I stood in the middle of my room at the Olympus Rising compound, staring at the ceiling while my phone burned a hole in my pocket and Natalia's pendant burned a hole in my sternum.
Three hundred miles of ocean between us and she still managed to make my chest feel like I'd swallowed a glacier.
Maki stretched in her cat form on the pillow, both tails flicking lazily. Her golden eyes tracked me with the casual disinterest of a creature who had watched civilizations rise and fall and found them all equally boring.
"Master kissed the red one again."
"Thank you, Maki. That's very helpful."
"Maki could smell it from the shadow space. Master's lips taste like wine and poor decisions."
"Go to sleep."
"Maki is three hundred years old. Maki sleeps when Maki chooses."
