I made a mental note to ask Loki if he could teach me to teleport. I’d seen him do it, after all.

It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d try to work out on my own.

No things to get attached to. Other than the sword, which had survived. But I hadn’t been entirely honest. I had to pretend I wasn’t at all upset about what happened.

Or they might do it again, and they’d catch even more people in the collateral damage this time. Bigger building.

A part of me wondered if I should try disappearing. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to my friends. I certainly wasn’t going to pull the false-noble ‘You’d be safer without me’ crap on Kanesha.

Which meant…then I had an idea. I called Clara.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Need some witchy advice.”

I could hear her brighten. She always liked it when she was taken seriously. “Okay.”

“Let’s meet at the Dupont cafe. You know the one.”

A little bit later we were ensconced in a pleasant underground room with sandwiches.

“So…what do you need?”

“Wards. Is there a way to protect the building I’m in from a fire giant setting it on fire again?”

“You think they might go for a repeat.”

“I’m not risking it. Other people were hit last time, and one of them wasn’t insured.”

Clara nodded. “I’ll get a group together. It’s probably more than I can do on my own. Although, people might detect the wards.”

“That’s fine. I don’t think I could actually have any more enemies than I do.”

She laughed. “Don’t say that.”

“I already did. Fortunately, I have plenty of allies too.”

“How’s Derek?”

“Learning,” I admitted. “I think Thruor took him off to kick his butt a few times.”

“He might enjoy that.”

I laughed. “He might. To start with. You know how much of a drill sergeant she can be.”

“Oh, for sure. But…he is a straight guy.”

“He is that.” I grinned at her. “Then again, so’s Seb.”

She blushed.

I decided that was a low blow and changed the subject back to magic. Odd how it had become the harmless thing to talk about.

Well, almost anything was more harmless than relationships. It didn’t really matter what the combination of genders and sexualities were, they were always complicated.

No matter how much you loved each other. But most of us seemed to be managing to find somebody to love.

Who wanted one.

Then I thought of Thruor.

I thought of Mike, and grief drifted back over me again. The conversation was not quite enough to take my mind off of it.

Off of Mike and Monica alike.