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hadn't been her agent, Cat might never have told her.
    She thought of calling Melissa— not now, but tomorrow morning. Melissa would listen. She'd understand. She'd proved that this afternoon. They'd spent three hours over lunch, and it wasn't just because Melissa saw her commission floundering under the weight of Cat's writing block. It was because she cared.
    Cat stared around her shadowed study. She felt very small in the darkness. The silence of the house weighed on her. It was too big a place for one person and two cats. Except she needed the room for her books and records— both of which seemed to grow like weeds, they accumulated so quickly— and it fit her adolescent dreams of the sort of place she wanted to live in when she grew up.
    She'd seen herself living in a place like this, but not with anyone else. She didn't need anyone else, not when she had her ghosts and her night-visiting. But now here she was, grown-up but lonely because her ghosts were gone and the house was empty. Just like her dreams. Even the cats, Ginger and Pad, were out for the night.
    Other people admitted to invisible or imagined childhood companions, only they all seemed to outgrow them. Was that what had happened to her now? Had she mysteriously become too mature for her shadow friends? But if that was true, why did she feel so damned empty inside? Was she supposed to replace the ghosts with real people? That must be what others did. Only where would she find a man like Kothlen outside of the Otherworld? Another Tiddy Mun? A Mynfel?

    * * *

    Rick Kirby stood with his back to Stella, looking out her living room window while he tried to contain his anger. Nit, nit, nit. Christ, that was all she did these days. They'd been arguing for three hours straight now. Around and around. The same old push and nit and pry. About the only thing that would stop her was to sew her fucking mouth shut.
    Stella's apartment was on the seventh of ten floors in Le Marquis, on the corner of Main and Lees, facing west. It had an underground garage, with a laundry room and storage area in the basement. The ground floor was taken up by Betty Brite Cleaners, She of Piccadilly Hairdressers, Le Marquis Confectionery and Groceries— where you could pick up every lottery ticket from the Provincial straight through to Cash-for-Life. The remainder of the ground floor consisted of offices and the superintendent's apartment. Across the street was the École de Mazenod, founded in 1933, and the Canadian Martyrs Church. Beyond them was Algonquin College and the Rideau Canal. Rick stared at them, unseeing. At this moment his own reflection interested him more than the view.
    Thirty-seven years old, but he didn't look a day over thirty. He was a good-looking dude, no doubt about it, and if Stella had any smarts she'd realize that there were one hell of a lot of women who'd be grateful to have just a third of the time he spent with her. Not that she wasn't a class act herself. But she was just too caught up in this whole outdated melodrama of one man/one woman, live within your means, don't take chances. Fuck it. You had to live, didn't you? You had to get a little high, get a little on the side, have yourself some fun. If it wasn't for the fact that she was holding papers on two thirds of Captain Computer, he'd have told her off a long time ago.
    She talked a lot about love and trust, but where did she come off having a lawyer draw up a contract between them before she lent him the fucking money in the first place? She just wanted a hold on him, that was all. Couldn't drag him to the altar, so she got herself another piece of legal bullshit to tie him down. Well, he was seeing Bill on Wednesday, and if he could swing himself a little deal with good old Bill, he'd be able to hand Stella back her money and say, Here's where you get off baby. Either you live with me the way I am or you can fuck off.
    The only hitch was, Bill just might not spring for the bucks. He'd have to wine