“If I tell you,” he said cautiously, “it might be the biggest, most serious secret you’ve ever heard. And my family might be in danger if the wrong people find out. Will you promise not to tell anyone? Like, maybe you could undergo some kind of magical oath?”

She turned her head and leaned closer, until her face was right up in his and the scent of strawberry jam filled his nostrils. Her forehead tightened until her eyebrows were almost joined. “A few people in my lodge are under magical oath to protect a big secret. I think that’s bullshit. You can’t force a person to be loyal. If you’re going to trust someone, you trust them until they give you a reason not to. ¿Confías en mí?”

Jupe’s Spanish lessons rattled around inside his head and overlapped with all the Mexican lucha libre wrestling he watched on Galavisión. He was pretty sure he understood her question, but he made a mental note to pay more attention in class.

As he cracked his knuckles, trying to make up his mind, Leticia’s knee touched his thigh, warm and insistent. He glanced down between them. After a moment, he pressed his leg against hers in answer. She didn’t pull away. When he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, all at once, he decided he did trust her, and not just as a last resort.

So he licked his lips and spoke in a low voice. “Have you ever heard of the Black Lodge slayings?”

If I thought that after sleeping all afternoon a few feet away from Lon, I might wake up and accidentally find myself in the middle of a lust-bleary romp under the sheets—and admittedly, that’s exactly what I thought—I was w-r-o-n-g. He’d already gotten up, showered, given our dirty clothes to the maid, gone to the gym, and scouted out the on-premises restaurant where we could eat our early-evening breakfast.

Overachiever.

“I know we didn’t get enough sleep, but we’ve got an entire night to get through until we can head back to the reptile store tomorrow morning,” he told me before I’d even sat up in bed. “So I think it would be best if we spend what time we can outside the room, so we aren’t tempted.”

“Tempted to . . . ?”

“To fall asleep during the night,” he clarified.

“Oh.”

A girl might think she was being avoided. This girl certainly did. But I didn’t say anything. Nope. Not a word. I did, however, leave the bathroom door wide open when I got dressed, during which I did hear him swearing under his breath before he announced loudly that he’d meet me downstairs in the lobby when I was ready to eat.

My smell-o-rama knack was still alive and kicking but not half as strong as it was before I slept, which was both a relief and a shame. It was working well enough to make me reject the food our waiter brought out and order something different. And after we wasted time window-shopping at a mall until it closed and then nearly falling asleep in a midnight showing of a crappy horror movie that even Jupe would have hated, I found myself able to identify a unique scent wafting from Lon. Not all the time. Just when I tried to play footsie with him under the restaurant table. Or when I walked too close to him. Or when I raised the movie-seat arm between us and leaned against his shoulder.

I wasn’t certain, but I thought that scent was a little amorous. Sure, it crossed my mind that perhaps I was projecting my own wants, but by the time we’d sat around in an all-night diner caffeinating ourselves and doing all the research two people could do on a crappy internet connection and no sleep, I was willing to take the risk that I was right.

It was past five by the time we made it back to our hotel suite. Sunrise was more than an hour away, but soon after, we’d have to leave for the reptile shop. I kicked off my shoes and headed over to Lon, who was looking miserable, flipping through channels in the sitting area of our room.

“Where’s the tarp?” I asked.

“Why?”

“Because I want to practice transmutating.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh, really? Because you were all gung-ho about it back in Golden Peak. How am I supposed to learn to control it if I don’t practice? I think that was your argument.”

He stared at the TV, stewing. “That was before random knacks started appearing unexpectedly.”

“Afraid I might suddenly develop the knack to read your thoughts? Oh, wait. That’s right. You already do that to me.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t be a smart-ass.”

“Give me the tarp.”

“No.”

“Fine. I’ll practice without it.” I began unbuttoning my jeans, watching his gaze hover over my fingers for a moment until he groaned and got out of his chair to dig through his luggage.

“Here,” he said, tossing the folded tarp to me. “Be stubborn, see if I care.”

I retreated to the marble-tiled bathroom and called out to him as I snagged a boxed sewing kit the hotel provided along with a plethora of fancy shampoos and lotions. “I’m not the one who’s being stubborn. You’ve been avoiding me all night, and you won’t talk about the kiss. Makes me wonder if you regret all that stuff you said in Pasadena.”

Indecipherable grumbling answered me. I strolled back into the sitting area and pretended not to look at Lon as I inspected the sheer curtain behind him, one that covered a patio over a dark palm-lined courtyard.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Finding a place to pin this up. It would give me some freedom to walk around without worrying I’ll smudge up the symbols. Since you’re watching TV, I’ll hang it up on the other patio by the beds.”