If Patience could help us, I would do whatever it took.
Chapter 13
Once we entered, Patience looked around the foyer, noting the herbal sachets and protective charms. She sauntered into the bedroom, her tongue worrying the inside of her cheek as she picked up a small photo of Sailor I kept on my bedside table. She set it back down and continued her tour, pausing in front of the bookshelf in the living room.
“Nice crystal ball,” she said.
“Thanks. It was a present from my grandmother.”
“Can you see anything in it?”
I shook my head. “Not often. I try, but...”
“But what? You still can’t scry?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
She lifted one eyebrow, and I lost what was left of my self-restraint. “I think it’s important to remember all the things Icando. I really am quite gifted at a great number of things.”
She shrugged. Listlessly, she walked around my living room, looking at Oscar’s stack of detective novels—he was partial to 1950s noir—running her fingers alongthe backs of chairs, picking up an old music box and then setting it down in the wrong place. I fought the compulsion to follow her around and set things aright. I realized that the last time she had been here, it had been after a very trying evening, and she hadn’t seemed to take it in like she did now.
Finally she finished her tour and faced me. “The shoe box?”
“Yes, the shoe box.”
“Why are you hesitating?”
“It’s just that Aidan was wary about opening it—”
“Hold on one second. You’re sayingAidanwas afraid to open it? AidanRhodes?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘afraid.’ More like cautious.”
“Uh-huh,” Patience said, sounding unconvinced. “So cautious that he refused to open it with you?”
“We were about to. He was going to help me—of course he was. But then—”
“You screwed up.”
“Why do you always assume the worst about me?”
“I could ask the same of you, princess.”
“Okay, all right, fine. Yes, I screwed up. We got into an argument.”
“About what?”
“That’s personal.”
“Since you’re asking for my help to open a potentially dangerous box, I’d say it’s my business.”
“We had an argument,” I said, “about Sailor.”
“What about him?”
“Aidan says our relationship weakens me.”
“Weakens you how?”
