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didn't believe me, of course. "We'll be watching them," he assured me. "Don't worry."
    As soon as I shut the door on him, Erin demanded, "What the bloody blazes did you do that for?"
    "I had to," I said wearily. "The effect will wear off in a day or so."
    Michael spoke. "What about these Azá you saw? They are trouble?"
    "They are very much trouble, but I didn't see any of them." I headed for the galley, poured out the last of the coffee, and rinsed the pot. My eyes fell on the little yellow pot that held my thyme. I picked it up and saw a face… a little girl with pigtails, glasses, and a smile wide as the Mississippi. I've never had children and never will, but three times I've taken one to raise. The first time it was war that killed my borrowed son, and grief nearly destroyed me. I did things then I'd rather not think about. My second child was broken by age, crippled in body and mind while I was still young and strong.
    I'd vowed never to raise another child.
    Ginny had made me break my vow. Her parents had been killed in the Great Storm, the hurricane that leveled Galveston in 1900, killing over six thousand people. They had been my neighbors and my friends, and I'd been unable to save them.
    But I'd saved Ginny. I'd taken her to raise as my own, against all better sense. And had never regretted it.
    She was gone now—grown up, grown old, and buried.
    But I still had the pot she'd made me when she was ten. The pot and the memories. And, I thought with a smile, a dear friend in her great-granddaughter.
    Who was appalled with me. "Tell me you didn't just lie to the FBI," Erin demanded.
    "Can't do that without telling another lie." If I'd known the Azá had crossed the ocean… well, I know now. I rinsed the coffeepot. "Erin, I'm sorry. I have to leave."
    Erin's face is so expressive. I saw anger fade to irritation, puzzlement, distress. "You don't mean that you need to run to the store."
    I shook my head. "I have to leave Galveston. Could you pick up some clothes for Michael? Jeans, a couple t-shirts, shoes, underwear." I cast an experienced eye over him. "Thirty-thirty-one for the jeans, I think."
    "I'm going with you?" Michael rose from the couch and stood there in all his glory.
    "Yes," I said. "Oh, yes. They'll be after you."
    He scowled. "You are leaving because of me?"
    "I've been planning to leave for some time. This just moves up the timetable."
    Erin grabbed my arm. "Why? We don't know if anyone's even looking for Michael. This isn't the way to handle things. It's not like you to rush off half-cocked, Molly. I know you've talked about moving on soon, but not like this. Not this fast."
    I looked at her dear face and let the hurt rip through me. Partings have never gotten easy. "I have to," I told her gently. "The goddess Pete almost named? She's quite real. I've met her, though it's been awhile… about three hundred years. She's the one who cursed me."

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Chapter 6

    MICHAEL and I left the island shortly after seven o'clock that evening.
    The causeway stretching between Galveston and the mainland is man-made. Like a long umbilical cord, it holds fast to its feckless offspring—a mother refusing to release her child to a separate fate. The bay was a ruffled blue mosaic on either side as we crossed from child to parent, and the sun rode low in the sky on our left. Traffic was light.
    "Do you realize," Michael said, awed, "that this was all done without magic? All of it—the bridge, the roads and buildings… everything."
    "Ah—yes. I knew that." I didn't look at him. Michael wasn't quite as distracting clothed, but his thighs gave the crisp new jeans a lovely form, and the t-shirt Erin had bought him was the color of his eyes—a paler blue than the ocean, but just as unfathomable.
    Best to pay attention to driving my rig. It handled beautifully, but I'd driven it very little since purchasing it last year to replace my old one. Not that I'd bought it in my own name. I'd been planning to leave for some time,