“Are you Lula and Brogan Gauge?”
I clamped my jaw and breathed hard against the compulsion to speak.
“Yes,” Lu said. She did not sound happy about it.
He spun the mirror on himself. “Am I Mathew Davis, born nineteen-oh-eight?”
The same flash of light hit him. He winced, then answered: “Yes.”
It shouldn’t make a difference, him saying the same thing he’d been saying all along, but hearing him admit it under the mirror’s magic made me realize it was true.
Well, shit.
“You can tell,” he said, wearily. “You can tell I am not lying. Just as I know you are not lying. We,” he pocketed the mirror, leaving the lemon tang of magic behind, “are of a kind, the three of us. Three of a kind.” He slumped against the bench, as if he’d just run a long distance in a very short time.
He closed his eyes and rubbed at them.
I uncrossed my arms and hung my hand, tipping it slightly, knowing Lu would understand.Time to go?
I knew her answer, because she got to her feet. “We aren’t anything of a kind,” she said. “Goodbye, Mr. Davis.”
He bolted up and took two steps our way. I put my big body in front of Lu, Lorde moving fast to stand by my side, growling.
“Back down and back off,” I said. “This conversation is over.”
He’d left the coffee and trombone on the bench, his hand clutching something in his pocket.
Did he have a weapon there? Something with more powerful magic than the mirror?
I reached for his arm, my big mitt closing around his wrist.
Lorde growled, ears flat, teeth bared.
Mad Mat took another step, that crack of a smile dripping darkness like this was some sort of game he was winning.
Then Abbi screamed.
CHAPTERTHREE
Lu was gone, a liquid shadow, a blur, already out onto the grass where Abbi lay curled on her side, crying.
Mad Mat didn’t look her way, but that strange smile went broken and wild.
Hungry. He was hungry for this. Wanted this fight. “Do you really think she’s yours?” he rasped. “Do you really think you can keep her from me?”
I didn’t know if he was asking about Abbi or Lu, but my answer was the same. “Yes.”
I increased the pressure on his wrist until I felt his bones bend.
He only smiled wider.
A truck took the corner, the big engine chugging as it rumbled by, and that noise seemed to shake something in his gaze back into place.
Sanity, I thought.
Mat dropped the smile and stepped back.
“That was…unfortunate.” He stared at his feet, red slapped across his pale cheeks. “I had wanted… But no, that was inappropriate of me. All these years, I have a bit of a hair trigger. My apologies. This will take time. I know this will take time.
