“How could I possibly try to pretend the sunlight doesn’t exist, now that it’s taken so much of me?”

“Scarlet . . .” Silas begins in a serious tone. He started using “the tone” when we were kids to remind me that he’s older than I am. It annoys me just as much now as it did then, only now it’s less acceptable for me to push him into the mud for it.”

“She’s forgotten me. It’s over. I don’t want to see her again, and now I’ll have to. I won’t be able to help it. I’ll have to sit back and just watch her…live. Without me.” The ifrit shrugs. “Then I overestimated your feelings for her.” My jaw drops. “How dare you? Because I don’t want to see that she’s forgotten me?”"No. Because nothing is really ever gone or forgotten. If she’s a piece of you, and you of her, then memory is merely an obstacle—our power covers the memory, it doesn’t erase it. And I should think, at least based on what I saw in your eyes last night, that it’s an obstacle worth going up against.”

“Scarlett doesn’t want to go to the hospital. Not surprising, really, since we have to come up with an elaborate story about how we all got so severely wounded.“Dogfight. We broke one up,” my sister answers for us as a horrified emergency room receptionist looks at Scarlett’s raw, bleeding shoulders.“Dogs dislike us.” Silas shrugs, clutching the wound on his chest. He glances down at the burn wounds on my legs. I think they might scar, but it’s hard to say. The receptionist speaks into a walkie-talkie, then lets her eyes travel from the fresh wounds to the ancient scars on Scarlett’s body.“Dogs pretty much hate me,” Scarlett says testily. The poor receptionist looks relieved when the ER doctors appear and usher us down the hall.”

“So, did you see that community center I was talking about?”“What? Where?”“We walked right past it, just before that grocery store. I mentioned it on the way to the city? You just drop in and take classes. They’ve got all sorts of stuff. I bet you can get a student rate, even.”“But I’m not a student—”“You’re young enough that they’ll assume—”“—and how am I supposed to find the time to take dance classes, now that I’m the dessert?”“I’m starting to really regret using that metaphor,” Silas says, grinning. “And let me explain something, Rosie.” He takes a swig of the coffee and presses his lips together, searching for words. “I’m from a long, long, long, long line of woodsmen. My brothers are all supertalented. They all built their own rooms. For god’s sake, Lucas built a freaking wooden hot tub in his bedroom with wooden monkeys pouring water into it.”“Monkeys?”“Don’t ask. Anyway, I can do some woodworking. I know my way around the forest, I can handle an ax better than most, I can make a tree grow where nothing else will, I can live off berries and hunt for my food, and I’ve known about the Fenris since I could crawl. I’m a woodsman, for all intents and purposes. But that doesn’t mean I live for it any more than the fact that you’re good at hunting means you have to live for that. So maybe breaking out of the hunting lifestyle for a few hours here and there will help you figure out if it’s really for you or not.”I shake my head, confused as to why he’d even think that was possible. “I can’t just not hunt, Silas. So yeah, I take a few random classes, and what if I decide that I hate hunting and want to quit? That doesn’t mean I can. I owe Scarlett my life, and if she wants to cash in by having me spend my life hunting beside her, so be it. It’d kill her if she ever thought I wanted to quit.”“Rosie,” Silas says quietly. “I’m not suggesting you drop your sister like a bad habit and take up intense ballet training.”

“Do you . . .” I begin, then turn around to make sure Scarlett is really asleep, not just faking it—her chest rises and falls a different way when it’s genuine. Satisfied, I look back to Silas and choose my words carefully. “Do you think I’m a good hunter?”Silas looks confused. “Of course. You and Lett are the best hunters I—”“No, not me and Scarlett. Just me,” I say.Silas slows the car a tad to look at me. “Yes. Yes, of course. You’re—pardon my language—you’re fucking deadly with a knife, Rosie.”I smile and shake my head, remembering all the times Silas scolded his older brothers for throwing language around in front of my “virgin ears.” It’s sort of satisfying to know that his perspective has changed. “Right,” I say. “I mean, we hunt together. But Scarlett . . . it’s like a part of her soul.”“Dramatic much?” Silas teases, but he frowns when I don’t laugh.“You know what I mean. It drives her.”“But not you?”“I don’t know. I mean, maybe. It doesn’t matter. I owe Scarlett my life, you know?”“Yeah, but . . . like I told your sister, that doesn’t mean she’s got you locked in a cage forever. Unless you want to be locked in a cage, I mean. Wait, that sounds weird.” Silas shakes his head and sighs. “I’m forever tripping on words with you, Rosie.”“I have that effect on people,” I joke, but Silas’s face stays serious as he nods slightly. I grin nervously.”

“Those girls have nothing on the March sisters,” Silas says, leaning in so close that I can feel his breath on my shoulder. A strange shiny feeling ripples through me and I wheel toward him, accidently ramming my shopping basket into Silas’s side. A few Ace bandages toppled to the floor and the girls looked up from their polish dilemma to snicker at me. Nice one, Rosie. I can feel the blush starting as I duck to grab the bandages, and when my hand brushes against Silas’s leg, the heat spreads down my neck. Calm down. It’s just Silas. I rise and force a smile that I hope doesn’t look as goofy as I suspect.”