Tonks stood shakily, feeling entirely blindsided. Dumbledore's summons had come an hour ago; the fact that he would be receiving Remus's report hadn't occurred to her at all, which she supposed showed that she was slipping more than she could afford to.

"Remus," she said.

He didn't say anything. He just looked at her.

"Do you need me to leave? Will they be able to tell...?"

"No." He shook his head and sat down in the chair across from her, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at the carpet. "I can stay away for a day or two now without anyone noticing. I already took a bath, so I'll undoubtedly need to roll around in something foul before I go back anyway. Where is Dumbledore?"

"He stepped out. He got a message from someone. He'll be back in a moment." She looked at him, tracing the taut arch of his neck with her eyes, taking note of the length of his hair. "How are you?"

He took a deep breath. "I'm all right. Really, I am. Moody and Molly both say that you're not sleeping right, though."

"Mad-Eye and Molly talk too much."

"Dora..."

"I'm fine, Remus. There's just a lot of work to do right now, and I seem to have lost my other commitments." He winced. She shook her head. "Don't worry about me. Isn't worrying about me and thinking about me meant to be dangerous for your cover or whatnot?"

"I imagine I can worry about you to my heart's content. That's not an entirely hopeful thought."

"You sound like Sirius, fantasizing about doing dreadful things to Wormtail to get away from the Dementors, just because they weren't happy thoughts."

"I'm beginning to understand what he meant."

"Does that make me Wormtail in this scenario?"

"I'm not fantasizing about hurting you, Dora. I just can't--" He paused and stood up, looking out over the mostly empty grounds. "They have to believe I've lost everything."

"So let them believe it. Why must you? That's the part I don't understand." Tonks bit her tongue to keep from going on. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him or fight with him, but her traitor mouth was trying to escape her control. She went to him and let her hand hover over his shoulder. "Are you really going to roll in something foul before you go back? Mask where you've been?"

His muscles tensed, then he reached over his shoulder, grabbed her hand, and pulled her to him.

There was no elation, no rush of relief or joy as she settled into her place against him. There was just weariness and a sense of fitting. She let her breathing slow down to match his. "I've missed you," she said.

He kissed the top of her head and ran his rough thumbs over her cheeks, then pressed his lips briefly against hers and let go of her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--"

"Are you both quite finished?" someone asked impatiently. "Because this is really all quite dreary. I never thought I would wish for another public reading of a tawdry bodice-ripper..."

Remus smiled and shook his head, rolling his eyes, and there was a moment of sheer normalcy. "Did you have something to tell us, Phineas?"

Phineas Nigellus, Tonks's some-number-of-greats-grandfather on the Black side, lounged against his portrait frame. "Well, I have no wish to disturb your mutual display of self-pity--"

"What is it, Grayfur?" Tonks asked him.

Phineas wrinkled his sharp nose harmlessly at her use of Sirius's (somewhat) affectionate name for him. "Dumbledore is coming back. I thought you might want to conclude your tearful reunion before he... oh, I see I waited too long."

The door to Dumbledore's office opened, and Phineas took the painted seat on his canvas, leaning back as though he meant to join the meeting.

Albus Dumbledore came in, looking distant and troubled. "Phineas," he said, "go back to Grimmauld Place and tell Alastor that everything has been arranged, and he needn't go to the trouble of harassing Robards, who turned out to be rather agreeable."

"Robards?" Tonks repeated.

Dumbledore turned to her with a smile as Phineas disappeared with an indignant snort. "Yes. Interesting man, and something of an improvement in terms of Ministry contacts, at least as long as our goals are complementary."

"Hard not to be an improvement." She frowned. "Does this have to do with... well, Robards mentioned something about the school yesterday. About Aurors coming here?"

"To Hogsmeade, at any rate," Dumbledore said. "There's no need for a permanent presence at the school. If you are agreeable, Nymphadora, I would very much like for you to be among those assigned."

"Things are quite busy in London. I have seven open cases."

Dumbledore frowned at her. "Your Division has already approved the transfer of four Aurors to Hogsmeade. According to Robards, there are other Aurors also assigned to the cases you're working on."

"Well, I--"

"Nymphadora, the truth of the matter is that I would prefer a member of the Order to be among the Aurors stationed nearby."

"I see."

"I think it might be good for you to get out of London," Remus said.

"Do you?"

Remus looked between Tonks and Dumbledore, then said, "I think Greyback has eyes in the Ministry. He's very aware of"--pause--"Tonks's movements."

"Wonderful," Tonks said.

Dumbledore looked between them, then took off his half-moon spectacles and laid them on his desk, rubbing his eyes with his good hand. Tonks hadn't asked what he'd done to the other hand. She had a feeling she wouldn't get an answer. "Remus, as much as I would like to protect everyone in the Order, I'm not asking Nymphadora to come here for her safety, though it would certainly be advantageous to make her less visible to Greyback."

"Of course. I didn't mean--"

"I know."

Tonks sat down. "Robards is going to offer me the option to transfer here?"

"He seemed willing, though he asks reasonably that you share any information that will be of use to your colleagues in defending themselves."

"All right. I'll do it, then."

"Good. Aberforth has offered to provide housing for the Auror Division in the rooms above the Hog's Head. You needn't worry about securing a flat, unless of course you enjoy sleeping at night or are inordinately concerned with cleanliness."

She smiled. "Professor, if I can sleep in a dormitory here, I can sleep anywhere."

"It's settled, then." He turned to Remus. "This brings us to why I asked Nymphadora to come while you were here."

"I don't understand."

"Security at the school is going to be tightened quite a lot this year, for obvious reasons. Even the Aurors stationed in Hogsmeade will not have access to the school unless I determine it to be necessary, or Minerva McGonagall does in my absence. I would like to arrange for Nymphadora--and other Order members--to have access to and away from the school, if an emergency should arise."

"The Shrieking Shack."

Dumbledore nodded. "After you've given me your report, I'd like you to show Nymphadora how to get past the Whomping Willow, and give her the charms she'll need to get past the security at the house."

Remus crossed his arms, looking troubled. He looked out the window again. "If I give you the charms," he said, "you need to understand that going in there on a full moon might be more of an emergency than one you're coming to stop." He turned back to them. "My father was very careful in building the anti-Apparition wards there. They're quite complex. They allow me--and only me--to Apparate there from anywhere, directly into the interior of the house. He..." Remus smiled nervously. "I feel a bit disloyal admitting this."

"There will be no repercussions, Remus," Dumbledore said.

"Dad taught me to Apparate when I was eleven, just before school. I pretended not to know, of course, and Dad insisted that I only use it for emergencies. Moon-related emergencies. I could Apparate from anywhere--except within the school, of course--into the Shack, if I got caught in public at moonrise."

Dumbledore smiled. "You keep a good number of secrets, Remus."

"Yes." He took a deep breath. "I don't use it often. It's a last resort. I haven't used it for years, at least not that way. I did end up there on Valentine's Day, but..." His voice trailed off, and Tonks thought of the previous Valentine's Day, when he'd Apparated on the fly from a madly dangerous scheme of hers, and had come back to London and kissed her for the first time. Remus shook his head sharply. "Matters with Greyback's people are less than clear. If worse comes to worse, I want the option to be open."

"A wise precaution." Dumbledore leaned forward. "Nymphadora, if an emergency arises on a night the moon is full, can you control a werewolf long enough to get a team through?"

Tonks nodded. "I've done it before."

"And you will otherwise avoid the house at such times."

"All right."

"Very well, then," Dumbledore said. "Remus, I'd like to know about Greyback and his people now."

Remus looked at Tonks sideways, and said, "I'd like to give my report without Tonks here."

To Tonks's surprise, anger flew faster and stronger than hurt or confusion. "What's that supposed to mean? Do you really think I can't--?"

"I think Greyback has made it quite clear that he suspects me of passing information to you, and I think I'd prefer it if you didn't know something that would confirm his suspicions."

Dumbledore looked from Remus to Tonks, his brow furrowing. "Remus's argument has some merit. We can discuss it later. For now, Nymphadora, please wait at the base of the stairs."

"But--"

"Now, please, Miss Tonks."

Feeling helpless and decidedly young, Tonks left the room with as much dignity as she could muster, and waited for an hour at the base of the stairs.

By the time she heard the door open upstairs, Tonks was miserably lecturing herself about being a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. She'd just made a highly salient point regarding the pettiness of anger at a man risking his life and facing his greatest fears for the sake of others when the staircase behind her started rotating again, and she heard someone coming down.

She stood up and Vanished the chair she'd Conjured to wait, and was surprised to see not Remus, but Dumbledore coming down alone.

"Mr. Lupin will be along presently," he said. "I wondered if I might have a word?"

"Yes, of course," Tonks said.

Dumbledore started walking slowly up the corridor. Tonks found herself looking at his withered hand again. "Professor--" she started.

"Don't concern yourself about it," Dumbledore said, glancing at her. "Just an injury. It happens."

"How did it happen?"

"Searching for matters related to Voldemort. I don't know enough to reveal any more to you at the present time." He stopped at a window at the end of the corridor, and looked out over the now-darkening grounds. "It's not wrong to feel cheated, Nymphadora. You've been cheated, and in a particularly hurtful way. You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel it."

"I... well, I know that it's hardly the most important matter..."

He turned to her, looking ancient. "I hadn't anticipated how much access Greyback had to information about you, or how deeply this would effect Remus. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to--"

"Yes, I do." He leaned on the window frame. "I don't like the things I find myself asking people to give up."

"You didn't start this, Sir."

"Didn't I? I sometimes wonder." He shook his head, then turned to her with a gentle smile. "You have a good heart, Nymphadora. You always did." He glanced up the corridor at the door of his office. "Remus believes that I'm explaining the necessity of his total withdrawal from your life."

"You're not?"

"Not at all. And I suspect I don't need to explain Remus Lupin to you, of all people."

"Not really, no."

"I won't tell you what he wants me to tell you. I'll tell you to trust your instincts about him." He squeezed her arm with his good hand. "And that is all I had to say. Though I will add that I hope to see you from time to time in Hogsmeade. It's been a far less colorful village since you left school."

Tonks didn't feel particularly colorful, but she was touched that Dumbledore remembered her as a student, among the hundreds--perhaps thousands--he had known over the years. She let him lead her back to the staircase, where Remus met them, looking dodgy. They exchanged goodbyes, then Remus nodded to Tonks, and she followed him out of the castle.

"There isn't a really good trick for getting near the Whomping Willow," he said. "But if you can dodge the branches long enough to get to the trunk, there's a knot you can prod with a stick or your wand or whatnot." The stopped at the outer reach of the tree's branches and Remus picked up a stick from the ground. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Run."

Remus moved with a compact and economical grace that Tonks envied (and that turned her thoughts in other less than selfless directions as well), and reached the trunk without so much as being whipped by a leaf. She herself was lashed across the face, pinched, grabbed roughly by the hair, and thrown into him.

He pushed her away gently, and pointed at a knot at the base of the trunk. "It's right here," he said, and prodded it. The violent movement of the tree ceased entirely, and a dark passage appeared among the roots. He lowered himself into it and she followed.

The passage was narrow and dank, and smelled of the passage of animals. Remus was squatting at the beginning of the tunnel. "A little light?" he suggested.

Tonks drew her wand and lit it. Then she drew Remus's wand from her satchel, put it in his hand and wrapped his fingers around it. He smiled and added more light.

They walked bent at the waist in the low tunnel, not talking. The wandlight on the uneven surfaces made shadows play over Remus's body, and much to her annoyance with herself, Tonks spent most of the walk imagining how those smoothly moving muscles would feel under under her hands.

"Why are you rolling your eyes?" he said as he turned around to open a hatch that she presumed led into the Shrieking Shack.

"I think I've discovered a whole new level of inappropriately frivolous thoughts," she said, pulling herself through the hatch and into an entirely demolished room, bright with moonlight. "The weight of the world on you, a whole war going on out there, and I'm thinking, 'You know, Miriam's right... he does have a cute bum.'"

Remus blinked at her, surprised, and then laughed. He stopped laughing, looked at her, and started again, sitting down on a broken chair. "I love you, Dora," he said.

She sat down on the dusty floor across from him, glad to see him laugh, more glad to hear him say he loved her, but not really feeling like laughing herself. So she just smiled and listened to his laughter until it trailed off.

He sighed and leaned forward, planting his sharp elbows on his knees. "You know that, don't you?" he asked her. "That I love you?"

"Well, I don't object to the occasional reminder."

He reached across and touched her face, then drew his hand away, leaving it hovering in the air between them. "I'm not doing you any favors by reminding you."

Tonks slapped his hand away and stood up. "You're an impossible man, Remus," she said.

"I--"

"And a selfish one. You propose at the last minute, then break it off without so much as warning me. And you do it by note! And now you touch me and tell me you love me, but that I shouldn't pay attention to you loving me. You're confusing the bloody hell out of me!"

"I'm sorry."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes, you know--"

"And did you want to marry me? For real?"

"Yes. More than anything."

"Then what's the problem? I mean, of course not while you're with Greyback, but, dammit, Remus..."

"The problem?" He stood and stalked to the window. "You want to know the problem, do you? Look around you. Do you like what you see? Because this is the only home I could ever give you. And that's if I manage to hold onto it month after month. Sometimes Gringotts owns it and I can't get in through their wards until I catch up."

"Remus--"

"I look like a damned beggar even when I'm completely human. And when I'm not..." He sat down on an unsteady piano bench and put his head in his hands. "There's so much blood," he said obscurely.

Chagrined, Tonks took a deep breath, swallowed her arguments, and just looked at the house. It was shattered--holes in the walls, furniture in pieces, floorboards broken and sticking up like ribcages on an ancient battlefield. The bannister on the stairs was split, the posts crushed by some powerful long-ago blow from the newel post to halfway to the second floor. It was a hated house, a house upon which anger and frustration had been unleashed for years.

She went to the chair he'd been sitting in and turned it over, then found the pieces of the splintered wooden leg and held them together, and pointed her wand at at. "Reparo."

The leg shivered, solidified, took scarred shape. She set the chair down gingerly. It held.

Remus was watching her coolly. "It's chair, Dora," he said. "Fixing one chair doesn't change anything about this place. And it's not going to hold."

"Where is your desk?"

"What?"

"Your desk. The one I bought you for my flat last year. Where is it?"

"It's in what passes for a study, at the top of the stairs. It's not broken."

"Good," she said. She reached over and took his wand from him and went up the stairs. After a moment, she heard him follow.

The desk was sitting beside a window, all of its decorations intact, the plug for the electrical lamp lying in the dust of the broken floor. She went to it, opened the top drawer, and put his wand in it.

He was leaning against the doorframe when she turned around.

"What's that about?" he asked.

"You're still not planning on carrying your wand?"

"It would be quite mad."

"But you can Apparate here if you need to."

"Yes."

"Then Apparate here if you need this. Will you at least do that?"

He considered it. "All right," he said. "That's fair, and a good idea."

She nodded, finding herself abruptly with nothing to say. She'd expected an argument.

"I'd best show you how to get in and out on the Hogsmeade side," he said after a bit, standing away from the doorframe. "The back entrance is the only where you can get through the security charms. It comes into the kitchen..."

He spent the next half hour showing her the various security precautions on the Shrieking Shack and making a talisman that would allow her to pass through the wardings on the door if she needed to. Through all of it, he didn't look at her directly.

"I think that's all you need to know," he finally said, putting the new talisman down on the canted kitchen table. "Hopefully, you won't have to use it, anyway."

"Right."

"You should get back to London. And I need to..." His voice trailed off.

"Roll in something foul before you go back, to cover up what you've been up to?" she asked.

He shrugged. "More or less. I'll probably just walk for a few days, sleep in the woods. That should be enough to--"

Tonks stood on her toes and pulled him to her, kissing him as deeply as he'd allow, burying her fingers in his hair, feeling his hands on her sides.

He broke away, his eyes closed, his hands pushing her away and holding her close at the same time.

She smiled at him. It took effort. "I just reckoned that if you're going to cover up for something, you might as well have something worth covering."

He returned her smile, then let go of her and stepped back into the shadows. "We have to stop this, Dora," he said. "I'm going to have to walk for a week to cover that up."

There was nothing more to say, though Tonks thought that she and Remus passed a few meaningless pleasantries--and spent longer than was entirely necessary at it--before Remus fell silent, looked at her for a long time, then Disapparated.

Tonks left a bit later, and wandered the night streets of Hogsmeade. She'd never been here alone at night before, and she was struck by how very dark it was, and how quiet. Sound carried a little bit from the Three Broomsticks and the Hog's Head, and somewhere, someone with an open window was listening to the Wizarding Wireless, a foul band called The Moonhowlers, if Tonks wasn't mistaken.

In bustling London, there were always a thousand distractions at hand. Here, there was nothing but the swirling mists. She thought briefly about going to visit her old school-friend, Sanjiv McPherson, but checked her watch and decided against it. He might still be up, but at this hour, a woman in his flat wasn't likely to be an old chum.

She Apparated back to her parents' home.

Friday was a haze of activity as she briefed colleagues on her cases and closed up her investigations in London, and Saturday a haze of packing and parental well-wishing. On Sunday, she returned to Hogsmeade with Savage, Proudfoot, and Dawlish. Robards accompanied them to see to final arrangements with Aberforth.

Tonks's room was on the third floor, sunny and surprisingly clean. Aberforth had provided her with a large bureau and several wardrobes (he winked and showed her that they were magically enlarged on the inside as well; she suspected that none of the others had gotten these). She was lazily sending her clothing collection into them when Robards knocked on her open door.

"Are you sure you'll be all right here? No three-shift days without someone to force you to go home?"

"I'll try to restrain myself."

"I haven't found anything on our friend T-R-A, but I'm still investigating. Have you found anything?"

Tonks shook her head. "Not really, though I'm satisfied that it's not you."

"I'm glad to hear it. What brought you to that conclusion?"

"You were tied up at the office for days around the time Emmeline disappeared. You don't have any history of dabbling. Your wife is Muggle-born. So is your mistress."

Robards blanched. "Ah."

"Don't worry, I'm not a gossip columnist."

"Yes, er... Well, I'm beginning to think she may have simply been referring to Travers, or someone else with a name that begins with those letters. I shared information with Dumbledore, in case she meant your people--well, your other people--and he said he would look into it himself."

"I suppose that's all we can do."

"I'll leave you to your unpacking, then." He turned to leave, then turned back. "I meant it about not overworking yourself. I'll tell the others not to allow it."

"Please don't. It will be difficult enough without them thinking they're being asked to look after me. And I don't need looking after."

"I look after all of my people." Robards looked at her skeptically. "I've told Dawlish to set up night watches near the entrances to the school, and I'd like the four of you to work out the schedule for them."

"All right."

He paused, his lips pursed. "Look, I know you have your issues with Dawlish, but he's a capable Auror, and I expect you both to be professional here."

"I'm not the one you need to talk to about that."

"Er... I know. But as he got a bit shirty with me when I raised the point with him, I had to promise that you would get the same instruction."

"Duly noted."

"Well, I'd best get back to London, before my wife decides that you're my mistress. Which would at least make more sense than the one I've got, as I occasionally have time to see you, which is more than I can say for Rachel."

"Except for the part where I'd curse you into next month."

"That would be a significant inconvenience."

Shaking his head at the contingencies of his life, Robards left the room. Tonks saw him leave the pub and Apparate from the street outside, then went back to unpacking. The sun was setting when she heard familiar voices in the corridor.

"Well, I hear they've put Aurors in Hogsmeade..." a woman said with over-feigned shock. "Can you imagine?"

"You know how they always overreact," a man said. "To a few thefts--"

"A Dementor attack or two--" another cut in.

"Some disappearances--"

"Dark wizards rising from the dead and chasing down schoolboys--"

Tonks went to her door, and found her three best school chums staging their little scene. Daffy Apcarne, his infant son Francis in his arms, grinned broadly, and his wife Maddie ran forward and hugged Tonks. Sanjiv fell dramatically to his knees and wrapped his arms around Tonks's legs. "We're saved! At last!"

"All except for you, Sanjiv," Tonks said. "I'll let them have you."

Unfazed by threats of abandonment, Sanjiv got to his feet and went around Tonks into the room. "So... living at the Hog's Head. Risque. I think I've been in this room."

"If you have, I really don't want the visual."

"I hired a girl."

"Sanjiv!"

"To pose for me. That's all." He shrugged. "It's quite homey really."

"Please," Maddie said. "This isn't a place to live. It's a place to stop for the night and pay no attention to. Let's see what we can do."

She waved her wand and a small trunk appeared in the center of the room. She opened it. "First," she said, "draperies. You can't live here if all you're going to put on your windows is a shade charm."

"I..."

"Don't bother," Daffy said. "She's on a mission."

"Wonderful."

"Oh, it wasn't my idea. It came purely from the Mad Monk there." She nodded toward Francis, who had been named after the Fat Friar. "We were having a long discussion over his breakfast, and he said, 'Oh, dearest Mum, we really should see to my Aunt Tonks, who will be ever so lonely without us.'"

"Did he now?"

"Of course he did. In his own language, naturally, but I'm quite fluent."

"It's amazing, the deep thoughts my son has," Daffy said.

The subject of the conversation let his mouth fall open, and a tiny pink tongue darted out of it, surrounded by spit bubbles. He made a kind of gurgling sound.

Tonks laughed and held out her arms for him. "Aunt Tonks is very happy to see you," she said. "Even if Mummy's a bit mad about draperies. Come on, let's see if I can't put something together for you." She shifted him into one arm and raised her wand with the other, Conjuring a bassinet (she'd never made one before, and was amused to see that her "inner bassinet" was an absurdly frilly little basket) and several stuffed toys. Francis pointed happily at a pink-furred dog and Tonks gave it to him, but found herself loathe to put him down. She bounced him on one hip while Maddie charmed the curtains onto the windows and Daffy pulled out several knick-knack shelves. Sanjiv was just pacing the room, getting the size of it.

"Oughtn't you be asking us questions or whatnot?" Maddie asked.

"Right. Who was the first person to call you Maddie?"

"Charlie Weasley. Thought it was easier than Madrigan."

"One down. Did you let a Polyjuiced Death Eater pose as your husband and carry your baby here?"

"No. I'm a much better mother than that."

"Two down. Sanjiv--if you're in fact Sanjiv--what famous Quidditch player did you draw a naked cartoon of when she was at Hogwarts, and how much detention did you get?"

"Moira Troy, and two weeks. She wasn't even angry. She kept it and put it in her scrapbook. Unfair." He shook his head, remembering the great injustice of it, and stepped over Granny, who had chosen that moment to creak her way out of the cupboard. "How many kittens did Granny have?"

"I lost count around twenty," Tonks said. "My cat had a much more active social life than I did."

"Your cat had a more active social life than Contessa Zabini." Granny wrapped herself around Sanjiv's feet and begged to be picked up. Sanjiv indulged her. "Of course, you didn't give the right number..."

"If I were a Death Eater, I'd have made up a number."

"Good point."

Maddie had finished with the windows, and was setting herself to organizing Tonks's cutlery (which Tonks had forgotten to purchase an organizer for and was temporarily keeping in a shallow wicker basket). "I saw your Mum," she said carefully. "When I took Francis in for a once-over at St. Mungo's. She said you're feeling a bit blue. Do you want to tell us?"

"Is it Lupin?" Daffy asked. "Because if it is, Sanjiv and I will take it out of him."

"It's not just Remus. It's Dementors and dead people and quite a lot of work business."

"But it is Lupin a bit?" Maddie frowned. "I'm disappointed. I liked him."

"You can still like him," Tonks snapped. "He's a good man. If I still like him, you bloody well can."

The three of them looked at each other shiftily. Tonks pretended not to notice, focusing her attention on Francis instead. His little eyes were closed, and he was sucking on his fist. She wiped away a bit of spittle with the corner of his blanket, then set him in the bassinet.

"All right," Sanjiv finally said, then forced himself back into bouyancy. "Now, you know I'm going to re-paint the place. I'm sure your new Headmaster Dumbledore won't mind..."

They worked together for an hour to make the room feel positively cozy. Each of them (with the exception of the sleeping Francis) slipped at least once and made a comment about Remus that generally involved the removal of body parts, and Tonks responded to each with as steady a glare as she could muster, but she didn't pick fights with them. Friends were in short supply.

They left just before ten, Daffy and Maddie Apparating back to their home and Sanjiv ambling out into the streets to return to his flat above Madam Puddifoot's. Tonks looked around the room, pleased with it--her books were stacked neatly on wooden shelves, her basic potions ingredients stowed efficiently in their case beneath the nightstand. Daffy had produced a braided rag rug that was in their attic, and Sanjiv had given her several drawings for the walls. He had also given her a small collection of glass butterflies, charmed to glow white, which were mounted on the wall between the windows, across from the bed.

She smiled at them.

Dawlish didn't appear to set up a time to arrange the schedule, so she decided to simply get up early and wait for the others downstairs. She changed, combed her hair, and put out the candles, lying in her new bed, in her new place, with her old cat purring at her feet.

She lay on her side for a long time, unable to sleep, looking out the window at the starry night. There was something wrong with the sky, a line against the stars. It took her a moment to realize exactly what shape she was seeing, though she must have noticed it subliminally all day, as it was in a direct sightline from her room.

Across town, the canted roof of the Shrieking Shack was imprinting itself on the sky.