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  “Thanks for coming,” Priya said, sniffing back tears. Ree stepped inside, set the bottle on the foyer table, and grabbed her friend to deploy her most comforting hug.

  “Pri, what happened?”

  Priya closed the door and stepped back. Priya’s studio apartment was two-thirds workshop, one-third actual apartment. Couch and table were mounded over with machinery, bolts of cloth, and several types of sewing machines. She was a perfect complement to Drake in the Steampunk world, her head as much in the clouds about projects as he was.

  Ree handed over the bottle, and Priya filled glasses with ice and poured the vodka three fingers to the glass. This was serious fucking business, if Priya was in heavy-pour mode.

  “Drake and I were out at a Steampunk maker-space for a meet-up, art show, performances, all that stuff,” Priya said, perching on one of her worktables, leaving Ree the uncovered seat. “It was a full schedule, so we didn’t get out until after three.”

  Ree took a long swig of the sweet vodka, resigned to the fact that her whole day was going to be triage mode, even more than she’d expected. This was a breakup story or she was Elmer Fudd.

  “We were walking back from Fane and Douglas and a trio of guys in hats and coats blocked us off on the sidewalk and pushed us into the alley.” Priya took a slug from her drink. “The bigger two had knives, but the little guy in the middle had a gun, probably a .22.”

  Priya hugged herself with one hand, defensive body language telling Ree just how scary the encounter must have been. Priya’s focus waned; her eyes glossed over. “The lead guy said, ‘Give us all your money, and we’ll let you go.’ ”

  Priya continued. “I went for my wallet, but Drake stepped forward and tried to defuse the situation.”

  Ree’s bullshit sensors started going off, but she let her friend finish, already suspecting she knew the story behind the story.

  “He said, ‘Are you quite convinced of the rightfulness and propriety of accosting a young couple in the middle of the night, when there is a police station not three city blocks from this location?’

  “And the little guy said, ‘Shut your trap, Gov’ner, and give us your money.’ The guys with the knives moved forward, and Drake tried to disarm them. He got one’s knife away from him, but then the other one came in. They both grabbed him and threw him against the sidewall.

  “I yelled for help, and the two guys started beating him. He fought back, and the whole time, the guy with the gun was just looking at me, with the most terrifying look on his face, like the Cheshire cat on meth. The thugs went for him again, so I jumped in and sprayed one with my mace. He yelled, then swung at me. I ducked under that, but the other one grabbed my arm and threw me into the wall, too.”

  Priya pulled her hair back, revealing the hastily-bandaged wound at her eyebrow, face still crusted in blood. “Drake got back up and clocked one of them over the head, then pulled a knife of his own. The guy with the gun shot Drake in the chest, and he went down.”

  Fuck. Ree was already suspecting that this story came from the Doubt and not from what really happened, but if Priya was reinterpreting it as a shooting, Drake must be truly hurt.

  Ree looked at her glass as she finished a sip. It was already empty. Priya continued. “Then a police siren started, and the muggers ran down the far end of the alley. I grabbed Drake and pulled him up to his feet. But where he’d been shot, there wasn’t much blood, just a hole in the shirt. He was wearing a chain mail shirt. ‘I’ve been thinking of taking up historical combat; wanted to see how much these things really weighed.’

  “It didn’t really make sense, since I didn’t hear it. . . .” Priya’s eyes glazed over again, and she leaped back into the story.

  “But he was okay, and we walked back here.” Priya’s glass was empty, too, and she topped off both women’s booze.

  “We patched up,” Priya said. “But when that was done, he was all closed off, looking over his shoulder, nervous. He apologized fifteen times in that way only someone like he could, this long litany of his failures and deficiencies all the way back here, about how he should have been able to protect me, that he shouldn’t have tried to fight and that they should have run.

  “He said that if he couldn’t protect me, then he didn’t deserve my attentions, like it was his fault that those guys came after us.” She stopped, looking down at her glass. She held it in both hands, squeezing hard like she was trying to crush the thing.

  “He fucking dumped me twenty minutes after we got mugged in the middle of the warehouse district, then he just left, still apologizing, and told me that I should call you and the others, that he would do what he could to, I don’t even know, something. And then he just left.”

  Ree’s internal monologue ran a string of curses, her heartbeat stepping up with sympathy and anger.

  “Who the fuck does that? What the hell, Ree? He was all Prince Charming perfect, more than a bit weird, sure. Maybe too into the scene. But one mugging and he completely loses it like some bro idiot, when he got hurt worse than I did? You know him, right? Through that catering job? Has he pulled something like this before?”

  Ree reeled at all the different angles of this clusterfuck unfolding before her. Fifty bucks she didn’t have said that the “mugging” was the result of the Doubt, so she needed to get the story from Drake to see if something magical had been the cause, but looking after friends came first.

  “I don’t know, Pri. You’re the first person I know he’s dated in town, so I don’t know if this is how he does stuff. And I bet he was scared, if he got shot, but that doesn’t excuse a goddamned bit of this.”

  Ree’s drink was empty again, and her ears were hot.

  The door buzzed.

  Priya leaned forward, but Ree raised a hand. “I got it,” she said, trying to be calming even when her own emotions were scaling up toward super-storm levels of lividity.

  “Sup?” Ree said, pressing the button.

  “Ree? It’s Anya.”

  Ree buzzed in Priya, and took the entrance time to walk over and give her friend another hug.

  “I’m so sorry, Pri. I didn’t know he was an asshole.”

  “This is the only asshole thing he’s done, though. It just doesn’t make any sense. Unless all that adventurer bluster was enough of an act that as soon as something real happened, he freaked and ran, tail between his legs.”

  Ree did some quick calculations. Priya could relay the story to Anya while Ree made a call to get the real scoop. Anya already knew the real deal about magic, ever since Halloween, and had been epic levels of cagey with keeping it all under wraps. “The Jimmy Olsen to your Superman,” she called it. Anya wanted to tell the others, but Ree had wanted to minimize exposure, try to keep the Ladies free of her magical bullshit.

  Too late now. The time for full disclosure had come and gone months ago, and the only thing that could be done now was to get it over and done with, come clean and circle the friend wagons.

  They opened the door for Anya, who was dressed even more “Oh crap, midsleep emergency” than Ree was, her hair wild, jacket thrown over yoga pants and a sleep shirt. Anya had her keys held in her left hand, Wolverine-style, relaxing as the door opened. She stuffed the keys back into her jacket and said, “Are you okay?”

  Anya Rustova (Strength 7, Dexterity 12, Stamina 15, Will 15, IQ 16, Charisma 15—Musician 5 / Geek 2 / Scholar 4 / Opera Diva 3) was built like a classic Russian spy, all curves and vivacity in a compact frame with Brazilian-blowout hair. She was usually a bargain-finding style icon, all cashmere scarves and designer clothes, but she dressed up because she wanted to look good, not because she needed to look good. Not offstage at least. And when the Friend-signal went up, looking fancy didn’t mean jack.

  Ree stepped forward, “You take over for a sec. I need to make a call.”

  “What?” Anya said. Priya echoed the question.

>   “It’s about Steve,” Ree said, using the code they’d adopted to say, “Something magic is up,” when they were around friends not in the know. Ree was hoping that pretty soon, Steve would leave town, no longer needed.

  “Sure,” Anya said, stepping into the apartment.

  Ree anger-stomped down the stairs, remembering a flight and a half down that it was the middle of the night and she’d doubtless woken people up on a Monday morning.

  She pulled up Drake’s number on her Favorites list and called. She got to the front door before he picked up.

  “Ahoy ahoy,” he said, with the least enthusiasm she’d ever heard him muster over the phone.

  Ree was outside, with no one around. But it was still 4 AM.

  Fuck it.

  “What the goddamned fucking fuck were you thinking?” she asked, ears on fire like the time she’d tried a ghost chili pepper with nothing but water on hand to drink.

  “Ah. You’ve spoken to Ms. Priya, then. First, let me—”

  “No ‘ah’ bullshit. Tell me what happened, because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t thugs with knives, and I want to know the truth before I roast you over the coals and feed your skinny ass to the gnomes.”

  He was silent for a beat. When he breathed in, she heard a wince of pain, which undercut her rage, but not enough. Full-on sisters-before-misters mode was on.

  “On the journey back from the gathering, we were assaulted by a panther, or something close enough to the form of a panther as to be indistinguishable. If panthers could climb and hang on walls, which as I recall, they mostly cannot.”

  “Less taxonomy, more explain-y,” Ree said.

  The sound of ripping duct tape came over the phone, and then more wincing. “The panther crawled down the side of the building and leaped at me. I pulled Priya back into the alley and threatened the panther with my handgun, but it pressed the attack. I fought back, but the beast was blindingly fast and quickly had me on the ropes, mauling me against the sidewall, my gun cast aside. I’d thought that we’d be safe; the crime reports for that neighborhood are consistently two orders of magnitude lower than others, and with monster attacks trending within three percent of those crime reports, given the Doubt—”

  Ree cut him off again. “The parts about Priya, please,” Ree said, anger at having to get Drake back on topic doing nothing to diffuse her rage, though it was entirely familiar. In better circumstances, this would be a gentle ribbing, not an interrogation.

  “She sprayed the panther-thing with her mace—quite bold, but it had little effect. The creature cut her face before returning to me. I managed to wound the creature with my knife after it gouged me, and then the beast thought better of the fight. It scaled the walls, disappearing onto the roofs.

  “After that, I escorted Priya home. I told her that if I was so careless as to not be able to protect her from the dangers of the city, then it would be far better for her if I removed myself from her life, as I did not deserve her affections.”

  “Bullshit, Drake. This random-encounter shit happens to everyone. If you’re embarrassed about being underprepared, then prepare better. And the only person who gets to decide if you’re worthy of Priya’s affections is Priya. If you asked for her to forgive you—did you even wait for her response, or did you just go gallivanting off into the night to take a page from Eastwood and get your brood on?”

  “I thought to spare her the shattering of her worldview that would come from sustained activities in contravention of the Doubt. Better to think poorly of me and be safe.”

  “Nope, nope, and a whole lot more nope. You can’t just turn tail and leave her friends, including me, to clean this up. I’m telling her what really happened, and then you’re going to apologize again, this time so she’ll remember for real. What happens after that is up to her. You hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Drake said, cowed.

  “Good. Now get yourself patched up and wait for my next call.” Ree took a breath.

  “And Drake?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m glad you’re both okay. If she was on her own, she might not have made it. You fucked up, but not all the way.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Ree,” Drake said, reverting to the more formal address.

  “Night,” she said, and hung up.

  Ree dropped her phone back into her jacket and stared at the midnight street. Lights buzzed sodium light onto the ground, joining only two lit windows on the block of apartments stacked on top of bodegas, cell phone/TTY/SIM shops, Thai restaurants, and the one trendy boutique stuffed between the working-class businesses, a single sprout that promised more gentrification to come.

  That idiot. Her heart had a knife through it and a seeping bullet wound besides, then it had been tossed in a fail blender, thanks to her protectiveness of her friend and her unresolved feelings for the foolhardy, self-righteous jackass she’d just dressed down like he was an army recruit who’d shit his pants.

  Ree buzzed Priya’s apartment again and walked back up the stairs when the door opened.

  Scaling the steps, Ree remembered to be quiet again, which gave her the time to try to tamp down her rage into something slightly more manageable. If she was going to break the masquerade for Priya, this was going to be a very long night, and Drake wouldn’t be the only one coming off like an asshole.

  She’d considered telling all three of the Rhyming Ladies about the turn for the weird her life had taken back during Halloween, but she’d ended up telling only Anya. Then, every adventure, bizarre attack, or weird development in her life became another brick in the wall she’d never meant to build up between her magical life and her real life, with Anya her begrudging partner in the construction job. The time to come clean had passed months ago, so the only thing left was to just put all her cards on the table.

  Which was a fucking fantastic thing to do when she was a half-dozen shots into drunk on an empty stomach and had months of accumulated exhaustion. But you played the hand you were dealt—life wasn’t in the habit of handing out Mulligans.

  The door was open, and so Ree stepped back inside to dance the Exposition Tango.

  Chapter Seven

  The Exposition Tango

  Closing the door behind her, Ree walked over to pour herself another glass full of vodka, inadvisable though it may be. She nodded to Anya, and said, “First off, I’m sorry. I should have come clean to you and Sandra a long time ago. I’m an idiot, and I hope you’ll forgive me. But what happened tonight was more than enough of a giant neon sign that I can’t pretend holding back is doing anything but hurting you.”

  “What’s going on?” Priya asked, back on her perch. Anya stood to the side, her own glass half-empty.

  “Back around Halloween, when I got scarce all of a sudden after Jay dumped me, that wasn’t the only thing that was happening. . . .”

  Ree laid out that whole week’s worth of zaniness, including telling Anya, then gave a summary version of what her life had become since that week: patrols, Geekomancy, the Dorkcave, Grognard’s, Midnight Market, and more. She left out the real identity of Eastwood’s lost love, lest the news get back to her dad. Dad was far away from all of this bullshit, and Ree could spare him from the crazy and the heartache. That at least was still true.

  Then she moved on to explain what had really happened that night, relaying Drake’s account, hoping he hadn’t been whitewashing the situation to make himself look better. Not likely, given what she knew about Drake, but it was all Ree had to work with, barring mind-reading magic, and that was a Costco-size can of worms she was hoping to avoid, especially involving Drake. There might be . . . side effects.

  Priya listened attentively, and after one or two bouts of glassy eyes as the Doubt tried to wipe her memory, the reality of the situation stuck with the woman, who grew livid, her cheeks reddening.

  “What the ever-loving fuck, Ree?”<
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  Setting the glass down between several piles of gears and a glue gun, Ree raised her hands in the universal sign of “Hold on; please don’t punch me.” “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I was a selfish jackass for keeping this to myself, just like Drake was selfish for not telling you. We didn’t want you to get hurt, which is what happens when you’re in this world. It’s just as scary as it is exciting, and neither of us wanted that for you.”

  “I’m a godsdamned adult, Ree. I can make decisions for myself.” Priya turned to Anya. “And you kept this from us the whole time?”

  Anya shrank before Priya’s accusation, looking down. “I’m sorry. But Ree’s right. After Halloween, I’ve been carrying a .358 in my purse everywhere I go, and I’m still terrified any time I’m away from crowds.”

  “But how is that different from real life?” Priya asked. “Monster or meth-head, getting jumped in an alley is getting jumped in an alley.”

  “It is and it isn’t. When monsters and shit know you can see them, they tend to get a hell of a lot more aggressive. But that’s no excuse. Now you know. It doesn’t make what Drake did any better, but now you know the truth, and you can decide what you want to do.”

  Priya took another sip, wobbling ever so slightly. “Thank you for finally telling me the truth,” she said, the emphasis on finally stabbing like a misericorde straight through Ree’s heart. “And what I want to do now is be alone.”

  Anya went over to give Priya a hug, but she brushed the diva off, making her way toward the kitchen.

  Taking the cue, Ree and Anya left to the sounds of the triple locks on Priya’s apartment door and walked in silence down to the street.

  “That went awesome,” Anya said.

  “Could have gone worse,” Ree answered. “She could have disowned us as friends right there.”

  “Who says she didn’t?”

  “Let’s just go home.” The pair walked to the cross street, Ree keeping a hand on the hilt of her lightsaber even as her vision blurred, lagging behind the movement of her head.