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chicken fricassee. We ate on his back porch, watched turtles on cypress stumps, pelicans floating over water, drank some very good, very cold beer.”
    â€œHe died?” I asked, after a moment of silence.
    Liam nodded. “Three weeks later. Right before the battle, as it turned out. We still own that property, although I haven’t been out there in a few years.” He shook off the melancholy. “I guess the point of that story is that sometimes you just have to find your place, your home, and accept what’s happening.”
    He looked at me, gaze drilling down into the truth of me, and I felt my soul’s answering shudder. “And how are you, Claire Connolly?”
    â€œI’m holding up. I helped Lizzie, talked to Gunnar. Lizzie asked for some supplies. I told her I’d get what I could.”
    â€œGood,” he said. “Although I’m not sure a fire sprite and redhead working together will be good for the rest of us.”
    Everyone needed a lighter mood, it seemed, even Liam.
    I gestured to the fence. “I also watched the Seelie give us all the evil eye.”
    â€œThat woman is very good at the evil eye. And she’s not the only one.” He gestured to a man on the other side of the fence, eating what looked like pistachios as two Paras beside him talked animatedly.
    He was a big man. Wide, with broad shoulders and a gut that popped beneath his brightly colored tunic and matching pants. He had a wide, round face and eyes as black as pitch, his skin an olive green. Glossy black horns like Moses’s, but his were longer, spiraling upward a few inches above his head.
    â€œWho is that?”
    â€œThat, Claire, is Solomon.”
    Solomon was the self-proclaimed Paranormal godfather of Devil’s Isle. I hadn’t met him yet, but I knew he wasn’t a fan of Liam’s. His thugs had stopped us before. Then again, Liam had gone to him before when Eleanor needed protection.
    â€œHe looks like Moses.”
    â€œThey’re cousins.”
    That stopped me short. “No kidding?”
    â€œBoth Consularis, although on different sides of that particular fence.”
    At first glance, Solomon looked bored by the commotion, the Containment activity, as he popped one nut after another, let the shells drop to the ground. But there was something very shrewd in his eyes. Something wary and focused. And when his gaze landed on us, it contained a little of the evil eye I’d seen before.
    I gave him a little wave, which set his minions on a tirade I was probably glad I couldn’t hear.
    â€œBetter not to antagonize him.”
    I glanced at Liam. “Should I be afraid of him?”
    It didn’t comfort me that it took Liam a moment to answer. “No. But be wary. As you’ve seen, he mostly blusters. But his ego is large,and he’s surrounded by yes-men who think he’s their ticket out of Devil’s Isle.”
    I wondered if today, if this new threat, would change his attitude, too. Maybe we’d all become too complacent, too used to the status quo, to the chain of command.
    Liam finished the water in his now naked bottle, tossed it into the box set aside for recycling, looked at his watch. “It’s nearly five o’clock. I think we’re winding down here, at least for now. Containment will work the forensics, the analysis.” He glanced at me. “Is it all right for you to still be away from the store? I mean, I don’t know what your profits are . . .”
    Honestly, I hadn’t even given the store a thought. Tadji might have put the CLOSED sign in the window, held off anyone who wanted to buy stuff until I got back.
    â€œNobody makes much of a profit in the Zone,” I said. “I doubt there are many people shopping now. Most are either locked up in their homes or outside the gate, trying to figure out what happened.”
    Liam nodded. “You think Tadji will keep an eye on things a