The next few months passed in a blur.

Life with the Fellowship wasn't half as fraught as I'd believed it would be. The missions came, of course. Assassinations like the one we'd pulled off in Boise weeks after getting the information from Penelope Cardenas' head. There were retrieval jobs too, when supernatural folk needed to steal or reclaim something. And the ones I loved best were the humanitarian missions. Rescuing children from the Reds. Delivering medicine to the sick. Food, clothing, and supplies to the needy. It was like being apart of supernatural USAID.

Only a few words came to mind when I pictured the months behind me, tethered with gossamer strings to memories I would probably treasure for the rest of my life.

Family.

Being with the Reverists was like having a family again. Anna, Thorn, Salem, Nixon, Hannah and I would gather at different restaurants all over Belize, sometimes going over the plans for the month. Sometimes meeting new clients. But often we were just there to enjoy each other's company. Anna was growing increasingly quiet as time stretched on, as she was pushed to the margins of my life.

I knew without having to probe into her emotions to know she was slightly resentful. There was little she could do to aid us in our work. Only her involvement in the local animal shelter and the food kitchen kept her from feeling superfluous. But during our dinners, she'd relax into the good-natured and patient woman who'd brought me into her home and stood by me during the lowest point in my life.

She smiled at me from across the table at a San Pedro restaurant, swirling her Pad Thai around a chopstick before popping it into her mouth. I grinned back, shivering in delight when the spicy flavor of Som Tum zinged across my tongue.

It was good to have her back.

Training

After my lack of skill had almost gotten me killed, I resolved to learn a useful skill or two. It was clear that relying on my magic for everything was a stupid idea. (Not that I didn't still use it. I'd come up with some nifty gadgets after settling in. Enough that Nixon had stopped calling me Cathy and switched to calling me Mac. For MacGyver, he said with a chuckle. I pinched his arm. He pretended it hurt, just for me.)

I spent sweaty mornings in a dojo with Thorn for two days a week, learning Hapkido. On the off days I'd go to a gun range with Nixon and learn how to handle a revolver. It didn't pack the same sort of punch as the mini-uzi that Nixon favored for combat, or the Magnum he kept for personal defense. But my magic complicated things. The revolver was the least likely to suffer a malfunction, so that was what I went with.

And of course, there was the sword.

The silver katana I'd stolen from Emory wasn't built to accommodate me specifically, and so could be finicky. Lasciel and I had worked on tweaking the charms to allow for smoother magic flow into the blade. Swords couldn't jam or run out of ammo, so in the evenings I'd train until supper. Lasciel had to be my instructor in this. But mere knowledge didn't mean diddly if I didn't have the muscle tone to back it. I had to train against an opponent.

Lasciel provided me with a recreation of my father to spar against for a week. The illusion of him was so real that it knocked the breath out of me every time. At any second I expected him to drop Amoracchius and wrap me in a big bear hug. The second she made him smile approvingly at my progress, I banished the illusion, retiring to my room for a brief crying jag.

She produced the image of Nicodemus Archleone for me the next day. I felt much more comfortable stabbing him.

Life went on.

Postcards

I selected a card off the wire card rack, examining it. It was a light cream color and emblazoned with a bear holding a giant stuffed heart bearing the words "I miss you."

The postcard was stuffed in the rack with the belated Valentine's day cards. It came with a pastel pink envelope. I bought both and sat down at one of the wicker tables in front of one of the many tourist traps in Belize City. I could drop it in a mailbox and send it to them right now. I tugged a ballpoint pen out from behind my ear and scrawled the words I'd penned a hundred times.

"I'm alive. I'm safe. I'm sorry that I can't come home. I love you."

I stared at the looping penmanship with a sad, mangled smile on my face. I dropped it in the trash with my Coke can when I got up from the table. The private investigator I was paying to tail my family and Mr. Dresden would give me a report at the first of the month, like he always did. I'd know they were safe. It was better they didn't have false hope. I couldn't go back.

But it felt nice to dream.

Dancing

Weapons and hand-to-hand weren't the only thing I learned. The Reverists were sometimes embroiled in high espionage. So I learned exactly how to blend into every situation. From lockpicking to etiquette, every skill I could think of got shoved into my noggin.

Nixon taught me to dance, tugging my body close to his in the middle of a gazebo. It was lit by flickering candlelight because I was murder on the fairy lights the strung up around the venue. His face was all glowing planes and dark intriguing shadows. We twisted lithely, but it wasn't the exertion that made my heart speed. And when Nixon leaned in to cover my mouth with his, I thought it would leap right out of my throat toward him.

Pleasant tingles ran over my skin. It was not my first kiss. We were not in love. Yet. But I liked him. Liked the way it felt to be tucked against him.

His infected half meant doing more was impossible. But I still got lost in his drugging kisses every time.

It was good enough for me.

Fingers snapped in front of my face, drawing my attention away from the diagrams I'd been sketching. Hannah and I had begun an experiment of late, after I'd had a brainchild over pork lo mein.

The experiment had two successful test runs thus far, which made us hopeful. The idea was to trap Hannah's fire magic into a magically enforced plastic polymer to be used as incendiary devices by practitioners. Bombs were a tricky business for wizards. You had a fifty-fifty chance of blowing yourself sky high before reaching your intended target.

The spell would be inserted into a sphere about the size of a softball made entirely of Vespel. It could withstand 350 hours of 398° C heat, losing only half of its initial tensile strength. An effort of will could split the thing in two and ignite whatever target you were aiming at.

I dragged my gaze up to Anna's with a frown. "What?"

"You need to stop this now," she said sternly.

I gritted my teeth. I should have known a lecture was coming. There were always days of frosty silence before Anna ambushed me like this. We were alone in the house, as Hannah was currently waiting for our newest client to show up at the Bird's Isle Restaurant not far away.

"I don't have time to argue with you, Anna."

"Like hell. You spend your hours tinkering with your magic. You can spare five measly minutes to talk to me."

"This is important-"

"This is dangerous," she corrected. "This is arms dealing, Molly. Do you think that these will only be pointed at bad guys?"

"The money that we gain from selling them goes to the Fellowship, which they will use to help people. It will all come full circle, Anna."

Her nostrils flared. "I've stayed for you, Molly. Stayed because I promised to tell you if she was twisting you like a pretzel. Well, she has. You're not just twisted into shape. You're deep fried and salted."

Anger bubbled in my stomach and left a sour taste in my mouth. I fought not to sneer at her. She was blowing things out of proportion. Yes, I'd been going on more missions. Yes, I'd used psychomancy to draw names and locations from the heads of captured Reds before they were killed. But I'd opted out of the bad missions. The ones in the Congo, where Hannah and Salem were asked to do God knew what for whatever warlord had climbed his way to the top of the heap. The ones for the Unseelie Fae, and whatever dastardly plots they had up their sleeves. I hadn't done any mercenary work, aside what needed to be done against the Reds.

Anna's face softened and she extended a pleading hand. "Just drop the coin, Molly. Please. You can still work with the Fellowship. You're still talented. You don't need her."

She was wrong. If I dropped Lasciel's coin, what did I have left? Minor magical skill that I could never put to use during combat. I didn't have that sort of staying power. The gear I'd been producing would take months to construct, not weeks. I didn't want to be like Anna, sitting the fight out and bitterly contemplating my own uselessness. Lasciel hasn't done harm to anyone that hasn't tried to kill me first. If that ever changed, I'd walk away. But for now, I needed her.

"I have to go," I muttered, dropping my pencil onto the pad of paper. "Hannah, Nixon, and I are meeting a new client. A retrieval job, in case you're interested. I won't be doing any evil."

The last came out with an edge of horrible mocking and I hated myself for it the second it escaped. Anna edged away from me, shoulders slumping in defeat. She didn't even try to stop me when I left, slamming the door behind me.

The Bird's Isle Restaurant was located beneath thatched awnings, done up tiki style. There was more seating on the boardwalk, which was where I headed. Nixon didn't like to be enclosed if he could help it. He had mild claustrophobia because of a childhood incident he still wouldn't elaborate on. The ocean spread out to the sides, a perfect stretch of lapis-lazuli, crested by green waves with foamy white tips. The sound of the ocean lapping the shore made my anger fizzle down.

Anna meant well. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't understand. She was used to being at home, used to having a limited role that she could play. I just couldn't accept that.

Hannah was wearing a cute red halter dress and had her hair pulled into a messy bun beneath a sunhat, rose sunglasses balanced stylishly on the bridge of her nose. I felt a little plain in comparison, sporting plain clothes over the body armor I'd made for myself. The corset jacket would give me heatstroke in Belize, so I'd modified a body shaper to act in a similar fashion. It was thinner and could only slow attacks, not halt them in their tracks. Still, it was better than nothing. I wore a loose blue cotton shirt and a pair of breathable white pants over it. I couldn't get away with toting my sword in public, but I did have my gun. It made me feel a little better.

Nixon emptied the last of a Heineken, leaving only foam in his glass. There were two people seated opposite him. A man and a young woman. She was rapier thin, with the sort of body type most women aspired to. Small curves, lean waist, and fragile bone structure. Her face was a little lean, her features pretty but not extraordinary. Her dark hair fell around her face, almost concealing dark eyes.

But it was the man who commanded my attention. He wasn't as imposing as I'd always imagined. Even when I'd gotten a good look at him, he always seemed larger. He was medium height, medium build. Short dark hair, shot through with off-center streaks of silver. He turned slightly in his chair and I got a glimpse of an expensive dress shirt and a slender gray tie knotted in the shape of a noose that fit snugly beneath the starched collar.

That was about the point my heart started hammering against my ribcage. I dropped my gaze away from his searching dark eyes. There was no effing way I wanted to look at this man's soul. Because I knew who this man was before Hannah even made her pleasant introduction.

Our client was Nicodemus Archleone.