“I’ve never been to Sailor’s place,” she said.
“Never?”
Patience pressed her lips together, looking displeased at the thought that she had been denied the privilege.
I waved off a man in a Mercedes who had been waiting for my spot. Clearly disappointed, the driver made an obscene gesture, which Patience returned with enthusiasm.
I extracted my supplies from my trunk. After being caught without it the other night, today I had remembered to bring along my Hand of Glory. I also had my woven backpack packed with talismans, salts, herbs, and a widemouthed mason jar full of protective brew.
“What’s all this?” Patience asked when I handed her the wooden box.
“Just in case.”
“More silverfish?”
“Not hardly.”
She gave a wry smile. “What exactly do you think we’re going to find in Sailor’s apartment?”
“Nothing. Probably. It just pays to be prepared.”
“What an excellent Girl Scout you must have been. So you cart around all this stuff in your trunk, do you? You must live a pretty fraught life.”
“You have no idea. Hey, it occurs to me,” I said, slowing my pace. “Sailor would hate the thought of us poking around in his apartment, looking through his things. He’s pretty big into privacy.”
“Aren’t we all? But at the moment I don’t particularly care what Sailor wants. He got himself thrown in jail, so his desires aren’t paramount to me right now.”
“It’s not as though he got arrested on purpose.”
“So what? The result’s the same: He’s detained and we have to spend our time and energy finding a way to get him out. So in this case, at least, the ends justify themeans. And anyway, he should have known the police were coming for him.” She shook her head. “He’s been distracted lately.”
“Are you suggesting Sailor ‘let’ himself be arrested because he’s distracted byme? I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to cop to that.”
“All about you much?” she said. “No, I wasn’t blaming you. At least, not this time. There’s been something going on with him, with his trance state. I can’t say exactly what, but something’s been off.”
“Off, in what way?”
“He’s just... not fully himself. You’re familiar with trance states, right?”
“Sort of. I approximate a trance when I’m brewing sometimes, or casting a complicated spell. But I don’t think it’s the same.”
“No, not by the sound of it. For a psychic like Sailor, it involves allowing his conscious self to leave his body, to become a conduit for spirit helpers or guardians, or to get in touch with others’ auras.”
“That’s why Renna was working with him on astral projection?”
“He was having trouble—new for him, I might add—with being fully there, fully present.”
“And yet not.”
“Exactly.”
“This is why I don’t do well with things like scrying. That whole ‘concentrate but let your mind wander’ thing isn’t easy.”
“Tell me about it.”
We crossed Waverly Place, and walked past the Willie “Woo Woo” Wong Playground. A few kids were running about, screaming and playing, while their parents sat on benches, chatting. Unlike many of the city’s other tourist draws, San Francisco’s Chinatown is a vibrantneighborhood full of immigrants and native-born citizens, chock-full of people going about the business of everyday life.
As we turned onto Hang Ah Alley, Patience sniffed the air. “You smell that?”
