"Faith-healing, Paul?" Dr. Gottreich said as Paul retrieved Mariella's computer from the Old Kingdom. "Who is filling your head with such nonsense?"

"Nobody's filling my head with anything, and if you want to keep yours, you'll shut your trap," Paul warned him.

"She's his?" Gottreich inquired, giving pause to his annoyance. He thought of Paul as little more than a wild animal, but lately the boy had been surprising him. His connections, in particular, were mind-boggling.

"No, she's mine," Paul countered with the sarcastic half-smile that he reserved for the abysmally stupid. "Just as soon as she does this one little thing for him."

"What do you want of me then?"

"I want you to stay out of her way," Paul told him gravely. "If you meddle with her, you meddle with him, and losing your nut would be the least of your problems."

Gottreich, normally steadfast and self-assured, was surprised to look down at his own hands and find them trembling. Clasping them behind his back so the irksome devil-boy wouldn't see, he said, "Go then, Paul. I want no part in it."

"It was never about what you wanted," the boy scoffed, taking his leave.

* * *

"Once I heal her, then what do I do?" Mariella asked Paul as he was reconnecting her computer.

"There's a phone booth at the corner," he said idly. "You'll go there and wait for it to ring. They'll give you instructions on what to do next."

"What if he won't let me come back to you? What if he sends me somewhere else?" The boy looked up at her in surprise, not because he hadn't thought of all of this, but because she'd voiced a desire to come back to him. "Paul, how can you trust them?"

"I don't," he admitted, moving close to her. "I trust you." When he loomed over her like that, all the nerves in her body tingled with anticipation. No other man, no living man, had ever made her feel quite that way. Paul didn't frighten her, but her feelings did, especially since he had barely touched her and already she felt like one of Dr. Schwarzton's tuning forks, all vibrations and nerve-endings. Paul was confused by her sudden trembling. He had never been quite this close to her before. She felt like a live wire, and still they weren't even touching. "Do I frighten you?" he asked her.

"No," she said with a nervous chuckle.

"Do you want me to?" he said, and she laughed. He was teasing her. The boy was fascinated by technology and was especially fond of movies. He was quoting one to her now, though she couldn't remember which. "Mmm, that's better," he murmured, finally putting his arms around her. "You looked like you were about to explode."

"Maybe I was," she admitted, touching his face gently. It was easy to forget that he wasn't really a boy when he smiled, and when her hands were colder than he was, she could almost pretend he was alive. "You wouldn't hurt me, Paul, would you?" she asked him, expecting him to refuse to answer or at the very least be vague.

"No," he said softly, his smile fading but still there. It was just one word; no fanfare, no fireworks; but in that moment Mariella believed he would die for her if he hadn't already been dead.

"I love you," she told him gravely.

"Do you?" he asked her. "You must be insane." He said this with a hint of disbelief, but no sarcasm.

"Maybe," she agreed, "but there's something about you, Paul."

"Something?" he echoed, teasing her. "What?"

"I don't know," she admitted, chuckling. "Can't you feel it?"

"It's not me, Ella," he whispered. "It's you. You only think I'm good, but I'm not. Except when you make me want to be." He drew her even closer to himself, kissing her gently but thoroughly, their mouths meeting and parting and meeting again until Mariella was dizzy and breathless. Paul held her close and said softly, "If you change your mind, I'll face him for you. I'll tell him I called it off."

"I won't change my mind," she assured him. She was doing it for him. Only for him. In her mind, there was no turning back.