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“Here, take this,” someone said, pressing a glass to my lips.

I drank convulsively.It was water—tepid, faintly dusty, and with the mineral tang Vegas water always had unless bought in bottles and trucked in from somewhere else.And it tasted like ambrosia, like the best thing ever, and I drained half of the large cup in a few gulps only to have the rest pulled away.

I gasped and reached for it, sitting up in what felt like a bed—maybe because it was one—in a room with the curtains closed to make it fairly dark.But it was bright outside; I could see the sun shining through the loose weave of the fabric and highlighting the man sitting at the foot of the bed.He still had the dark curly hair, but his face was back to the one I knew.

“Pritkin.”

“Well.Part of him, at least.”He gave me the water back.“Drink it slowly.You were dehydrated and will make yourself sick.”

I drank it more slowly, although it was hard.The room was hot and close, although a faint breeze filtered in sometimes through the open doorway.I couldn’t see much beyond it, just a plain wooden floor and some white plastered walls, the same kind that were in here.

“My alter ego has been checking in regularly, so he’ll be back soon,” he told me, and started to get up.

I caught his hand.“Wait.”

“Why?”a dark eyebrow raised.“I’ve already told him everything I know.He’ll fill you in.”

“That’s...not what I meant.”My head felt fuzzy and incapable of taking in much information right now, even if he’d wanted to give it.Or picking the right words to express the emotions flooding through me at seeing him alive, unhurt, and acting perfectly normal.

It hadn’t hit me until now how worried I’d been, how unsure that I’d ever see him again, or that he’d somehow survived all these years.And yet here he was, warm and alive and looking at me with all sorts of things on his face that I couldn’t parse any more than I could my own emotions.My hand tightened as if to reassure myself that he was really there, and for a second, he responded.

Then he tried to leave again, but I held on, and even though he could have forced the issue, he didn’t.He just settled back down with a sigh.And looked at me with an expression I couldn’t name.

“It won’t work, you know,” he said.

“What won’t?”

A dark eyebrow went up.“Isn’t this where you give me the sales pitch?I should warn you that I’ve already heard it from Mircea.More than once.”

“What sales pitch?”I rasped as he reached over to refill the earthenware cup from a matching carafe on a bedside table.The table didn’t match the room, looking like it had been looted from a Vegas hotel and had had some adventures since.It still had some gilt clinging to the scalloped edges, but most had gone wherever the rest of its paint job had.

I felt like that, too, beaten, battered, and now confused because Pritkin’s incubus was looking at me kindly but almost sadly.“You really don’t know, do you?”he asked.

“Know what?”I said after taking another drink.“And why do you look like that?And what is this place?And how—”

“My other half can fill you in on all that,” he said again.“I only have one thing to tell you: No.”

“No?”I blinked at him, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand and wondering what I’d missed.“No, what?”

“No, I’m not reuniting with my other half.No, I’m not helping you go to Vegas and get killed—or worse.No, I’m not going to take part in any other schemes that Mircea or anyone else may hatch.No.

“What I will do is shelter you, help you get away from here, and assist you in starting over—”

He stopped talking because my dirty nails had just dug into his arm without me telling them to.Or maybe I had; I wasn’t sure anymore.“What do you mean, getaway?”

The eyebrow was back.“Get out of here,” he explained patiently.“Where in a little more than a day, you have started a massive manhunt—or woman hunt, I suppose—looking for you.There’s been an unusual amount of activity around the city and beyond.The gods are calling in the troops, with more of them arriving every hour from this world and beyond.My scouts—”

I didn’t wait to hear about his scouts.“Get away where?”I repeated.“Where the hell is there to go?”

“That’s one option,” he conceded.“Rosier could help you there.”

“Rosier?”I stared at him, understanding nothing.“Rosier gave up the last of Adra’s power to get us this far!He’s on his last leg and can’t even feed—”

“I know that.It’s why I told him to stay away.There are too many creatures hunting him in the area—”

“Go where?”I interrupted, trying to stay on point.“The only place that makes any sense for us to go is Vegas!To Rhea.Myheir—”

“I know all about your heir.”