They complemented each other, and I was pretty sure there’d be wedding bells any day now. Maybe when Delaney got her soul back.
Maybe when our lives went back to normal.
“Frogs,” I said. “Where are we at with that?”
Everyone stared at me.
“You disappear out of thin air and out of Ordinary…” Delaney started.
“Not out of Ordinary,” Bathin said.
“All right. Not technically out of Ordinary, and you want to talk about frogs?”
“Last I heard, that was still a problem. Did you already turn everyone back?”
“You’ve been gone three hours, Myra,” Jean said. “We turned everyone back hours ago.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good. I’ll make us some coffee, and you can tell me how that went down.”
“Sit,” Jean said. “You too, Delaney. And Ryder. And you,” she pointed at Bathin as she strolled to the kitchen. “Better stick around, big boy, or you’re not going to like the consequences.”
“I wouldn’t care to be anywhere else,” he said blithely.
He strode to the fireplace and lowered himself to sit on the hearth. He looked tired, and that was not something I was used to seeing on him.
He must have felt me looking at him, or maybe he caught me thinking about him. Was that a part of the bonding his mother had done to us? Could we read each other’s minds now? I thought about ice cream and roller coasters and little yappy dogs that people thought were adorable when they dressed them up.
Bathin gave me a quizzical look. “What?” he asked.
“Can you read my mind?”
“Not here.” The smile he gave me, along with the slow lowering of his gaze as he took in every curve of my body, was absolutely scorching.
“Cool it, lover boy,” Delaney said. “Talk to us. What happened?” That last was for me.
“I had the scissors.” A sudden panic filled me. “You did retrieve the scissors? Tell me you didn’t let Xtelle have them.”
“We have them,” Ryder assured me.
“You pulled the scissors,” Delaney encouraged. “We saw that. Then from our perspective, you disappeared.”
“Bathin took me into another place. A stone.”
Delaney’s breath caught and she nodded. “Right. I didn’t think about that. Of course he did. One of the stones here?” she asked the demon.
“No. Not in her house. One that I have tucked away in Ordinary. Like I said,” he nodded at Ryder, “I did not step outside of Ordinary. There are reasons why I won’t do that.”
“Oh?” Delaney asked. “Why?”
“Ask Myra. I’m sure she’ll be happy to fill you in on every detail of our short escape from this madhouse.”
I fought back a smile. I didn’t know I would like broody and moody Bathin this much. Poor baby, all his evil plans thwarted by a girl.
He must have caught some of that because he slid me a very private smile.
“So?” Jean said, strolling back into the room with four mugs, a two-liter of soda, and my coffee carafe in her hands. “You were off getting stoned with Bathin.”
“In a stone with Bathin,” I corrected.
