SWEATY MESS

Hey, can you get Reth?" I asked the dragon. It gave me a look filled with such venomous disdain I half expected fire to come from its eyeballs instead of its mouth. "Just kidding! Yeah. Totally kidding."

With a flick of its tail snapping the space right in front of my face, it ran, hopped a couple of times, and then snaked through the air back into the trees.

"Grouchy, that one. I asked it to roast some marshmallows earlier; it nearly ate me." Jack scratched his head, then stood. "Right, then, I'm going inside where it's warm."

"Stick around, though. I'm going to need all the help I can get to figure all this out."

"That's me! Mister Helpful. Captain Dependable."

"That sounds like a brand of adult diapers."

"The nickname needs some work. Lord Wonderful? The Incredible Hunk?"

"Please, for the love, go inside."

He laughed, then clomped up the steps and into the house.

"Reth," I shouted. "Reeeeeeeeth! Reth! Reth, Reth, Reth! If you don't come in the next thirty seconds, I'm going to go find David's golf clubs!"

"That tone and level of voice does nothing attractive for you, my love."

I jumped, startled, but of course Reth would be behind me, leaning heavily on the porch railing.

"You," I said, glaring. "Fix it. Now."

A look of disdain on his face, he leaned over and trailed his fingers across Lend's forehead. A single whispered word, and then...

Nothing.

"You liar!" I shouted, standing so abruptly that Lend rolled off my lap and down a step. As he hit the first one, color bloomed through him into his usual glamour and his eyes flew open in panic.

"He was asleep, Evelyn." Reth's lips were pursed, but I knew he was smiling gleefully on the inside.

"Lend!" I lunged forward, knocking into him, and we both rolled down the next two steps, landing in a heap on the gravel at the bottom. "You're awake!"

"Evie! I'm...wow, why am I so bruised?"

"Shut up," I said, grabbing his head and pulling him in for a kiss. It was freezing and we were on the ground but I didn't care, couldn't care, not when I could touch my Lend and he was awake to touch me, too. I knew I'd missed it, but it wasn't until now that it hit me just how empty and desperate it had felt to be separated from him like that.

"Maybe," he said, between tracing my neck with kisses, "we could go inside?"

"Maybe," I agreed, not getting up.

"Or maybe," Reth said, his voice dripping with disgust, "Evelyn could come with me to determine how best to fulfill her end of the deal."

Lend lifted a hand off me and held it in the air. I couldn't see what he was doing with it, but I had a good idea, and I heartily approved.

"See what I meant about the ability to focus?" Reth snapped. "You two are ridiculous." He was out of breath he was so angry. He stalked past us toward the trees, and then he collapsed in a heap on the ground.

"Reth?" I sat up, watching him, waiting for him to get up. It was a trick. Right? He was manipulating me again, or...

I stood up and ran to him, turning him over so I could see his face. His eyes were closed, his mouth drawn tight, and sweat was beading on his forehead.

Sweat. Faeries did not sweat.

"Something's really wrong with him!" My voice was high with panic. All the things I'd noticed-the change in his soul, his heartbeat, even the way he walked and his voice being different-I thought he was kidding when he said he wasn't dying yet.

I put my hand over his heart, letting out a relieved breath as I felt it beating, too fast by far but still steady. "Reth?"

His huge golden eyes fluttered open. "Perhaps I should have taken the couch."

A laugh choked in my throat. "You're not okay."

"No, as I told you, I am not."

"What's wrong with you?"

His eyes didn't leave mine, but they, too, were different. Before, they'd always felt like depthless pools. Now they seemed shallow, dim.

"I'm dying, Evelyn."