“But love isn’t just pain,” he said, his eyes troubled. “Isn’t there happiness, too?”

“Just enough to make the cut deeper when it comes,” I said.

We both stared at the table, lost in our thoughts.

“Let’s not brood,” I said, after a while. “Want to watch a movie with me? Something funny?”

“Yeah, Night of the Living Dead.”

“It’s funny to watch people get their guts eaten by zombies?”

“It is if they’re too stupid to get away. Zombies shamble. You could escape them with a brisk walk and yet these idiots are getting overtaken all the time.”

“It’s the number of zombies that’s the problem,” I said, “not the speed at which you attempt to escape.”

Beezle waved a hand at me. “This is starting to sound disturbingly like a nerd argument, and I am not a nerd. You make the popcorn; I’ll get the DVD.”

I laughed as he flew out of the room. For just a moment, everything felt normal. And I wanted to keep it that way. At least for a little while.

I woke the next morning on the couch. Bright sunshine streamed through the picture window. The scent of bacon filled the air. I rubbed my eyes, rolled over and saw Chloe sitting on my coffee table, staring at me.

She wore a leather vest that revealed the sleeve of tattoos on each arm and a pair of faded jeans. Sparkly purple polish on her fingers and toes matched the shocking violet of her hair.

“What did you do to your head?” she asked.

“Who let you in here?” I asked. Did nobody respect my privacy anymore? The house was starting to feel like a dorm.

“I came up with Samiel,” she said. “I can fix that, you know.”

I rubbed my hand over my hair. The thought of Chloe near my head with scissors was quite terrifying.

“Really, I can’t stand to look at you like that,” she said. “It’ll put me off my breakfast. Come on.”

She grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. I thought I was brusque.

“Are you staying for whatever Samiel’s cooking, then?” I asked.

She pulled me into the bathroom and lowered the toilet seat lid. “Sit.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. Besides, it didn’t seem that arguing would do any good. Chloe was like a force of nature. I could see why Samiel was so disconcerted by her.

She took the scissors from the cabinet and began to snip here and there. Every once in a while she would tell me to move my head this way or that. I closed my eyes and hoped I wouldn’t end up looking like G.I. Jane.

“There,” she said with a satisfied tone in her voice. “Look.”

I stood, a little afraid, and looked in the mirror. And was pleasantly surprised.

She’d shaped the hacked-off mess into a neat pixie cut that framed my face.

“It suits you,” she said.

“Thanks,” I replied.

She nodded and walked out. I brushed my teeth, washed my face and took a moment to admire the new me in the mirror before something bad happened to me again. Of course, the new me came with a set of slash marks across my face courtesy of the Hob. The cuts plus the hair made me look a lot like an anime character.

Chloe and Beezle sat at the table in the kitchen. Both of them were shoveling pancakes and bacon in their mouths as fast as Samiel could make them.

“Are you preparing for an appearance on Man v. Food?” I asked.

Chloe and Beezle both grunted at me and kept eating.

“Where’s Nathaniel?” I asked Samiel.

He said he wasn’t certain he would be welcome so he would eat downstairs, Samiel signed, shrugging.

“Well, if he thinks I’m going downstairs to soothe him out of his sulk, he’s got another think coming,” I said.

Samiel plated some pancakes and handed them to me. You’d better take this before it hits the table; otherwise one of them will devour it.

I sat down with my pile of pancakes and started eating. After a while, Beezle came up for air.

“I went online last night after you fell asleep.”

“And?”

“And it seems that all is not quiet on the faerie front. Certain factions in Titania and Oberon’s court believe they should not have sent the Hob after you.”

“Really? I’d have thought all the faeries were on the vengeance-for-Amarantha team.”

“There are some who believe that Amarantha brought her troubles on herself by involving the court in the affairs of angels. And now that the Hob is dead, those folks are saying that to pressure you further is an unnecessary risk.”

“It seems your reputation for complete and total destruction precedes you,” Chloe said.

“And they think it would be stupid to pick a fight with a child of Lucifer,” Beezle added.

“Why? Lucifer’s never bothered assisting me before.”

“But just because he hasn’t yet doesn’t mean that he won’t in the future. And nobody wants Lucifer angry with them. They know what he did to Amarantha.”

“Yet Titania and Oberon don’t share their trepidation,” I said thoughtfully. “Why?”

“They must think whatever power they’ve got can stand up to Lucifer,” Beezle said.

“Can it?”

“They are probably more or less as powerful as they seem, but I think it’s been millennia since Lucifer really bothered to exert himself.”

“So if he wanted to, he could squash them like bugs.”