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“Not sure I have enough spoons to deal with my family and Jason. I want to really visit with him and I’m not sure that will happen with everything else.”
“Doesn’t he have to get his first fitting for the wedding clothes?”
I smiled. “Yes, Jason is going to be standing on my side of the aisle.”
“That’s the most relaxed I’ve seen you all night; you need your friend to come visit.”
“I’m happy for Jason and his great new dancing career, but we all miss him lots,” I said.
“Then don’t cancel.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I went back to staring at Wicked’s perfect profile. I wasn’t tall enough to see much of Truth in the other bed, so they looked like they always did except that they were totally asleep from a drug. “What are we supposed to do, just sit here while they sleep off the drug, or until dawn comes?”
“That’s your choice,” Fortune said. “Honestly I thought the showers were going to take longer. Fastest shower I’ve ever seen you take when Nicky was there to share.”
I couldn’t help it, I smiled. “The shower stalls were too small for two people, especially if one of them was Nicky.”
“You’ve had sex in the locker room outside the showers before,” she said.
I shook my head. “One, that was at home at the Circus of the Damned. It’s our stuff to do what we want on, not other people’s stuff. It’s just rude to leave body fluids in public.” I made a face to go with how icky I thought that was. “Besides, we’re all shapeshifters and they’re still debating if it’s just our blood that’s contagious or all body fluids.”
“That’s a fair point,” she said.
“Two, I don’t dare have sex with anyone until after we are all holy water free; it would put any vampire we touched at potential risk.”
“Another excellent point.”
“Thanks,” I said, and sat there wanting to reach out to Jean-Claude so badly. This psychic separation was making me feel depressed, or maybe it was dealing with my family. I shook my head, the wet strands of hair clinging to my cheeks until I pulled them free.
“What’s wrong now?”
“I’m missing Jean-Claude. It’s like this dead zone every time I think about him.”
“Jean-Claude shouldn’t have dimmed the tie between the two of you.”
“Queenie said that if I drew on his vampire powers, I might set one or both of us on fire.”
“Queenie is full of shit; most of the time just because she’s one of the few true mystics left in the Harlequin, everyone listens to her.”
“Do you think she’s wrong?”
“Yes,” Fortune said, kneeling beside me so she could look up into my face.
“Why would she lie about it?” I asked.
“I didn’t say she lied, I said she was wrong. Your ties to Jean-Claude and your triumvirates were formed by new magic that she doesn’t really understand. I think it makes her feel insecure, like she doesn’t contribute enough, so she’s started proclaiming more knowledge when it’s really just a guess.”
“Well, it feels awful. It’s like something’s been cut away that I didn’t even know was there, or hell, I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like I’m missing that part of me that is Jean-Claude’s power running just below the surface like the electricity that runs a house. You don’t think about how much of it is there until it doesn’t work, and then the house is dark and cold.”
“That’s a good description of what it feels like,” she said.
“When has Echo pulled back from you like that?”
She shook her head. “The old queen damaged our marks to punish us once.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she could; one of her names was the breaker of bonds.”
