THE BEST PART OF WAKING UP . . . IS TYPE A IN YOUR CUP

I cal ed Keley on the way to give her an update about McKetrick and reached the House a bit too close to dawn for comfort. I ran from my car into the House, only barely realizing in my sun-fed exhaustion that the protestors had quieted, no doubt thanks to the two dozen camouflaged members of the National Guard who stood at equal points around the fence.

I immediately headed upstairs to fal into bed, but stopped at the second floor landing, and cast a glance at the third floor above me. Before my better judgment kicked in, I was drowsily climbing the stairs to the third floor, then tiptoeing down the hal way to the wing that held the consort's suite . . . and Ethan's rooms.

I stood in front the double doors to his apartment for just a moment, before pressing my palm to the door and my forehead to the cool wood.

God, I missed him. Jonah's kiss might have been glorious for that one moment of oblivion, but its wake was so much worse, miring me in thoughts of Ethan.

Without warning, the door slipped open.

I stood up again, heart pounding. I hadn't been in his rooms since the night he'd been kil ed. Some of his personal effects had been boxed up, but the rooms had otherwise been closed off. Frank had chosen other quarters and Malik and his wife had remained in their own.

I'd avoided Ethan's apartment altogether, thinking it was better to go cold turkey than become a phantom, haunting his rooms to foster the memories.

But tonight, after lightning and fairy queens and kisses and guns, I needed a different kind of oblivion.

I pushed the door open farther, and walked inside.

For a moment, I just stood in the doorway, eyes closed, drinking in the familiar scent. His sharp, clean cologne was giving way to the scents of cleaning polish and dust, but it stil lingered there, faint and fresh, like the whispers of a ghost.

I opened my eyes, closed the door behind me, and surveyed the room. It was nicely decorated, with expensive European furniture and furnishings, more like a boutique hotel than the rooms of a Master vampire.

I walked across the sitting room to the second set of double doors. These led into Ethan's bedroom. The sun now above the horizon, I walked inside and caught the lingering scent of him again. Before I could think better of it, my shoes and jacket were on the floor and I was crawling into his bed, tears spil ing from the familiar sensation of the linens and the scent of him that fil ed them.

I thought of the few times we'd made love, the tenuousness and joy of it, and the quirky, teasing smile he'd given me when he'd been pleased with something I'd done

- or something he'd done to me. His eyes were so bril iantly green, his mouth perfection, his body as finely hewn as any marble statue.

Wrapped in the scent of him, I smiled and savored the memories. There, in his bed in his darkened rooms, I fel asleep.

We were in a casino, surrounded by a cacophony of electronic chirps and flashing lights, jostled by a parade of smiling waitresses with trays of drinks in short glasses. I sat in front of a slot machine with dials tdivw f elechat spun in random increments, occasional y slowing to showcase a single image. A stake. A raindrop. A curl of fire.

Ethan stood beside me, a gold coin between his thumb and index finger. It spun slowly on its axis, the light catching each rotation like a gold-edged strobe light.

"Two sides of the coin," he said. "Heads and tails. Wrong and right. Good and evil." He lifted his gaze to me. "We al have choices, don't we?"

"Choices?"

"Between bravery or cowardice," he suggested.

"Ambition or contentment."

"I guess so."

"Which choice wil you make, Merit?"

I knew he meant something important, something heavy, but I couldn't tel what it was. "What choice do I have to make?"

With a flick of his thumb, he popped the coin into the air.

The ceiling seemed to rise as the coin flew upward, so that if gravity hadn't worked its peculiar magic, the coin might have lifted forever, never touching the ceiling. Over and over it flipped, heads and tails and heads again, catching the light with each rotation.

"Disappearing," Ethan said.

I watched the coin grow smal er in the distance, rising to infinity. "It isn't disappearing," I told him. "It's stil there. It's stil turning."

"Not the coin. Me."

The soft fear in his voice drew my eyes back to him. He was staring at his hands, now palm up in front of him.

Having thrown the coin in the air, Ethan was beginning to fade, the tips of his fingers dissolving into ash that fel onto the psychotical y patterned carpet below us.

"What's happening to you?" I couldn't do anything but stare as his fingers disappeared one mil imeter at a time.

Instead of screaming in horror or trying to stop it, I just gazed with clinical fascination, watching my lover being slowly erased into nothingness.

"I made my choice. I chose you."

Frantical y, fear rising in my gut, I shook my head. "How do I stop it?"

"I don't think you can. It's natural, isn't it? That we al devolve to ashes. To dust. And we're put away again." His attention was suddenly drawn away. He looked up and away at something across the room, his gaze widening farther.

"Ethan?"

His eyes snapped back to mine. "It's too dangerous.

Don't let them do it, Merit."

"Do what?"

"They'l take advantage. I think they're trying now." He looked down at his hands, now halfway turned to ash. "I think that's where I'm going."

"Ethan? I don't understand."

"I'm only ashes," he said. He looked at me again, and I felt my own panic final y rising at the fear - the honest-to-God fear - in his eyes.

"Ethan - "

Without warning, the disintegration accelerated, and he began to slip completely away, his last move the screaming of my name.

"Merit! "

I jolted awake in a cold sweat and a tangle of Ethan's blankets, dread sitting low in my stomach. It took a few moments to adjustentan to s to being awake again, to remember that it had been only a dream. That the horror wasn't real, but that he was stil gone.

The nightmares were coming faster now, no doubt the result of the stress I was feeling. I hadn't solved the problem yet, and there were potential y two more elemental dangers

- perhaps the biggest dangers - lurking out there. Earth and fire.

God forbid, I could figure something out before the city burned.

When my heart slowed again, I untangled myself from the blankets and walked to the bedroom window. The automatic shutters that covered it during the day had already lifted, revealing a gloriously dark sky, a couple of stars peeking through.

I closed my eyes in relief. The sky was back to normal, and that probably meant the lake and river were, as wel .

If Claudia and Catcher had been right - that the magic was elemental and fol owing a kind of pattern - the reprieve would be only temporary. We'd seen air and water. Earth and fire couldn't be far behind. But even a temporary reprieve would take some of the heat off us.

I returned to my room. With Tate on my agenda, and a message from Catcher confirming our second meeting, I showered and dressed in my leathers. I wasn't trying to impress Tate with my business acumen tonight; this was about fixing supernatural problems. The bit of worry wood, of course, was back in my pocket.

Jonah, on the other hand, hadn't cal ed. That bothered me a little. I hoped he wasn't going to avoid me because I'd rebuffed him. We were a green team, but a good one. And while I was beginning to learn that I could stand Sentinel on my own, I'd have much rather done it with a partner.

Thinking misery loved company, I dialed up Mal ory. It took five rings before she answered, and even then she wasn't thril ed about it.

"Kind of in the middle of something."

"Then don't answer the phone next time," I joked, but the comment stil stung.

"Sorry," she said, and it sounded like she meant it. "I'm just - every exam gets a little worse, you know? And then I'm crazy tired, and I'm nearing the end of my rope. I just want this entire process to be over. I don't even care if I pass. I just want it done."

I could hear the exhaustion in her voice, and in the speed of her words. It wouldn't surprise me to learn she'd been downing energy drinks.

"I hear you," I said. "I've got an errand to run, but would you be up for a breather afterward?"

"I start my next exam in a few minutes."

"That sucks."

"Tel me about it. And to add insult to injury, Catcher's being a gigantic pain in the ass right now. I don't think he has any idea of the stress I'm going through."

Her voice was testy, and I wondered if any of us knew the stress she was going through. Other than Simon, who seemed to be directing it.

And while I had her on the phone . . . "Hey, I know you're in a hurry, but is there anything you can tel me about what's going on in the city right now with the lake and sky? I understand it's magic tied to the four elements - water, air, earth, and fire. Is that anything you've learned about?"

Her response was fast and furious. "Jesus, Merit. How many times nowmanwhat's g have you wondered if the city's problems come back to sorcerers? You did it with the drugs, as wel ."

"I wonder about a lot of things," I said, reminding myself of the stress she was under. "It's my job to wonder about the possibilities, and then to figure out the truth."

"Oh, so we're possibilities?"

I had no idea why we were arguing. I certainly hadn't accused her of anything. Was she lashing out at me because she'd thought the same thing, or because she was stressed?

"It's not like I'm out there just randomly making mischief,"

she said, before I could respond. "Or researching random pieces of magic. I'm taking exams, Merit."

Since when was city trauma a random piece of magic?

The comment was irritating, but I stayed calm. "I know you are. I'm not accusing you of anything. But there's some kind of magic at work here that I don't understand. I just thought maybe you would."

"You know what I know about, Merit? I know about sigils and cal efixes and magical algorithms and seeding auras.

That's what I know about."

"You know what?" I told her, forcing myself to remain calm. "I'm going to let you go so you can get back to studying. Okay?"

"Maybe that's a good idea. And maybe you should hold off on the phone cal s and the accusations until my exams are done."

The phone went dead, leaving me wild-eyed and flustered and completely at a loss for words.

Lindsey picked that moment to pop her head into my room. "Breakfast?"

I held up the phone. "Mal ory just hung up on me!"

Lindsey frowned, stepped inside, and shut the door behind her. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. I mean, I did ask her if she knew anything about the lake and the sky, but nothing other than that."

Lindsey whistled. "Way to play it smooth."

"It was a legitimate question. And she's one of only three people in town who would know."

"True. I real y don't have a dog in this fight. I just like not being the one getting into relationship trouble for once."

That comment suggested it was going to be fol owed by details I didn't want to hear, but it also sounded like a cry for help. "What did you do?"

She didn't waste any time. "Long story short: relationships are hard, I don't fight fair, and I am the messiest person he knows."

I grimaced - and agreed with him about the first and last things. Her room was a riot of stuff, and not in a stuff-tidily-arranged-in-those-identical-wicker-baskets-people-put-on-bookshelves way. "You don't fight fair?"

Her shoulders slumped. "I might make references to breaking up when we fight?"

"Yikes."

"Yeah. It's just - I've never real y done this for real, you know? Not a relationship this serious. Sometimes I just feel like there's al this fear bottled up, and it has to go somewhere. I convince myself this isn't going to last."

"He loves you."

"I know. But he might stop someday. And someday, he might be gone, and then where am I? I'm alam izel wrapped up in a boy, and I can't untangle myself."

She fel back on the bed. "I'm tired, I'm overworked, I'm being forcibly underfed, I'm stressed, and I have a boyfriend

-  a boyfriend , Merit - with his own issues, and the only thing I want to do is gorge on ice cream. And let's face it -

the only problem that's going to solve is the 'hey, my pants are too loose!' problem. And that's not a problem I have right now."

She stood up and pooched out her bel y. Her tiny it'sreal y-just-skin bel y.

"Real y?" I asked her, my voice dry as toast.

"It's just - I never used to be this girl. I was Lindsey, Cadogan House guard and al -around hot shit. I was on the cover of the Chicago Voice Weekly for Christ's sake. I knew I looked good. And now I'm worrying about how my hair looks? And whether these jeans look fan-fucking-tastic."

"They real y do."

"They should. They cost two hundred bucks."

"For jeans?"

"They're butt-lifting." To prove the point, she turned and gave me a pinup-worthy pose.

But I wasn't impressed. "They're jeans. They're made of the same butt-lifting denim as the rest of the jeans in the world."

"If they were Pumas, you wouldn't be complaining about the price."

She had a point. "Continue," I magnanimously offered.

"The point is, I didn't used to worry about this stuff. I cared, but I didn't worry about it. I didn't worry about what this boy would think of me because I didn't care what this boy thought of me, you know? And now . . ." She shook her head as if disgusted with herself.

"Now you think about other people instead of yourself?"

The narrowing of her eyes was the last thing I saw before the pil ow smacked me in the face.

"Ow," I instinctively said, putting a hand on my cheek.

"Even if I did deserve that, ow."

"You take my point?"

"I take your point. But maybe it's not a bad thing. I mean, it's not so much that you're becoming uber-neurotic or anything. You like Luc, and you want him to like you back.

You want to be validated."

"I guess."

"So focus on the Luc part, instead of the Lindsey part. I mean, he's probably doing the same thing. Wondering if his boots are shined up enough or whatever cowboy-vampire types worry about."

"Chaps. As we have discussed, they frequently worry about chaps."

I pressed my fingers over my eyes. "You know, I moved out of Mal ory's house just so I could avoid conversations like this."

"No, you moved out of Mal ory's house so you could avoid seeing Catcher in boxer briefs. Which, frankly, is crazy. That boy is hel a delicious."

"I saw him naked more than I saw him in boxer briefs.

And pretty or not, sometimes I just want to sit down with my leftover Chinese without his naked ass strol ing through my kitchen."

Lindsey chortled and sat down again. "So real y it's a hygiene issue."

"Itsiznt> real y is."

We were quiet for a moment.

"Is he worth it?" I final y asked.

"What do you mean?"

I remembered the night I'd gone to Ethan, final y sure he was wil ing to accept me for who I was and that I could do the same for him. There'd been no doubt then, no fear. Just acceptance of the risk that I was taking and the confidence that he was worth it.

That we would have been worth it.

It had taken time for me to get there, and for Ethan to be ready for a relationship. Maybe if we'd gotten there earlier we'd have had more time together - but there was no point in ruing that now. He was gone except in my dreams, and those were becoming too traumatic to want to relive.

"I think," I final y said, "you reach a point where you're wil ing to take that chance. Where you know you might stil get hurt in the long run, but you decide it's worth it."

"And if I never get there?"

"Then you're honest with him. But don't let fear make the decision. Make the decision based on who he is and who you are when you're with him. On who he helps you to be."

She nodded, a tear slipping from her eye. I had the sudden sense the decision would come easier - and faster

- than she might have imagined.

"You'l be fine," I pronounced, then gave her a sideways hug. "He loves you, and you love him, and someday, if we're lucky, things wil get back to normal around here."

She crossed one leg over another. "What would that be like, even?"

"You tel me. I assume it's what life was like before Celina outed the Houses."

"Ah, yes. The halcyon days of . . . God, those days were pretty dul , now that I think of it."

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

"Grass is greener," she agreed, then slid me a glance.

"Now that we've worked through my relationship issues, are you ready to talk about Jonah?"

What I wanted to do was nip that conversation in the bud.

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Look," she said, her tone softening. "I'm not saying now is the time for you to find an eternity partner. But maybe it's time for you to consider considering someone. A friend. A lover. A friend with benefits." She bumped my shoulder playful y. "Jonah is like - I mean, Jesus, Merit. He's crazy beautiful, smart, he's got the trust of his entire House, and he appreciates you."

"He's not Ethan."

"That's not fair. There was no Ethan before him, and there wil be no Ethan after him. But Ethan's gone. I'm not saying you forget he existed. I'm just saying eternity is a long time. And maybe you could consider the possibility that there are other people who could become a part of your life if you let them."

We sat there quietly for a moment.

"He kissed me."

Lindsey offered up a dolphin-worthy squeal. "I knew he would. How was it?"

"The kiss? Great. My regret after the fact? Less enjoyable."

"Eek," she said. "What did you do?""font>

"I kind of bailed on him?" I thought putting it into the form of a question would make it sound a little less bad. Maybe not surprisingly, it didn't.

"Bad form, Sentinel. Bad form. You stil on speaking terms?"

"Possibly not, but that'l change. It has to, since he's the only partner I've got at the moment."

"True dat. Times are tough, guards and partners are in short supply, and humans are whiny little babies. I mean, we've been here as long as they have. You wanna bet the murder rate among humans is a lot higher than it is among vampires? We are not the ones causing this city's issues."

She stood up and moved her hands down in front of her body, blowing out a breath as she did it. "I'm calm. I'm calm.

I'm also real y hungry. You ready for breakfast?"

I shook my head. "I don't have time. I'm visiting the mayor."

She whistled low. "Again? Are you that hard up for a date?"

"Har har. I think he might have information about what's going on." I fil ed her in on my lemon and sugar theory.

Unlike Catcher, she thought there was merit to the idea. But that didn't deter her from her goal.

"Mayor or not, even vampires have to eat." She tapped a finger against her head. "Empathic, remember? I can feel how hungry you are. And if you're going to figure out what the hel is going on here, you need to be ready for it. You can't put off food just because you're tired. It wil only make you tireder."

I didn't disagree that she had a point, but I wanted this matter done sooner rather than later. On the other hand, I did have a tendency to run myself until I was quite literal y sick of it, until I was in bed for a week with a virus that knocked me completely on my ass. A week of no sleep, slamming down junk food, and stress tended to do that to a girl.

I wasn't sure if vamps could get colds, but it probably wouldn't be very responsible of me to test that theory now.

We walked downstairs and moved into the cafeteria line.

Unfortunately, Juliet and Margot had been right about Frank's new nutritional choices: free-range eggs; turkey bacon; organic fruit salad; and a grain-heavy gruel that looked like it would have been served in Little Orphan Annie's orphanage.

"Ugh," I remarked, but scooped up eggs and fruit and grabbed a drink box of blood.

We took our food to a table and were quickly joined by Margot and Katherine, another Novitiate with a wicked sense of humor and a fabulous singing voice.

"So it's been a real y freaky week. How's it going out there?" Margot asked, picking through her bowl of fruit.

"I've been beating the streets. But I'm not sure I'm making progress."

"That's al you can do," Margot said, pointing at me with a cantaloupe-laden fork. "Besides, things are back to normal for now. Maybe they'l stay that way."

I wouldn't bet on it, but I nodded my agreement.

Margot gave me a sly look. "I hear you're working with Jonah - the captain of the Grey House guards. Any details you want to pass along?"

I felt my cheeks warm. "Not real y," I said, hoping Lindsey wasn't going to spil the beans about the kissaboalong?. I was proud; she chewed her muffin with obvious deliberation, and kept quiet. "We're just working together."

"And what's on your agenda for the day?" Katherine asked.

"I'm meeting with the mayor, actual y. Wel , the former mayor."

"You think he turned the sky and river?" Margot wondered.

"I think information keeps pointing in his direction."

"Have you talked to Cabot lately?" Lindsey asked.

I shook my head, my stomach grumbling sympathetical y at the mention of his name. "Not since he sent us to talk to the fairies."

"Probably figured fairy-cide was an easier way to get rid of you," Katherine grumbled.

"Wouldn't surprise me," I agreed. "What's he done now?"

"Now he's got a wild hair about our skil s. Strat, phys, psych. Says he's reviewing our files to ensure we've been appropriately categorized."

"He's assessing whether or not we're threats," I muttered.

"And it's probably my fault. When we met, I told him I was a Strong Phys. He probably didn't like the reminder that we're actual y competent out here in Cadogan House."

"He is a piece of work," Margot agreed. "And we want to escape him for a few hours." She pointed at me with her fork. "What's your schedule tonight? We're thinking about an Evil Dead and Army of Darkness marathon."

I blinked. "Like, the Bruce Campbel movies?"

The table went silent.

"Show a little respect, Merit," Lindsey said with more than a little offense. "Have you ever been overtaken by a Candarian demon?"

I glanced among them al , trying to ferret out whether they were joking or I had stepped into some kind of Bruce Campbel cult. "Not in the last few hours."

"Yeah, wel , it's not real y funny, is it? With the crazy eyes and uncontrol able limbs." She shivered, and I honestly couldn't tel if she was serious.

"You're joking, right?" I quietly asked. "I mean, I thought you were joking, but some pretty weird stuff goes on in Chicago, and I haven't read the entire Canon yet, so maybe I just missed the Candarian demon chapter?"

She managed a good fifteen seconds more before she couldn't hold in the snort. "Oh, my God, total y. But I almost didn't make it. Seriously, though, I love the flicks. You in?"

I reached out and punched her a few times in the arm while the rest of the table chortled. "I'l let you know," I said.

"You do that. Oh," she exclaimed, "I just felt a pretty solid hint of Cabot irritation." She tapped her forehead again, which was apparently international code for "I've got empathic powers and I know how to use them."

"In case he's looking for an outlet for his obsessions,"

she said, "you might want to take that breakfast to go. I hear he made three Novitiates cry yesterday."

She didn't have to tel me twice. I nodded and grabbed my drink box, then hopped up. "If he cal s an assembly to announce he's leaving Chicago, save me a seat."

"You'l be the first we cal ," Lindseal