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that I couldn’t help him if he didn’t tell me what was going on. It also didn’t change that he’d just tried to mojo his way past my defenses for the second time that day. I should have been utterly furious, but I wasn’t. Just weary.
    “When was the last time Moira held Court?”
    “Ah . . . a while ago,” I said, not wanting to admit just how long it had been. Four or five months at least, but she’d had one informal Hearing right before she left. “She’s been rather busy lately and I don’t think—”
    He captured my hand, holding my wrist gently. “Don’t lie. I’ll kill you if you lie to me.”
    I opened my mouth, words of denial fading away beneath the gunmetal hardness in the words. He meant it.
    “All right,” I said hoarsely. I stood there, perched between fight or flight as every pallid heartbeat rushed through my ears. His nostrils flared. Perhaps he sensed my weakness. Tell me. Trust me. He stroked his thumb downward, the tremble of his flesh on mine filling me with the tumultuous urge to spill all that I held sacred. Moira’s disappearance, my inability to sleep, the rotting edge of jaded appreciation that I seemed to trip over in my everyday life, the fact that I was completely and utterly in over my head . . .
    “Who are you?” I wondered aloud.
    He flinched. “No one,” he said, his gaze drawn to theother end of the gallery with a resigned sort of anger.
    “Ah, there you are, Abby!” Blinking stupidly, I glanced up to see a beaming Topher sliding through the crowd. Although he was impeccably dressed, even the slickness of an Armani suit couldn’t hide the gauntness of his face or the shine of his balding pate. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his cheekbones were hollow and hungry.
    “It’s Himself, then, is it?” I quipped in an Irish brogue that would have killed a leprechaun. I rose up on tiptoe to greet him with a kiss on the cheek. Very chichi.
    “Abby, so glad you could make it.” His eyes lingered on Brystion, and then he winked at me. “Nice to see you brought a friend.”
    “Strictly business.” I corrected him without looking at the incubus. “How are you feeling these days?”
    “Ah, well, you know how it is.” He shrugged. “Some weeks are better than others, but each day is a gift, I always say.”
    “Yes.” My mind strayed to a not-so-distant, giftless day of my own. “It is.”
    “So, who is your gorgeous, ‘strictly business’ friend?” I could almost see Topher trying to sketch the perfect lines of the man beside me, but something told me Brystion wasn’t one to allow himself to be captured so easily.
    “How horribly rude of me.” For a moment I was tempted to just leave it at that, but I turned toward the incubus, manners and protocol butting heads with a rush of indignation and fear. “Brystion, this is Topher Fitzroy, the resident artistic genius responsible for this exhibit. Topher, this is Brystion . . .” My voice trailed away awkwardly. “Just Brystion, I guess?”
    “First-name basis only, my dear, is a fine thing.” The artist grinned. His smile faded when he looked at Brystion. “Is something the matter?”
    I glanced over in surprise. A dark shadow had crossedover the incubus’s face. “You say you’re responsible for that?” His hand gestured toward the painting of his sister.
    “Of course,” Topher said, his expression suggesting the question wasn’t even worthy of being asked. “It was a special commission and well worth every penny, if I do say so myself.” He gazed at the painting fondly, but there was a tightness about his eyes where his smile never quite reached.
    Brystion drew a ragged breath. “She would
never
have sat for you. You don’t have the soul for it.” He loomed over the artist, the edges of his skin blurring away for a moment. I blinked. He was about to drop his Glamour.
    Shit. Not that I knew just what an incubus actually looked like, but judging by the darkness that was sliding up the back of