She smiled. “Youth.”
“Ah. Well. I started early,” I said. I slung the backpack I’d found in theWater Beetle’s cabin off of my shoulder, opened it, and took out a pair of white training shoes in Lara’s size. “Here. There’re socks in one of them.”
She accepted the shoes and frowned at me.
“We’re taking the stairs,” I said casually.
Lara arched an eyebrow. “How many stairs?” she asked.
I beamed at her.
—
It took the better part of an hour to go down the spiral staircase into the earth and reach the caverns beneath Demonreach.
“How you doing?” I asked, most of the way down.
“Do you want the polite answer?” Lara replied.
I paused and glanced back up at her. I didn’t let my eyes linger overlong on her legs because I liked them more than was good for me. “Maybe we should decide right now just to be direct and honest with each other.”
“Something wizards are famous for,” she said wryly.
“Something vampires are famous for,” I replied calmly. “We both suck at it by nature. So maybe we learn how. It’s probably something that’s good to have as an option.”
“All right,” she said. “No. This place is terrifying. I’ve had nightmares of it for weeks.”
“It isn’t for me,” I said, frowning. “I…”
Something sent a slow shiver down my spine. I stopped talking and stared up the long shaft toward the distant light of the entrance to the staircase, in the base of the lighthouse.
Lara tensed. “What is it?”
“I…” I closed my eyes for a second. The spirit of the island was connected with me in ways I still didn’t understand as much as I wished I could. It shared its awareness with me. Simply put, when I was here, I knew things. Just knew things. There was no chain of consequence to it, no logical progression. There was simply awareness. Another shiver went down my spine as I felt a sudden coolness, the way you might when a cloud suddenly blocks the sun on a glaring hot day.
“I’m not sure,” I said finally. “There’s something. I can’t tell what.”
“I thought you…basically were a god here,” Lara said.
“Yeah. Well. I’m new at it.”
I was suddenly aware that Lara was afraid. Her heart rate was up. She was trembling very slightly, though she hid it quite well from my mortal senses. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing straightup. The chemical scent of fear rose from her skin, though my physical nose didn’t get any of it. I simply knew.
“Hey,” I said, more gently. “I know this place doesn’t come off as friendly to outsiders. But you aren’t in any danger here.”
“If I had to pick a single word to describe you, Dresden,” she said, without heat, “it would bedangerous.”
“I’d have thought it would befunny,” I said.
Her lips quirked at one corner. “I might go as far asamusing.” She shook her head. “I believe that you generally mean well. But everywhere you go, things fall apart.”
I looked quickly back down the stairwell. “That’s me. Rough beast.”
“You’ve read Yeats,” she said.
“I used to read a lot,” I said, very quietly. “The Red Court burned down my old life. Before all of this. Before Mab. My books went with it.”
“Which was your favorite?” she asked.
