I reached in my pocket, pulled out candles in the shape of numbers, and one I’d whittled to a stub of a period, and stuck them on top of the cake. He looked at me as if I’d sprouted a second head.

“Pi, Ms. Lane? I’d pegged you for failing high school math.”

“I got a D. The little stuff always trips me up. But the big stuff stuck with me.”

“Why pi?”

“It’s irrational and uncountable.” Funny girl, wasn’t I?

“It’s also a constant,” he said dryly.

“They were out of sixes. Seems this time of year six-six-six is big,” I said, lighting the candles. “Obviously, they haven’t seen the real Beast, or they wouldn’t be playing at worshipping it.”

“Have there been more sightings?” He was still frowning at the cake, looking at it as if he expected it to sprout dozens of legs and begin scuttling toward him, thin-lipped, teeth bared.

“It’s been transferring hands every day.” There was a stack of papers by the couch. The crimes the newspapers were reporting made eating breakfast while reading it risky.

He lifted his gaze from the cake to my face.

“It’s just a cake. I promise. No surprises. No chopped-up Unseelie in there,” I joked. “I’ll even eat the first slice.”

“It’s far from ‘just’ a cake, Ms. Lane. That you procured it implies—”

“—that I was having a sweet craving and used you for an excuse to indulge. Blow out the candles, will you? And lighten up, Barrons.” How had I not realized the delicacy of the ice I was on? What in the world had made me think I could give him a birthday cake and he’d be anything but weird about it?

“I’m doing this for you,” he said tightly.

“I get that,” I said. I was really glad I’d vetoed getting balloons. “I just thought it would be fun.” I stood, holding the cake out to him in both hands, so he could blow out candles before they dripped wax on the pretty confection. “I could use a little fun.”

I sensed violence in the room a split second before it erupted. In retrospect, I think he thought he had it caged, and was nearly as surprised as I.

Cake and candles exploded from my hands, shot straight up in the air, hit the ceiling, and stuck there, dripping gobs of icing. I stared up at it. My lovely cake.

Then I was trapped between the wall and his body, with no awareness of having gotten there. He’s frighteningly quick when he wants to be. I think he could give Dani a run for the money. He had my hands pinned above my head, braceleted at the wrists by one of his. The other was around my throat. His head was down and he was breathing hard. For a moment, he rested his face in my neck.

Then he pulled back and stared at me and when he spoke his voice was low with fury. “Never do that again, Ms. Lane. Do not insult me with your silly rituals, and idiotic platitudes. Never try to humanize me. Don’t think we’re the same, you and I. We’re not.”

“Did you have to ruin it?” I cried. “I’d been looking forward to it all day.”

He shook me, hard. “You have no business looking forward to pink cakes. That’s not your world anymore. Your world is hunting the Book and staying alive. They’re mutually exclusive, you bloody fool.”

“No, they’re not! It’s only if I eat pink cakes that I can hunt the Book! You’re right—we’re not the same. I can’t walk through the Dark Zone at night. I don’t scare all the other monsters away. I need rainbows. You don’t. I get that now. No birthdays for Barrons. I’ll pen that in right next to Don’t wait on him and Don’t expect him to save you unless there’s something in it for him. You’re a jackass. There’s a constant for you. I won’t forget it.”

His grip on my throat relaxed. “Good.”

“Fine,” I said, though I don’t really know why. I think I just wanted the last word.

We stared at each other.

He was so close, his body electric, his expression savage.

I moistened my lips. His gaze fixed on them. I think I stopped breathing.

He jerked so sharply away that his long dark coat sliced air, and turned his back to me. “Was that an invitation, Ms. Lane?”

“If it was?” I asked, astonishing myself. What did I think I was doing?

“I don’t do hypotheticals. Little girl.”

I looked at his back. He didn’t move. I thought of things to say. I said none of them.

He vanished through the connecting door.

“Hey,” I shouted after him, “I need a car to drive!” There was no answer.

A large chunk of cake dropped from the ceiling and splatted on the floor.

It was mostly intact, just a little goopy.

Sighing, I got a fork and scraped it onto a plate.

It was noon the next day when I got out of bed, cleared my monster alarm from in front of my door, and opened it.

Waiting outside for me was a thermos of coffee, a bag of doughnuts, a set of car keys, and a note. I unscrewed the thermos top, sipped the coffee, and unfolded the note.

Ms. Lane,

I would prefer you join me in Scotland this evening, but if you insist on helping the old witch, here are keys, as you requested. I moved it for you. It’s the red one, parked in front of the door. Call if you change your mind. I can send a plane as late as 4:00.

CJ

It took me a moment to figure out the initials. Constant Jackass. I smiled. “Apology accepted, Barrons, if it’s the Ferrari.”

It was.

SIXTEEN

Liminal” is a fascinating word. Times can be liminal: Twilight is the transition from day to night; midnight is the crack between one day and the next; equinoxes and solstices and New Year’s Day are all thresholds.

Liminal can also be a state of consciousness: for example, those moments between waking and sleeping, also known as threshold consciousness, or hypnagogia, a state during which a person might think herself fully alert, but is actually actively engaged in dreaming. This is the time that a lot of people report a convulsive jerk, or a feeling of physically falling.

Places can be liminal: airports with people constantly coming and going, but never staying. People, too, can be liminal: Teens, like Dani, are temporarily stuck between child and adult. Fictional characters are often Liminal Beings, archetypes that straddle two worlds, marking or guarding thresholds, or are physically divided by two states of existence.