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  “Jennifer must be one smoking hot piece of pussy, that’s all I have to say.” Tovah rubbed beneath Max’s chin. The dog’s eyes closed in ecstasy. “Hear me? Pussy.”

  He barked, once, twice, and she shushed him with a laugh, mindful of the neighbors. “You said it. I hope she gave him the clap, too.”

  Tovah looked at the table where the papers lay, then down at her faithful pooch. “It’s bedtime.”

  Max yawned and put his head back into her hand. Tovah put her face to the dog’s soft fur, smelling faintly of shampoo. She closed her eyes and took what comfort she could from knowing that if nothing else, she was the world to this one creature.

  Chapter Twelve

  He took her up against a wall, hard and fast. No speaking. Tovah touched the lines of his face, heard the rough hoarseness of his breathing. They climaxed together, him with a shout and her with a sigh.

  It was easy to tilt the wall behind her until she lay upon it, easier still to shape hard brick into a soft mattress. They lay upon it together, both still breathing fast. So far, neither of them had said a word.

  “Tell me what I needed,” Tovah said. A challenge.

  Her lover turned on his side to stretch out along her body. Warmth from his skin kept the chill from her better than any blanket. He ran his hand over her body.

  “To feel wanted.”

  This perfect answer hit so close to home she gasped with it and sat, turning from him. Tovah pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, pushing back tears. She wished she hadn’t asked.

  He touched her hip and drew her closer, back toward him. He spooned against her. His breath caressed the back of her neck and stirred the tumbled length of her hair.

  “Is it so wrong?” he asked finally. Softly. “Why should you be ashamed of something so many people want?”

  She couldn’t explain to him that she didn’t want a guide. She wanted a lover. A real person to hold her. To want her.

  Her lover said nothing when she didn’t answer. He stroked over her hip, then up again, each touch meant to calm her. The subtle tug and pull of his will tried to soothe her, and after a while, she let it. She let him take away the tension and the grief, let him surround her instead with calm.

  She turned to look at him at last. “You always have a different face, but I still know it’s you.”

  He smiled. “I’m whatever you want.”

  She teased his hair from golden to midnight and shaped his eyes from green to gold. “What about what you want?”

  He shrugged and kissed her. Against her mouth, he murmured, “I’m not concerned with my physical representation.”

  “Why not?” She sat again but without drawing away.

  He sat, too. “Because it doesn’t matter what I look like. It matters how I behave. Doesn’t it?”

  He cocked his head to look at her. His features stilled, frozen by her will, and he smiled and didn’t fight her. Tovah gave him perfect arched brows and blue-green eyes, a full mouth and two dimples.

  “It’s distracting,” she said after a moment, though the result was perfect.

  He passed a hand over his face like a mime using the motion to change expression. “Only because you let it be.”

  “I thought you were supposed to give me what I want,” Tovah said, annoyed.

  “What you need.” Her lover smiled. “Guides give you what you need, remember? Even when you don’t know you need it?”

  Tears stung again and she blinked against them. She lifted her chin, stubborn, feeling an urge to argue. “Okay. So give me what I need.”

  She thought he would make love to her again. Make her breathless. Make her forget there was a real life that failed her.

  Instead, he drew her close and linked his fingers with hers. He held them tight in his, held her against his body, her head upon his shoulder. He embraced her, skin on skin, and though his lips pressed against her neck, the kiss was one of comfort and not seduction.

  It was exactly what she needed.

  “Where’s your friend?” The witchwoman’s words were not cruel, but her tone was. She leered in the doorway.

  The boy said nothing. He watched the dogman pacing, its fists clenching and sometimes creeping to the tools on its belt. Drool, thick white curds of it, curdled in the corners of its mouth. It smelled bad.

  “Don’t you know there’s nobody for you?” The witchwoman put herself between the boy and the dogman, forcing him to look at her, instead. “Maybe you’d like it better if I let him have you? Would you like that?”

  She snapped and the dogman turned. It squatted by her side so she could pat its head. Like a pet. The boy shuddered and withdrew. He was so tired his eyes felt like he’d rubbed sand into them, but he dared not close them.

  “Do you want him?” the witchwoman asked the dogman, who growled low in its throat. Her fingers stroked over coarse fur. “Do you want to bite that boy? Make him bleed?”

  The dogman’s growl revved like an engine. Like laughter. It lunged forward, snapping at the boy’s feet.

  With a cry, the boy jerked out of reach, his eyes closing and hands thrusting forward. Pushing. Pushing. Wishing he could run and knowing he had no place to go.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The soft sigh of the heating vents, the feeling of paper against her fingers, those were the sensations Tovah associated with the Ephemeros when she visited Henry. Tovah hovered on the edge of sleep, not really tired enough to doze but forcing herself to try for Spider’s sake. Visiting his waking body didn’t mean much if he wasn’t awake.

  “You know,” she said, stretching as she almost always did when first entering the dream world. “I do have better things to do with my Sunday afternoons, Spider.”

  “Tovah. Hi.”

  Spider’s body had blocked her view of Ben, lying on his back, arms and legs spread. He got to his feet, smiling cautiously. His body left an imprint in the blue grass.

  “Is there a reason why the grass is blue?” She was determined this shouldn’t be awkward.

  Ben looked down. The grass became green. He looked back at her with an easier smile. “That better?”

  “I don’t care what color it is, really. I just wondered if there was a reason it was blue.”

  “Ben’s not so good at color.” Spider turned, eight legs moving with precision. “It’s the first to go when he’s got anything else to do. For Tovah it’s the edges.”

  He sounded like a parent describing his children’s strengths and weaknesses. Tovah frowned, annoyed. “Are the edges that important?”

  “Depends what’s on them,” Spider said.

  Tovah looked at them, back and forth. “Was I interrupting something?”

  “No.” Spider’s colors swirled. Today he was blindingly blue and orange.

  “Psychedelic.” Tovah pointed. “What’s up with the headache waiting to happen?”

  Ben had reached to pluck up a handful of the grass that had become blue again. “Spider’s been helping me shape, that’s all. He’s probably tired.”

  This was not a good enough explanation. She pushed forward to put her arm around Spider’s thick body. He felt hot. She looked into the topmost pair of red eyes. “What’s going on?”

  She felt it again, at once, swift as the crack of a whip and with the same painful sting. The Ephemeros shook around them. The grass vanished, replaced by cracked and sand-scoured rock. In the distance, black mountains surged forth. There was no longer any delineation between sky and earth, nothing to keep them anchored but the small patch of ground on which they stood.

  Ben grabbed her and Spider. She grabbed Ben. The three of them clung together, a triangle of resistance against the onslaught. Spider trembled, shrinking until he could fit in Tovah’s palm. She curled her arm against her body, sheltering him from the wind whipping around them. Ben’s arm tightened on her.

  “Why is this happening?” she cried over the howling wind snarling her hair into a tangle.

  Familiar but long-forgotten terror