“Oh, really? Is that why he’s hot and bothered for Arcadia here?” Kar Yee tossed an accusatory glance my way. She was well aware that honesty wasn’t one of my strong suits. “Probably,” Jupe confirmed. “My dad says he likes her so much that if she kicked him in the balls, he’d just thank her.”

“Arcadia,” Lon’s voice said from my phone. “Who is this?” I teased. “You can’t take my son on a date.” “I didn’t ask him. He asked me.” “He stole my cell and called without permission.” “Sounds like a personal problem to me.” A low growling noise came out of the phone.”

“It wasn’t the first time I’d run across sex spells: theywere just as common as electricity-kindled spells. They justaren’t convenient for your average on-the-go magicalneeds.“Do all the memory spells require that?” I asked.“I don’t think so. I just noticed it on the last couple ofretrieval ones.”“Uh, maybe I could just get myself, you know, privately…?” I suggested. I regretted it immediately, and felt my faceflush with warmth. What the hell was I going to do? Ask Lonif he had any porn I could borrow and hole up in his library’swashroom?”

“So..."he whispered huskily in my ear, "we've discovered that you can arouse me." He demonstrated this fact by pressing harder against me, just in case I'd forgotten. "However, we don't know about you. And there is the small matter of Heka.”

“He gathered me closer, kissed my neck, then spoke in a low voice next to my ear. “I figure, see, if you find yourself getting more attached to the two of us than you planned, maybe you won’t think about picking up and leaving to start another life somewhere else.”

“But there was only so much worrying you could do before you just had to accept what life throws at you and move on, because some things were going to be out of your control, and others can’t be fixed or changed. And for everything I’d lost over the last couple of months, I still had a lot. More than I expected, actually.”.”

“Maybe it involved a woman. Oh, maybe even a nun—ooh! Wouldn’t that be scandalous?” “Indeed, but no.”