“Please don’t degrade yourself by begging. There is not one thing you can say that will make me walk back into that revoltingly pink house.” Holgarth allowed Sparkle to help him over the fence and then stood wringing the water from his robe.

“Mede will be thrilled if you leave now.” Sparkle was counting on the wizard’s contrary nature. She plucked his hat from his head and restored its tipsy point to an upright position. Then she handed it back to him.

“Hmm.” Holgarth narrowed his eyes to slits as he studied the back door. Then he wrapped his wrinkled robe around himself and marched toward the steps. “I’ll stay.” He even managed a thin-lipped smile. “And he’ll hate it.”

Sparkle sighed her relief as she followed the wizard into the house. Was this then to be her job—putting out fires all over the place? She caught Orion at the bottom of the stairs. “Would you show Wizard Holgarth to his room? He’s in the one next to mine.”

Orion didn’t look happy. “Okay. But I was going to find Ganymede so he could give back my power. He didn’t take the powers from the others. It isn’t fair.”

“Life isn’t fair. Get used to it.” She forced a smile. “I’ll talk to Ganymede about your power.”

A little mollified, Orion led Holgarth up the stairs.

Sparkle continued toward the kitchen. A passing thought: she’d gotten rid of the school marm shoes. She liked the click, click of her four-inch heels on the hardwood floor. Those clicks gave her confidence, made her feel in control. She needed them now. Fine, so that was silly. She was the queen of sex and sin. She didn’t need anything to give her confidence. She lifted her chin and kept walking.

Sparkle reached the kitchen and paused in the doorway to watch Mistral. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He turned to glance at her. “Taking inventory.” He pulled boxes from the pantry and piled them on the counter.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in a crisis here. The Big Boss could show up at any moment, and you’re counting boxes of macaroni and cheese. What’s wrong with this picture? Oh, and by the way, when are you leaving? You irritate Mede, and he doesn’t need even one more annoyance.”

“Is the wizard staying?”

Sparkle frowned. What did Holgarth have to do with anything? “Yes. I convinced him to hang around.”

“So we both irritate Ganymede, but the wizard gets to stay and I don’t. Reason?” He slammed a can of peas onto the counter, a little harder than necessary.

“I need Holgarth.” Fine, so that sounded cold even to her. But she refused to apologize.

Mistral turned from the pantry to throw her a wounded look. “Wow, sis, way to make me feel welcome after all I’ve done for you.”

She raised one brow. “Don’t give me that poor-pitiful-me expression. You can’t honestly say that you enjoy being around Mede.”

He smiled. She didn’t trust that smile.

“Mede has a certain barbarian charm I could grow to admire. And I guess he’ll just have to get used to me because I’ve decided to stay.”

What had she done to the universe that it kept kicking her in the teeth? “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mistral.” Sparkle hoped Mistral heard the threat in her voice. She was close to losing it, and he didn’t want to be around when that happened.

“I suppose that’s my decision, sis.” He held up his hand to stop her retort. “Did you forget our bargain? You promised to help me settle into the place of my choice.” He held out his arms to embrace the house. “Well, I choose here.”

For just a moment, Sparkle remained speechless. Then she thought of the perfect wrench to toss into Mistral’s plan. “This house belongs to Mede. He won’t allow you to stay no matter what I agreed to.” There, her faux brother taken care of.

“Are you sure of that? Why don’t we ask him?” Mistral closed the door to the pantry. “He dished out a bowl of ice cream for himself a while ago and then left with it. I assume he was taking it up to his room.”

Sparkle nodded. She would call Mistral’s bluff. But as she led the way up the stairs to Mede’s room, Sparkle worried. Mistral seemed a little too sure of himself. She still felt uneasy as she knocked on Mede’s door.

“It’s unlocked.”

Mede’s voice in her head told her all she needed to know as she opened the door. There was only one reason he’d speak in her head when he was within yelling distance.

A big gray cat lay sprawled on top of the bed. He leisurely groomed one paw as he watched them enter. His whole feline body sent a message that said relaxed and unconcerned.

His attitude ticked her off. “You could’ve at least stayed in human form long enough to give me a hand with everything.”

“You have plenty of others to help. Ask them.” He yawned.

Suddenly, her anger fled. Something about his voice didn’t match his cat body language. What was it?

Mistral spoke up. “I hate interrupting your down time, oh great master of the frilly pink house, but I have a question.”

Sparkle winced. Mistral should know better than to bait Mede. Luckily for Mistral, Mede didn’t seem to be in a crushing or gutting mood at the moment. Which was strange. Mede never allowed insults to go unpunished.

“Go ahead. The faster you ask, the faster I can say no.” Mede rolled onto his back, his paws waving in the air, and studied the ceiling. “Look at all that fancy painting on the ceiling. Looks like the freaking Sistine Chapel. Not my kind of bedroom.”

Sparkle couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Right. You like big mirrors over your bed so you can admire yourself.”

Mede’s chuckle was warm in her mind. “As amazing as I look naked in human form, I’d rather see a woman’s delicious body in my mirror.”

For a moment, Sparkle dared to hope. Was he over his mad?

“If I get past the Big Boss, I’ll have to give that theory a test run—huge mirror, lots of test subjects.”

His voice was chipped ice, and Sparkle wanted to hurt him the way he was hurting her. “When the Big Boss gets finished with you, you’ll look like Quasimodo. So I wouldn’t count on lots of takers for your mirror experiment.”

Mistral cleared his throat. Loudly. “Before both of your maturity levels descend to about nine-year olds, may I ask my question?”

“Sure.”

Mede sounded bored, but Sparkle thought she detected a tiny grating noise that could be teeth grinding. She hated his cat image. She could never read emotion in that feline face. Even his whiskers didn’t twitch.

“Great.” Mistral grinned. “I’d like to stay here and—”

“No.” Mede washed his face with his now well-groomed paw.

“Who’s going to cook for everyone?” Mistral winked at Sparkle.

She wanted to hustle Mistral out of the room. She didn’t know where his question was going, but it probably wouldn’t help her get-rid-of-Mistral cause. “You’re wasting our time. You should’ve just listened to me when I told you to go.”

“Wait.” Mede stood, stretched, and then padded to the end of the bed. “Sparkle doesn’t want you to stay?”

“We don’t have a loving relationship.” Bitterness colored Mistral’s words.

Mede remained silent for a moment while Sparkle fumed. If that damn cat allowed Mistral to stay just to spite her, she’d give every carton of ice cream he bought to the teen troublemakers. They would make it disappear before he could say Rocky Road.

Sparkle jumped in to answer Mistral’s question. “I’ll do the cooking.” Maybe. If they forced her to.

And for once, Sparkle could read Mede’s cat perfectly. His ears flattened, his tail lashed, and she swore she saw panic in his huge amber eyes. Now that was just insulting. Okay, so she knew she wasn’t a great cook. Fine, so she was a rotten cook. But he didn’t have to look at her like she was the second coming of Lucrezia Borgia. “Hey, I’ll buy a cookbook.”

“Lucky for both of you, I’ve worked as a chef in some of the most prestigious restaurants in the world.” Mistral wore a smug smile.

“You have?” Sparkle was surprised. She couldn’t imagine the Mistral she knew puttering around in a kitchen. How much do you really know about him? During all those centuries, Sparkle had never bothered to learn anything about him. She’d always been too busy trying to get rid of him.

“So you’ll cook for us?” Mede sat and then curled his fluffy gray tail around him. “Tell me more.”

No, no, no! Sparkle didn’t know why it was so important that Mistral leave, but the thought of him staying left her breathless with her heart pounding. This wasn’t right.

“I found you, Ganymede. I can find anyone. That means I can track the Big Boss and keep an eye on him. I can warn you when he’s close.”

“Will you fight with me?” Mede offered Mistral his unblinking cat stare.

“Sorry, no.” Mistral shrugged. “I don’t do the loyalty thing. I’m disgustingly selfish. Ask my loving sister, she’ll tell you.”

Mede shifted his gaze to Sparkle. “Well?”

Sparkle tried to keep her expression neutral, but she didn’t think it was working. She wasn’t a neutral kind of person. “He’s as selfish as you are.” She sensed that Mistral had won the match the moment he mentioned being a chef, so there was no reason for her to stay. “I’ll see you guys later. I have things to do.” She glanced at Mistral. “I’ll expect an awesome dinner tonight. Make it happen.” Then she turned to leave.

“Wait.”

Mede’s voice stopped her.

“We have some things to discuss after your brother leaves.”

She opened her mouth to angrily deny that Mistral was her brother, but then she closed it. That’s the response Mede wanted. He was angry with her, and he was looking for ways to irritate her. “Sure.” She sat on the couch.

“You’re hired, Mistral. You can take the room next to mine. You’ll find shopping money in the cheeseburger cookie jar on the bureau. Oh, and no healthy crap. Lots of red meat and carbs.” He cast Sparkle a sly glance.

She forced herself not to react. Revenge would be sweeter when he sat down to dinner, lifted the lids from the bowls, and found yummy servings of broccoli and spinach. It was her duty to see that the teens ate balanced meals.

She and Mede waited silently as Mistral retrieved the cash and quickly left. Sparkle figured he didn’t want to stick around until Mede realized the mistake he’d just made.

Once the door closed behind Mistral, Sparkle spoke. “Why do you hide behind your cat form?”

He blinked. “Hide? What gave you that idea?” He was too surprised to even feel anger.

“I’ve known you for too long, Mede. When you’re a cat, no one expects a lot from you. You can lie around watching TV and pigging out. You don’t have to be responsible for anything. And no one has to know what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, because cats don’t show their emotions on their faces.”

“And that’s bad because?” He wanted to deny everything she’d said, but he couldn’t. His cat was the comfortable, easy-going, okay with the world part of him. His human part belonged to his creator. This past month he’d been the chaos bringer, and he’d played the part in human form.

Sparkle stared at him as though she’d expected a different answer. Then she shook her head. “So maybe I’d like to discuss things with you while you’re in human form.”

Ganymede didn’t want to “discuss” things with her. He just wanted everyone to leave him the hell alone for a few hours. But if she was going to stick around to help him, he couldn’t keep avoiding her. He flicked his tail angrily. “Okay, I’ll change if it’ll get you off my case. I’ll be back.” He leaped from the bed and then padded into the bathroom.

He’d never changed in front of her. The process was too slow, too painful, and even though he’d never watched himself shift, he figured it was pretty gross as well. Ganymede closed his eyes and willed his human form to return.

The pain of flesh, bones, and muscles expanding and reshaping themselves dropped him to the floor. Even after thousands of changes, he still wanted to scream at the agony. By the time it was finished, he was panting while sweat poured off his human body. He climbed slowly to his feet. A nap would be great right now, but he couldn’t ignore Sparkle waiting in the next room.

He took a quick shower, pulled on his jeans, T-shirt, and sandals, then returned to her.

She sat on the couch where he’d left her, but there was something about her expression that made him feel wary. “What?”

“Your ice cream.”

He glanced at the bowl still sitting on the coffee table. “What about it?”

“It’s completely melted.”

Ganymede didn’t see where she was going with this.

“When Mistral and I came in, you were on the bed. Not eating your ice cream. It was almost melted then, which means…” She paused to shake her head. “You purposely abandoned it, left it uneaten, walked away from—”

“I get it, I get it. So?” He somehow felt guilty for that crappy bowl of ice cream.

“Ice cream is your favorite thing in the whole world.”

You used to be my favorite thing in the whole world. He avoided her stare. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“Something bad must’ve happened to put you off ice cream.” She held up her hand to stop him from answering. “And please don’t tell me it upset your stomach. Lots of things might do that, but never ice cream.”

Decision time. Ganymede had intended to tell her everything at the same time he told everyone else in the house. Yes, it sort of made him feel small and mean, but he’d wanted her to believe she was no more important than anyone else, that she really meant nothing to him anymore. He could still do that. He could lie and say he was too busy thinking about the teens, Holgarth, the ghost—which thank all the gods hadn’t yet appeared to him—the alien yellow thing, and the Big Boss to relax with his ice cream.

He told the truth.

Because during all the tens of thousands of years of his existence, Sparkle had remained his only true friend. So it wasn’t to a lover but to a trusted companion that he explained how his memories of a time before his life on Earth began were trickling back a few at a time. Not many yet, and nothing too specific. But enough for him to know that he’d had a “before,” a home somewhere else on another planet, and that his creator had kidnapped him, stripped him of his memories, and tossed him into this world to fend for himself.

And since he figured his life may as well end now as later, Ganymede admitted that he’d already told all this to the Big Boss.

When he’d finished, she sat staring at him from wide unblinking eyes for way too long. “Any thoughts?” He’d probably be sorry he asked that question.

Finally, she took a deep breath. She studied her nails. He could’ve told Sparkle that her nails were her biggest tell. Whenever she was angry, worried, or upset, she checked for chipped color or broken nails. If life really piled on her, she changed nail colors.

“I had a family, people who cared about me?”

Ganymede nodded. He looked away from the tears forming in her eyes. He was through with her, so they shouldn’t bother him, right?

“And that bastard stole me away from them?”

“Then he erased your memories.” Happily, he noted the tears were gone. Her eyes glowed with fury.

“He is absolutely dead. Worse than that, I’ll neuter him. No more sex. Ever. I’ll make it happen.”

She looked as though she was about to heap more revenge on their maker’s head, but instead she turned all that anger on him. “You never told anyone. You never told me. Why not?”

There it was. The question.

The truth? Not the lie he’d fed himself about her meaning nothing to him. What could he say? That he wanted to protect her? That he intended to destroy his creator, and he didn’t want her to die with him? Then why was he allowing her to stay here now? Weakness. To his shame, he couldn’t allow her to walk completely out of his life. He was trying to form a believable lie when she spoke.

“It’s always been about you, hasn’t it? You wanted our maker all to yourself. Or maybe you didn’t think I loved you enough, so you couldn’t trust me with the truth.” Her eyes were glazed. “I can’t believe you told the Big Boss before you told me. After all our years together.”

She sounded destroyed, and her misery tore at him. But she’d given him an out, and he tried to convince himself it was for the best. He couldn’t speak the words, so he simply nodded.

Sparkle stood. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I guess I’d better check on the others. Oh, I convinced Holgarth to stay.” She took an unsteady step toward the door.

She’ll go away now. The thought was a sledgehammer blow to his gut. You wanted this. His dumb heart didn’t recognize logic, though. She’ll never come back. The weight of all his regrets crushed him. Ganymede couldn’t breathe past the picture of a future—a very short one—without Sparkle Stardust.

He had almost fought free of her until she showed up on his porch. Now he had to scour her out of his system for the second time. You can’t do it, loser.

Ganymede gathered what little courage he had left and asked the all-important question. “You’ll be leaving?”

Sparkle tried to smile. “You won’t get rid of me that easily, Mede. I’ll fight by your side the way I always have. We’ll kick butt together.” Her pretend smile turned almost real. “I’ll wear gloves, though. I wouldn’t want to put the battle on pause for a manicure.”

Her support lifted the weight from him. He took a deep breath. “Thanks. But the Big Boss and I will be going mano a mano. I’d appreciate a cheering section, though. Bring ice cream.”

Her smile faded. “We’ll see about the mano a mano thing.” She speared him with a hard stare. “Warning. I’m a vindictive witch. Don’t think I’m finished with you. But I’m putting my mad on hold until the danger is over. Once that happens, I’ll—”

Sparkle didn’t get a chance to finish speaking as Mistral flung open the door. He stumbled into the room, his eyes wide.

“I found the Big Boss.” He breathed hard.

Fast work. Ganymede was impressed. “Great. Where is he—Florida, Texas?

“The ACME market down the street. Baked goods aisle.”