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Then again, fighting the wendigo had, bit by bit, shown me that Coyote was as limited in his own ways as I was in mine.

We weren’t following the same destiny, no matter how much I wanted to fall in step behind someone who understood what he was doing.

I’d been told very early on that while I was a shaman and part of my duties were to heal, ultimately my path was that of a warrior.

Coyote was the gentler soul, and unquestionably a healer.

I wanted him to have the answers, but in all honesty, there was very little reason a healer would need to think in terms of tracking and hunting.

Which didn’t put a damper on his enthusiasm now that the idea had been introduced.

He was bright-eyed, and, despite being in human form, darned near bushy-tailed as he leaned forward to speak rapidly.

“It’s a brilliant idea, Joanne. I have no idea if it would work, but it’s certainly worth pursuing.

I should have flown up there after all. This is something you’d need two shamans to safely explore the possibilities, one to track and one to be tracked. I can catch a flight tonight?—”

Beneath his excitement, I said, “Two adepts.”

Coyote broke off with a squint. “Two what?”

I exhaled, regretting having to burst his balloon.

“You said two shamans. It doesn’t need two shamans, it needs two magic-users.

Billy’s friend Sonata called them—us—adepts.

Coyote, if you want to come up, that’s great, but I can’t wait for you.

I’ve got to start the hunt tonight, before anybody else gets hurt. ”

“You don’t even know if it’ll work, Jo. This isn’t something you should field-test before trying it in controlled conditions.”

I quirked a sad smile. “I’ve been field-testing all along, Yote.

This is how I work. I won’t say it’s ideal, but I haven’t quite killed myself yet, and I don’t have a lot of time to spare right now.

I can try tracing Billy’s talent as an experiment before the big production number, but I’ve only got a few hours before it’s all going to hit the fan. ”

“Detective Holliday is a medium, isn’t he? It’s a passive magic, Jo. It depends on external forces reaching out to him. It’s not the best way to test this.”

“I don’t do much of anything the best way. It’ll be fine.” I reached out to take his hand, wondering how I’d become the one offering reassurance.

He caught my hand and squeezed, golden eyes still worried. “Joanne, I want to be there for this.”

“I wish you were.” I wished a lot of things, but they all kept coming back around to the awareness that I had said no, when he’d half asked me to join him in Arizona.

He couldn’t stay, I couldn’t go. We’d both known it, and we’d both left an opening for later, for the chance that I might not say no a second time.

“You wouldn’t be happy here, would you,” I said very softly.

“In the city, instead of out there in the desert and smaller towns.”

He gave a stiff, tiny shrug. “Coyotes are better off in the wild.”

So it would have to be me. I’d be the one leaving my life behind, if he asked again.

He wasn’t going to be coming north to try his hand at being a city shaman.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t, or even that I wouldn’t: I’d loved the desert when my father and I had driven through the southwest when I was a kid. It was just…

Well, it wasn’t fair , which was childish and inane, but it was also sort of the crux of the matter.

If I was willing to consider giving up my life and moving a thousand miles to be with somebody, I wanted him to be willing to consider the same.

Poorly acquainted as I was with relationships, I wasn’t quite bad enough to generally think of them as power-balancing scenarios.

In this case, though, the balance of power struck me as out of whack.

Figuratively, because if we went to the literal on that particular topic, it had become clear it was out of whack in my favor.

And maybe that meant I should be willing to bend further, but instead it made me just a little more rigid.

I couldn’t help the amount of magical potential I’d been granted.

Making allowances for that talent with regards to someone else’s within the context of a romance looked to me like a surefire recipe for long-term resentment and misery.

I was pretty sure normal people faced this kind of problem over career trajectories or having children, but I’d left normal far enough behind that I didn’t have a problem with where I landed on the Richter scale of bizarre.

I had a lot more problem with watching slow understanding come into Coyote’s golden gaze as he recognized where my thoughts were going. He said, “We need to talk,” cautiously, and I shook my head.

“I’m not sure we do, Yote. And even if we do, now isn’t a good time. I’ve got to get to the theater and make sure nobody gets killed tonight. I’ll check in with you later to let you know I’m all right.” I squeezed his hand and let go, but at least Coyote smiled.

“That sure of yourself, are you?”

To my surprise, I grinned back. “Know what? Yes, by God, I am.”

He gave me a broad wink and disappeared as the shower water turned cold. I got out, and, watching myself in the mirror, removed the dangling coyote earrings.