“Hey,” I said, nipping that bud of thought before it blossomed further.

His head whipped up and he moved so fast he caught a beaker with his elbow and knocked it over. It tumbled from the counter, hit the floor and shattered before he could catch it.

He stared at me a long moment then said coolly, “So. You’re back. Again.”

I offered him a smile and said lightly, “Back like Jack. In like Flynn. Ready to brainstorm like—” I couldn’t think of a name that rhymed with brainstorm. “—Einstein on his best day?”

He didn’t smile back. He looked tired and there were dark circles under his eyes.

Grabbing a nearby broom, he yanked the dustpan from the handle and began sweeping up the broken glass. Without taking his gaze from the floor, he said, “It’s been thirty-five days, four hours, and—” He looked at his watch. “—sixteen minutes since you were last seen alive, in case you were wondering. But I doubt you were. Time doesn’t mean the same thing to you that it means to some of us. That’s how long you were gone this time, as near as I was able to calculate. You were last spotted leaving Chester’s the night of August eighth.”

If the way he was beating the floor into submission with his broom was anything to gauge his mood by, he was seriously mad at me.

I considered the past twenty-four hours. I’d had a job to do. I’d done it. “I’m sorry,” I said simply. And I meant it. That day, so many years ago, when he’d gotten mad at me for disappearing into the Silvers with Christian, I’d gotten mad right back.

But I’d learned a few things since then. Such as, it’s pure hell when you care about someone and suddenly they’re gone and you don’t know if you’ll ever see them again.

I moved into the room and waited for him to stop assaulting the floor with a cleaning implement.

He kept at his angry sweeping for a few moments without saying a word then finally stopped and looked up at me. His gaze was guarded, remote.

“I mean it,” I said softly. “I’m sorry. Time really didn’t move the same way where I was. It was critical I go back into the White Mansion. For me, it was only twenty-four hours.”

“How long before you went into the Silvers did you know you had to go?”

He was asking if there’d been enough time that I might have left him a note or gotten a message to him somehow. “As long as it took me to freeze-frame directly from Chester’s to the White Mansion. Critical means ‘at an immediate point of crisis.’ ”

He propped the broom against the counter and gazed into my eyes, searching deep. I had no idea what he was looking for or what he decided he found but he finally relaxed through his shoulders and said softly, “Well, then. Damn glad you’re back, Mega.”

“Damn glad to be back, Dancer.”

And just like that there was no tension left in the room.

I loved that about him. He didn’t even need to know what I’d done. Only the parameters of it that affected the respect and consideration he felt was his due if I wanted to be his friend. I hated that he’d been worrying about me again. I hated the dark circles beneath his eyes, so I extended an olive branch, something I’d never done in the past. It made me uncomfortable but I would have been more uncomfortable not doing it. “If it’s at all possible, I promise to get word to you if I ever have to go into the Silvers again.”

He inhaled sharply, not missing that what I’d just said accorded a degree of accountability to him I’d never permitted before. I meant it. The next time I had to go somewhere, I would bloody well find a way to leave him a note.

His grin was instant and blinding.

Then he was talking a mile a minute, catching me up on all the work they’d been doing, outlining the preferred theories, eyes sparkling.

Dancer was convinced the black holes suspended slightly above the earth weren’t remotely the same as the ones in outer space. “I think the ones up there”—he jerked his head toward the ceiling—“are naturally occurring phenomena. They have the right to be what and where they are. The theory is that primordial black holes were birthed at the dawn of time, have always existed and for some reason need to. I like to think of them as the universe’s trash collectors, gathering up old, defunct detritus, clearing the way for new things to be born. The holes we’re dealing with don’t behave in accordance with modern black hole theory. While it’s possible modern black hole theory is wrong—I mean, bloody hell, we believed Newtonian laws right up until Einstein turned everything on its ear—the smell I get off our black holes is that they’re anathema to the universe. They don’t belong, should never have come into existence, and are in complete defiance of the natural order of things.”

“They smell? I never noticed a smell and I have a super sniffer.”

He ducked his head, looking mildly embarrassed. “They say a great physicist is distinguished by his ability to sniff out the difference between a superior theory and one not worth pursuing.”

I smiled. “Well then, you’ve definitely got a super sniffer, too.”

He grinned. “I suspect these entities are literally spheres of ‘unmaking’ in…well, I hate to say a magical sense because I tend to lean toward everything being explainable by science, but I also believe in God, and the Fae are real and maybe magic is just a word for those things we can’t yet explain or understand.”