I’d decided Ryodan was somehow keeping me from going all the way with Dancer. Didn’t want me losing my virginity to somebody that might die. Not that Ryodan knew I was a virgin. But it would be a totally Machiavellian thing to do: a kind of “Don’t let Dani care too much about Dancer because when he dies, it might screw her head up, and she won’t be nearly as productive.”

I was so irritated by the time I got to his office, thinking about how he was messing up my life—again—that I blasted inside in full freeze-frame, and my vibrations at twenty-something are far more impressive than they were at fourteen. I no longer merely ruffle papers and hair; at high velocity I can shake the glass in walls.

His entire office rattled and shuddered as I stood there, peering at him from the slipstream. Then he was up in it with me, standing close.

“What?” he demanded.

“What do you mean, ‘What?’ ” I growled.

“You only blast in here like this when you’ve gotten yourself worked into a tizzy about something. Get it out and over with. I have things to do.”

“Like paperwork? As if you were ever actually doing that. Is your tattoo screwing me up, or is it something else you’ve done?” I got right to the point.

“Screwing you up how?”

“Every blasted time I pass your club, your little compulsion spell tries to suck me inside. Get it off me.” He dropped down instantly and I followed him into slow-mo then stabbed him in the chest with a finger. “If you want to talk to me about something, text me. Don’t use magic on me. I’ve had enough of that kind of manipulation in my life.”

His silver eyes bored into mine. “Each time you pass my club you want to come inside?”

“You put the spell on me. You know how it works.”

He smiled faintly. “I didn’t put a spell on you.”

The instant he said it, I knew he was telling the truth. I can tell when he’s being deceptive and when he’s not. Ryodan’s modus operandi isn’t outright lying, it’s shaping words into twisty little pretzels of obfuscation. His reply was too straightforward to contain any twists.

I stood there wishing I could simply erase the past few moments from the chalkboard of my life. I’d just betrayed to Ryodan that I’d been contemplating him with such frequency and intensity, I decided he must have put a spell on me. And he’d gotten that faintly smug look in his silvery eyes probably no one else but me would have noticed.

One way or another I was getting out of this one with grace. “So your tattoo doesn’t have any effect on me whatsoever?”

“To the contrary. I’m the one it’s a problem for.”

“No spell?”

He sliced his head to the left and that smug glint shimmered a little.

I exhaled gustily and said, “So it is because I can’t stop thinking about it.”

He arched a brow, waiting.

“Shazam,” I clarified. “Each time I drive by here, I start thinking about him. You said you could help me.” These past few weeks, I’d forced myself to put thoughts of Shazam in suspended animation, focusing on saving the world and Dancer, in that order. How could I justify pursuing something I wanted just because my heart hurt so badly it almost made me puke in the middle of the night, when the world was silent and I worried about where and how Shazam was and if he was crying and all alone, when billions were going to die if we failed to save them? How could I leave Dancer? What if he died while I was gone?

When I was a kid, my thoughts were so linear: point a to point b. There was what I wanted and what I did to get it. But when you get older, you suddenly have all these c’s and d’s and z’s you have to factor in, too.

When I first returned to Dublin I’d been acutely aware of how much time was passing for Shazam while I hunted for a way to rescue him and get us both back home. The more time that passed, the more worried I’d gotten that I would go back for him and he’d be gone. Not only would I still not have him, I’d have paid whatever price I had to pay for going back—for nothing.

I dropped down into a chair near Ryodan’s desk, waiting for him to go sit down on the other side. When he finally did, I said, “You said you could find me anywhere with the tattoo. You asked me not to use it when you were injured and I didn’t. I want to use it now.” Even as I said it, I wondered what I would do if he said yes. Could I leave this dying world? Dancer?

Ryodan rubbed his jaw, hand rasping over his shadow beard, and I had a sudden vision of that jaw tearing into a human thigh, the sleek black powerful beast he’d become, and I shivered. Yanking out a protein bar, I tore off half of it in a single bite.

“I believe we’ve got a week, at most, before one of the holes touches ground,” he said. “It would take longer than that.”

A week? Mac hadn’t told me that! But then I hadn’t seen her in several days. “Does everyone know?”

He sliced his head in negation. “It would start panic. We’re moving people off world as quickly as we can. Tell me about Shazam.”

I surprised myself by complying. I meant to give him a brief sketch but once I started talking, it just came gushing out of me, like an ocean backed up behind a leaking dam. Shazam lived when I talked about him. I could almost feel him again, warm against my body, hear him muttering crossly, demanding grooming, attention, and food, always more food. God, how I missed him!

I told Ryodan about meeting Shazam on the planet Olean, with the teleporting trees, how he became my best friend and companion, the many worlds we traveled together and the adventures we’d had. I reminisced and laughed and lit up inside. Talking took me back to those worlds where we’d played with zest and abandon when circumstances had permitted.