I stalled like the coward I was, shoveling dinner into my mouth in an attempt not to speak. My stomach wasn't up for fajitas, but I did manage a few arepas con queso. Hannah watched me with an air of faint amusement.

"You eat the same way. I would have thought that'd change over the years. You know, since you're still alive."

"Hmm?" was the only sound I managed through a mouthful of arepa.

"Like you'll never see food again," she clarified. "It was especially bad on that one mission. You remember Nicodemus, right? That scene you made in the Denny's dining room?"

My stomach performed a nervous flip at the sound of Nicodemus' name. It was a sharp, painful reminder that there had been a Knight of the Coin gunning for my brother. The Fomor might have him now, but Nicodemus wasn't an idle man. If he was determined to recruit my brother, he would, and God help whatever bastard stood in his way. Still, I couldn't help but grin at the memory. I'd managed to disgust Deirdre, Nicodemus, and Lasciel all in one go. It had been a high mark at one point.

"I remember," I said, washing down the last arepa with a swig of water. "And it's just habit by now. I had to be careful what I ate in Faerie, so when I actually found human food that was safe to eat, I was sure to stuff my face."

Her brow climbed higher. "Faerie?"

"Summer. I've been there for a little over three years. It didn't feel like that on the other side, but they'd let me cross over to Chicago once in a while for holidays and stuff. Maybe half a dozen times a year and never for more than a few hours. There's just too much stimulation in the outside world, and they didn't want me to hurt myself. It would be a breach of their given word, and you know they can't stand that."

Hannah crossed her arms over her ample chest and squinted at me. It produced a line of deep cleavage displayed to its best advantage by a sleeveless V-neck shirt. Her sweat had made it diaphanous in places and it clung pleasantly to her chest. A chest I hadn't really admired this much the last time we'd met. Damn. The thing with Lara must have gotten to me.

"I heard you were caught and executed by the Wardens. Are you saying that you made a deal with one of the Sidhe to spring you?"

"Not exactly. Do you remember the night Count Cavallero died?"

Hannah's face blanched, and she curled in on herself a little. Pain scrunched her face into a knot of hard lines. She'd lived with the consequences of that night for three years. So had I. My scars weren't as visible.

"The night the others died," she whispered. "How could I forget?"

I reached across the table, offering my hand. She eyed it warily but didn't move to take it. I should have expected that reaction. From her perspective, I'd been living it up in Summer's paradise while she suffered chronic pain and put her life on the line over and over. Some friend I turned out to be.

"I'm sorry," I said and couldn't quite meet her eyes as I said it. It was woefully inadequate. She deserved more than a crummy platitude. "I sent Sanya looking for you, but it never amounted to anything. Lily wouldn't let me go to the park without an escort for over a year, let alone enter a war zone. She said it needed to wait until I'd healed. Her definition of 'healed' and mine were different. If I could have come I..."

The ice in Hannah's gaze stopped the sentence cold. My head dipped, and I studied the wood grain as though it might spell out the words I needed to say. No luck.

"Don't," she said. Her voice was a keen, cutting whisper, so sharp that it made me wince. "There have been enough lies, Molly. Don't insult me by spewing more."

"Thomas told you?"

"Your real name? Yeah, he told me. That was a fun talk, let me tell you. I understand why you didn't make it public knowledge when you were working with the Fellowship since the Reds could use it to target your family, but you should have at least told me. We're friends. Partners. At least, I thought we were."

"I had my reasons."

"Uh-huh."

I sighed. This line of questioning was going nowhere. I rewound the conversation to the last time it had been productive and tried again.

"We're getting off track. You wanted to know how I ended up in Faerie, instead of a disembodied head on the tower of Castle Edenborough. It has to do with that night. After I got you to the hospital, I stormed the manor. Salem and Anna were gone, but I still managed to spring hostages before blowing it to kingdom come. I told you about it before leaving to find Nicodemus."

Hannah's lips pursed as she thought it through. She might not remember. She had been post-surgery and high as a kite.

"Kids," she said eventually. "You rescued a lot of kids they'd farmed from the nearby town. Dozens of them."

"And fifteen adults. Alchemists and healers mostly. All of them Wizards of the White Council. They got the kids to safety while I dealt with the Count."

Hannah's lips parted, and her eyes went wide with disbelief. She leaned forward in spite of herself, unfolding like a fan, beautiful, but full of stiff angles. "You can't be serious. One of those White Council bastards felt they owed you a...a life debt or something? And they sprung you?"

I rolled a shoulder. "That's what I thought for a long time. One of them had been given a boon from Lily and decided to gift it to me instead. If I'd been in better shape, I would have questioned that. Giving up a boon from a regular Sidhe is one thing. Passing on a favor from the Summer Lady is something else, especially to a warlock like me. If she'd wanted to give me a sporting chance she could have just hauled me into the Nevernever and stalled the rest of them to give me a head start. It would have been fair."

"So why did she?" Hannah asked. She'd propped her elbows on the table, head cradled in her hands, animosity momentarily forgotten.

"I don't think she had a choice. There was a psychomancer loose in the ranks of the White Council. Samuel Peabody. Any wizard under seventy he had regular contact with had some sort of programming installed. He had dozens of sleeper agents just roaming around Edenborough, most of them Wardens. Even the Senior Council was nudged in the wrong direction. It was a mess. He was a part of the group that smuggled me out. And he had contact with me almost every week for years. It wasn't a coincidence that I landed in Summer. He wanted me in the right place at the right time, so that when the programming was triggered-"

"You'd kill one of the Sidhe," Hannah said, hand fluttering up to cover her mouth. She spoke through her fingers. "Someone important. Maybe even one of the Summer Queens."

"Bingo. And after being exposed to Lily so long, conditioned by her magic, I'd be the closest living vessel. If I hadn't been triggered by accident in House Raith, he'd have succeeded in putting his sleeper assassin on one of the thrones of Faerie. Makes you wonder to what point and purpose." I jabbed a finger at my gaunt face and faded hair. "This was the price of dismantling what he'd done. Lara couldn't afford to be delicate. The effort almost killed me, but it's gone. I'm me again, for the most part."

We sat in silence, just looking at each other. Outside someone strummed a guitar and someone else sang an off-key rendition of El Noa Noa. Saying it aloud brought more unsettling questions to mind. Had my desire to find Hannah dimmed because of Peabody's meddling? The old Molly would have gone after her friend, consequences be damned. Had he bound and gagged by loyalty alongside everything else?

Hannah blew out a frustrated breath. "Well, fuck. I was going to kick your ass when you were back on your feet, but it looks like someone beat me to it. Doing it now just feels cruel."

I smiled cautiously. "You can kick me while I'm down if it makes you feel better."

Hannah's lips twitched. "I'll hold you to that. C'mon. You're dead on your feet. Get into bed. I'll do my best to ward the place and then we can both sleep. I'm beat."

Hard to argue with that. Even this brief conversation had taken a lot out of me. It was the longest I'd been active and the densest meal I'd had to date. Sleeping next to someone would be nice. Summer fae were touchy-feely, and I'd always had at least one faerie curled up next to me. Or in the case of the little folk, nestled in my hair or resting on the tip of my nose.

I made it a point to wash the dishes while Hannah was busy with the wards. Complex magic had never been her specialty, so even rudimentary stuff could take a while. It also gave me time to take a sponge bath and comb the knots out of my hair. I hadn't been strong enough to stand in a shower for long, and I didn't trust myself not to climb Thomas like a tree if he tried to help me. Or flop around his roots, as it were.

When I exited the bathroom in sleep shorts and a tank top I found Hannah waiting on the bed. I blinked.

"Wow. That was fast. It must have been a small ward."

Hannah gave me a sly, secretive smile. It looked odd on her face. I'd seen her smug, but never with condescension glimmering in the depths of her eyes. I had seen the look on someone's face before, but I couldn't recall who. It just wasn't a Hannah look.

"Big enough," she murmured, gliding across the room to me. Every rolling step was sinuous and sure. The stiff tension she'd held in her shoulders relaxed, and her smirk unfurled into an exultant smile. "It'll keep the vampire out, at least. I've been waiting for this moment since I arrived."

I just stared. Hannah could walk without her cane? Why had she tried to hide it from me? Didn't she know I'd be over the fucking moon about that?

"Your legs," I began in a voice barely above a whisper. "They're fine. How...when?"

Hannah moved into my personal space and I took a step back on reflex, knocking into the wall. She was there, caging me in. We were the same height, and in my current condition, she could subdue me without effort. Her mouth crashed down on mine a moment later, warm and full, moving in a rhythm that felt at once familiar and alien. I felt like a dancer who was a beat off, struggling to catch up with the routine.

Her eyes were bright with excitement when she pulled away. But it was the phosphorescent glow of a second set of eyes that catapulted my heart into my throat. I tried to jerk away, but Hannah's hands trapped my face, holding me steady, so I had to stare directly into their lambent depths. Her nails dug into my skin so hard that they formed bloody crescents on my cheeks.

"Lasciel," I breathed.

Hannah's mouth moved, but the drugging contralto that rolled from her lips was all Lasciel. She kissed me again, and I felt the difference.

"Did you miss me, lover?"

I struggled, jerking like a fish on a line, trying desperately to escape the predator reeling me in. I might as well have been pitting my strength against a boulder.

"Do it," I wheezed a minute later. "If you're here to kill me, just kill me. It's not like I'm going to be able to survive torture at this point."

She trilled a laugh. "Kill you? Oh no, my sweet. That would be a waste. I'm giving you a chance to reconsider your choices. After a fashion, of course. I'll have to thank the White Court bitch for setting things up so nicely. Now hold still."

I felt Hannah's magic, and the dangerous flicker of hellfire that fueled it, pool in the tips of her fingers before sinking into my pores. It spread like ivy beneath my skin, twining, insidious tendrils of concentrated will seeking a target. I understood what she meant to do a second before the spell hit my mind. My eyes flew open wide and I choked on a scream.

Psychomancy.

"Oh shi-"