tina gave a sulky nod and stepped into the hall. But she turned around immediately. “It was nice talking with you,” she said to Mab.

Mab nodded regally.

“And . . . you won’t forget?”

“I’ll not forget. But you have some things to remember as well, do you not?”

Tina’s eyes flicked to me, then away. She bit her lip and nodded. Then she turned and fled down the hall.

“That young lady—” Mab began.

“I’m sorry she was in here bothering you. But I don’t want to talk about Tina right now. I want to talk about you.” I caught her hands and held them between mine, warming them.

“I’m as well as can be expected under the circumstances. Rest did help. But unless the bloodstone is returned to me, I shall continue to age at an accelerated rate.” She spoke matter-of-factly, as if commenting on the weather. But that was Mab. No matter how bad the situation, she always cut through emotional distractions to focus on the practical. “So tell me, child, what have you learned?”

“We didn’t find the bloodstone.”

“I assumed as much. If you had, I’d have felt it.”

I briefed her on what Kane and I had learned. Since that was virtually nothing, it didn’t take long. But as I spoke, I had an idea. “Can you use your connection with the bloodstone to locate the safe house?”

Mab shook her head. “Myrddin has cloaked it. Its whereabouts are as much a mystery to me as they are to you.”

“How can we get it back?”

“I’m not happy with your plan to put yourself at risk to draw Myrddin out. Let’s be up front about that. But I can’t see any alternative. Myrddin intends, I believe, to pour your life force into Pryce and then shut me away forever, suffering from the knowledge of your fate.” Her cloudy eyes looked down at our joined hands. “So there’s one piece of good news, at least.”

I attempted a smile. “I think your definition of ‘good news’ must be different from mine.”

“We’ve time to plan, child. My body is giving out, but my mind is keen. Now, let me think, and then we’ll discuss strategy.” She drew her hands away. Three quick pats on my arm let me know I was dismissed.

The bed shifted as I stood. When I was at the doorway Mab said, eyes still closed, “By the way, I told Tina you’d most likely let her keep Russom’s a bit longer.”

“You did? Why?”

“She’s adequate on her overview of the Inimicus genus but needs to spend more time on the characteristics of individual species. If the child wishes to study demonology on her own time, surely you can allow her to borrow a text that would otherwise only gather dust on your bookshelf.”

I opened my mouth to respond, then decided not to bother. I wasn’t going to argue with Mab about anything right now, least of all Tina. And really, I thought as I pulled the door shut, Mab was right. What harm could it do to let Tina keep Russom’s? As long as she understood that borrowing the book didn’t mean she was still my apprentice, I had no problem with it.

Something looked different as I walked down the hallway back to the living room. As soon as I saw Tina holding a trash bag, I realized what it was.

“You’re cleaning up.” The words sounded strange, directed as they were at Tina.

“Yeah. Your aunt said I should. She was all about how an orderly environment is important.”

That did sound like Mab. If she could get Tina to pick up after herself, she was stronger than I was, even in her weakened state.

I put out my hand for the bag. “Here, give me that. I’ll take care of it.”

Tina handed it over, her eyes thoughtful. “What’s wrong with your aunt? The last time I saw her, she didn’t look so . . . I mean, I knew she was old and all. That’s how she got all that awesome demon-fighting experience. But she didn’t look old old. How sick is she?”

“She’ll be better in a couple of days.” I’d make sure of that.

“Whew, that’s good. ’Cause I thought she looked like . . . I don’t know, like she was about to die any minute or something. She didn’t sound that way, though. Um . . .” Tina ground the toe of her boot into the carpet. “Did she say anything about me?”

“Right now, Mab and I have other things to talk about.”

“Oh. Sure. I guess you do. I mean, she’s visiting from another country and all.” Tina picked up a discarded pizza box. I held open the trash bag, and she dropped it in. “Well, I guess I’d better get home. I have to clean my room��that whole orderly environment thing.”

Making Tina’s home environment orderly would probably require a bulldozer and a hazmat team, but if the kid wanted to clean her room, good. It would keep her out of trouble for a month or two.

“Where’s Killer?” she asked, looking around. “I want to say good-bye to him.”

I made a point of not looking toward the kitchen. “Probably sleeping. We took a long walk.”

“Oh. Well, rub his tummy for me, okay?”

Heat rose in my face as my color turned beet-red. Any tummy-rubbing I gave Kane would have to wait until things were back to normal. And it would not be on Tina’s behalf.

Tina headed for the front door. I picked up Russom’s from where it lay on the coffee table. “Wait a second,” I said. “Mab did mention you. She said you needed to work harder on the individual species of the Inimicus genus.”

“That’s what she told me, too.”

“So I guess you can hang on to my copy of Russom’s a little longer. I’m not using it right now.”

She grinned and reached for the book.

“But,” I added, pulling back slightly, “we need to be clear on one thing. I’m still not taking you back as an apprentice. You do understand that, right?”

Tina nodded, her eyes on Russom’s like it was a container of butter-pecan ice cream and not some dry old textbook about demons. “Yeah, sure. I understand. I just want to, you know, brush up.” I let her take the book, and she hugged it to her chest. “If you need somebody to stay with your aunt again, give me a call, okay?” She let herself out.

Wow. Tina offering to do somebody a favor. I stood and stared at the closed door like maybe another miracle would happen. I could use one right about now.

Something stirred in the darkness, a small pulse in the air like a soft sigh. It pulsed again. As I watched, it took on form and color, becoming a small pink cloud. The cloud hiccupped and grew a little larger. Sky blue streaks swirled up among the pink.

I peered through the colors to see a young face peering back at me.

“Hi, Maria.”

“Yes! I did it!” She pumped her fist. “I called you.” My niece stood in the middle of a vast, colorless dreamscape, like an actor on an empty stage.

“You certainly did. But isn’t it a school night?”

“Nope. Tomorrow’s an in-service day. That means the teachers have to go to school, but the kids stay home.” She did a little happy dance. “I really called you! It wasn’t too hard, either.”

“It gets even easier with practice. For example, you can fill in your dreamscape with whatever scenery you want. You can make it look like you’re in your bedroom at home, or you can make it look like you’re a princess sitting on a throne in a big castle.”

“Princess stuff is for little kids.”

“Well, whatever you want.”

“Can you show me how?”

“Sure. Start by closing your eyes.”

“My eyes are already closed. I’m sleeping.”

“Inside your dream. When you’re getting started, imagining is easier with your eyes closed.”

She screwed her eyes tightly shut.

“Relax a little. Believe it or not, the harder you try, the more difficult it gets.”

Her face smoothed out as she let some of the tension go.

“Good. Now, think of somewhere you’d like to be. Somewhere fun.”

“The beach.” Each summer, the Santinis spent a week’s vacation on Cape Cod.

“Good choice. Now, imagine you’re there. Feel the sand under your toes, the warm sun on your back. What do you hear?”

“Seagulls. And the waves coming into the shore.” She turned her head a little and sniffed. “Vicky! I can smell the salt water!”

“Perfect. Hold all that in your mind.” As she did, a seascape sketched itself around her. Colors and shapes filled in—a beach umbrella, a plastic bucket, a sandcastle decorated with shells. “Ready? Open your eyes.”

She did, and her eyes went wide with amazement. Her pajamas had changed to a bright pink bathing suit, and pinkframed sunglasses perched on top of her head. She spun around, laughing, and ran to splash in the water. “It’s cold!” she shouted. “Just like at the Cape!”

“You can warm it up if you want. It’s your dream.”

“Really?” She closed her eyes again. Then she opened them and threw herself into the water. She dived into the waves, arcing through them like a porpoise. Briefly, a gleaming porpoise superimposed itself on her as she swam. I saw both Maria and the animal she’d be if she shifted right now.

Interesting. Maria’s shapeshifting abilities might be developing faster than we’d realized.

But when she ran back up the beach, water streaming from her hair, she was all Maria, an eleven-year-old girl having fun. She looked around for a towel, but there wasn’t one. She closed her eyes, and a towel patterned with seahorses draped itself around her shoulders.

“That’s what your mom and I were talking about when we said you’re in charge of your dreams. Eventually, you won’t even have to close your eyes to make things happen.”

“Cool!” She sat down on the sand and tipped her head back to look at the clear blue sky. “Thanks for teaching me, Aunt Vicky.”

“I think that was a pretty good first lesson. Now we should both get some real sleep.”

Maria drew lines in the sand with her finger. Studying them, she asked, “What did Mom tell you about my great-aunt? When she made me go outside.”

One thing Gwen was right about—Maria shouldn’t hear that story. I did my best to answer without answering. “Your mom is a good person. Aunt Mab is a good person. But there’s a misunderstanding between them that probably can’t be fixed. It’s sad, but sometimes things happen that way.”

“If it’s a misunderstanding, can’t you talk to Mom?”

“I don’t think it would help. Not after all this time.”

“Aunt Mab’s colors were so pretty. And she wanted to help you. I don’t believe she’d do anything bad.”

“She didn’t. But you still have to obey your mom. When she says that she and I are the only people you can talk to on the dream phone, you listen.” In her current condition, I didn’t think Mab had the strength to use the dream phone, and I didn’t want Maria trying to call her.

“Okay. But maybe Mom will change her mind.”

Not on this issue. Not unless she could travel back in time and turn around at the right moment, to see what Mab had saved her from.

“Now I’m going to show you how to hang up the dream phone. You know what you did to call me?”

“I thought about your colors.”

“Do that again.” She immediately closed her eyes. “In your mind, make them rise up so it looks like I’m standing in the fog.” As she concentrated, her own colors rose up around her where she sat in the sand. They swirled around her waist, then her shoulders. When the pink and blue tendrils of mist touched her face, I said softly, “Good night, Maria.”

My dreamscape returned to its empty, dim twilight. I heard the faint cry of a seagull, and then Maria’s voice, like an echo from far away, bidding me good night.