I’m going to meet the whole Ludares team tomorrow—Flint and Macy worked on rounding it out today, and they think they’ve finally got the team we need to win. And we need to win, at least if we’re going to get the bloodstone we need to force Hudson out of my head and turn him human. Without it, we’re totally screwed.

But how am I supposed to compete in this game I still know next to nothing about? I mean, I know it takes place in the Katmere athletic complex—a place I’ve never even set foot in before. I also know that it’s a strange hybrid of Keep Away and Hot Potato and that every member on the team has to control the ball for at least one part of the game.

All of which translates to me having to keep the ball away from the other team with my nonexistent skills.

I mean, yeah, I can turn to stone with the ball, but that isn’t going to get it across the finish line. Supposedly, I can fly, but that would require shifting into my gargoyle form, which I’ve yet to do again. Well, that and actually flying. And as for the channeling-magic thing… I don’t know. How much of that was me this afternoon and how much of it was Hudson? It’s a question that’s haunted me since I realized it was his power, rather than Macy’s, that I was directing.

Nervous, frustrated, and more than a little freaked out, all I really want to do is bury my head in a good book and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist—even if part of that world is actually sharing my headspace with me.

But ten minutes into that plan, I realize it’s a bust. I’m still way too hyped-up from a combination of nerves and residual energy from what was probably the most amazing flying lesson in the history of flying lessons to just sit around on my bed.

Maybe I should have gone to girls’ night with Macy after all. At least I’d have something to do besides watch my own fears chase one another around and around in my head all night. But if I’d gone, I’d be forced to make small talk with people I don’t know, and that’s a whole different level of stress. Especially since I’ve never been very good at small talk even at the best of times.

In the end, I decide to take a quick shower, hoping that will settle me down. But that doesn’t work, either—I’m still bouncing off the walls even after I dry my hair and straighten up my side of the room.

I think about calling Jaxon, but he’d looked really tired when we parted tonight. He’d mentioned going to bed early. If he’s actually done that, I don’t want to be the one to disturb him.

The best thing I can do for me is also to sleep—my mind has been through a lot over the course of the last several months. Too bad sleep currently feels about as foreign as a walk on the moon.

With nothing else to do, I gather up Macy’s and my dirty laundry and head down to the laundry room on the second floor. I’ve never used it before, but I know where it is because it’s attached to one of the student lounges where Macy gave me a tour my first couple of days at Katmere.

Normally I’d do only my laundry—I’m not sure how witches normally handle things, and the last thing I want is to upset the status quo—but since I’ve heard Macy bemoan being short on tights three different days this week, I might as well help my cousin out. It’s the least I can do after everything she’s done for me.

It’s not until an hour later, as I’m loading clean clothes from the washer to the dryer, that Hudson finally shows back up again with a “Boo!” so loud, I swear it shakes the rafters.

I’ve been expecting him and still he startles me so much that I drop my wet clothes all over the place—and nearly scream loud enough to be heard in the art cottage.

I bite the scream back at the last second, but it still takes me a little bit to get my breath back. “You know you’re a jerk, right?” I snarl at him when I can talk again—and after I’ve picked up all the clothes he made me drop.

“You’re just saying that because you missed me,” he tells me from where he’s perched on the lid of a washing machine several washers down.

“Missed you or wanted to make sure you weren’t somewhere plotting world domination? It’s a fine distinction, really.”

“But an important one,” he says with a grin that lights up his whole face.

I immediately distrust it. “Exactly what are you so smiley about this evening anyway?”

“Can’t a guy just be happy for no reason?” he asks with an arch of his brow.

I throw the last of the clothes in the dryer and slam the lid with a solid thud. “Not when the last time he was happy, he was plotting a hostile takeover of half the paranormal world.”

“You wound me. It was at least three-quarters.”

“Remind me. How’d that work out for you again?” I ask as I empty out the lint trap and hit the start button.

“Pretty well, considering I’m sitting here tonight with a superhot gargoyle’s panties on my shoe.” He holds up his left foot and sure enough, my black lace panties are dangling from the toe of his merlot suede Armani loafers.

“How is that even possible?” I demand, leaning down to yank them from his foot. They come off, but when I look at my hand, there’s nothing there.

I mean, of course there isn’t. Just because I can see him sitting on that washing machine doesn’t mean he’s actually there. Any more than it means my panties were actually dangling from his shoe. Except I saw them.

“Abracadabra,” he answers, complete with full-on magician hand gestures. Which…

“Oh my God. Are you high?” I ask.

“I’m inside your head, Grace. If I were high, wouldn’t that mean you are, too?”

“Yeah, well, maybe I am,” I mutter as I gather up my laundry supplies, because I cannot think of another scenario on the planet where Hudson would behave in such a bizarre manner. The fact that the whole routine is just a teeny, tiny bit charming is also of paramount concern.

“Or maybe you’re just coming around,” he shoots back, his eyes shining a deep indigo in the bright lights of the laundry room.

“What exactly am I coming around to?” I ask. “Thinking you need a tranquilizer…or possibly seven?”

“More like the idea that all this doesn’t have to end as badly as you seem to think it will.”

I shoot him a baffled look. “I…don’t have a clue what that means.”

“Don’t you?” He watches me closely.

“Not even a little bit, no.”

For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. Then, just when I think he’s going back to his normal, sarcastic ways, he lifts a hand and circles his index finger in a little loop that makes no sense to me at all—at least not until Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” starts playing—out of nowhere.

“What. Is. Happening?” I look around the laundry room a little wildly, at least half of me wondering if I’m being punked. Because what even is happening? “Why are you playing Flo Rida?”

“Why not?” he answers, then grabs my wrist just as the refrain starts. Then, before I can register what’s going on, he gives one solid yank, and I fly straight into his hard chest, squawking like an angry pterodactyl the whole way.

“What the hell, Hudson?” I demand, shoving at his chest until he finally lets me put some distance between us. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Why does something have to be wrong?” he answers.

“Because we hate each other. And because happy music isn’t exactly your style. And because the last thing I want to do right now is hug you.”

This time, both brows go up, marking the return of the superior look I know and hate so well. “Who said anything about hugging?” he asks, right before he spins me out in what I can only assume is supposed to be some kind of dance move.

“Hudson,” I say, but he ignores me in favor of pulling me back in and then spinning me back out in the opposite direction.

“Hudson!” I repeat a little louder. “What are you doing?”

He gives me a “what the hell” look. “We are dancing.”

“No,” I correct him. “You are dancing. I’m beginning to feel a dislocated shoulder coming on.”

“And whose fault is that?” he asks. “Dance with me, Grace.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked you to.” He spins me out again, but this time the move is a lot gentler.

“But why did you ask me to?” I quiz when he pulls me back in. “What’s going on, Hudson?”

“Grace?” he says, looking deep into my eyes, and for the briefest moment, I see something there that makes me catch my breath. And also wonder if I’m imagining it.

“Yes?”

He circles his finger again, and the music switches from Flo Rida to the opening lyrics of Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance.”

And it’s so clever, so ridiculous, so Hudson, that I can’t help bursting into laughter. Right before I decide, screw it, and let him dance me from one end of the laundry room to the other.

When the song finally comes to an end, Hudson lets me go, and we both stand there grinning at each other.

As we do, I can’t help but wonder what someone would think if they’d walked into the laundry room a few seconds ago and found me dancing around the machines by myself, singing to a song only I can hear. Probably that it’s just another weird human thing…or an even weirder gargoyle thing…which I guess it is, now that I think about it.

Still, I’m a little hot, a little breathless, but a lot more relaxed than I was when I got to the laundry room, and maybe that’s why I finally ask him, “How did you know I love that song?”

And just that easily, his smile fades away, leaving nothing there but an emptiness so stark that I feel it deep in my chest. Even before he answers, “So you really remember nothing of the time we spent together?”

57

Pulling all the