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"How bad was it?" I asked him to steer his thoughts toward anything else but my reaction to him.

"He let me stay."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know." His hands rested loosely between his knees as he looked toward the floodlit yard. There was dirt across one knuckle that hadn't been there when we arrived. "I feel horrible."

"Good."

That brought his attention around, and I held his gaze. "It should have been bad. If telling him didn't cost you anything, then you could have walked away thinking you'd fixed it just because you confessed. You didn't fix anything between you two."

"I'm aware."

There wasn't anything I could say that would improve the situation, so I didn't try. Instead, I leaned sideways until my shoulder rested against his arm.

River went still for the smallest fraction of a second, then the tension eased, and his arm shifted just enough to settle more firmly against mine.

Cold seeped through my sleeve and into my skin.

I stayed there.

"Sunday," I said after a while. "I'm going to go see Danika."

"So, I heard."

"Of course, you did."

"I imagine most of Ohio heard Alex explaining why you shouldn't."

That almost made me smile. "He thinks I'm about to hand Danika permission to use me."

"Is he right?"

I pulled back enough to look at him. "You are spectacularly unhelpful, Blackman."

"You didn't ask me to be helpful."

"And naturally you chose this very moment to become literal."

"I've had a difficult afternoon." He bumped his shoulder on mine playfully. There was no smile with it, no little curl at the corner of his mouth. He didn't need one. The River I knew was there in the dryness of the answer, underneath the exhaustion carved into his face.

The floodlight made the shadows beneath his eyes look almost bruised. Frost had begun to gather on the step between his boots, spreading so slowly I might have missed it if I hadn't learned to watch for it.

"You really think he's right?"

"I do." River turned enough so he could look at me. "Walking into Danika's coven and offering yourself before you know what that is would be exactly the kind of thing you'd spend the next hundred years furious at someone else for doing."

"That was unnecessarily specific." I stared out in the distance to avoid eye contact. Alex's argument had been circling in my head ever since he went inside, finding new places to make me uncomfortable every time it came around. "I'm going anyway."

"I know."

No lecture. No attempt to change my mind. Just two words, spoken with the calm certainty of someone who had known the answer before I did.

I turned toward him. "But?" I could tell there was more to it.

"I'm coming with you."

"River, Danika hates you now."