We lay the food out on the bed. “Were you planning on feeding an army?” Shepard asks.
“I was planning on feedingSimon.”
But Simon took off into Vampire-opolis this morning as soon as he woke up and realized that Baz was already gone. I tried to stop him from leaving. I stood in the doorway and forbade it.
“I’ll be fine, Penelope. Move.”
“The vampire risk is untenable, Simon.”
“How is that different from the rest of my life?”
“You know damned well.”
“I need some fresh air.”
“You won’t find it in the casino downstairs.”
“Then I’ll find it somewhere else.Move.”
“Simon, I’mbeggingyou, as the person who will cry the most at your funeral,pleasedon’t.”
“Penny, if I don’t get out of this room, I’m going to go off.”
I should have said,“You can’t go off, Simon. You don’t have anything left that goes. And I don’t really care if you feel crazy—because crazy isn’t dead.”
Instead I spelled his wings away and stood aside.
I’m still worried about him. And Baz. And Agatha. I start to cry. I can’t help it.
Shepard is sitting at the other end of the bed. “What do you think?” His voice is gentle. “Denver omelette? Eggs Benedict? Corned beef hash?”
I point at the plate of eggs Benedict, and he hands it to me.
“I can leave,” he says. “If you’d like to have some space to yourself.”
“I am not letting anyoneelsewalk out into that bloodbath!”
“Penelope. I didn’t know you cared.”
I roll my eyes, trying to keep myself from crying. “How does this place evenexist? Where are the mages? If my mother were here, she’d burn this entire city down.”
“Maybe we should call her,” Shepard says.
“Ha!” I poke my fork into my poached egg and watch the yolk spill out. “She’d murder me first, then destroy Las Vegas.”
“Nah, I’m sure she wouldn’t.”
“You’ve never met her. She’s a force to be reckoned with, she’s a—what do you call them—tornado.”
Shepard laughs. He’s eating the corned beef hash I ordered for Simon. “Then I’d love her,” he says. “I used to be a storm chaser, you know.”
“What’s that, someone who chases older women?”
“No, someone who chasesstorms.Tornadoes, specifically.”
“How do you chase a tornado?” My mouth is full, but I don’t care. I have no one to impress here. I’m still going to try to erase Shepard’s memory when all this is over. “Do you use magic?”
“You use meteorology. And your own senses. When a storm rolls in, you get into a car with your friends and you see if you can find it.”
