Tod's pale brows arched halfway up his forehead, and he looked suddenly, achingly wistful. "She knows not what she says..." Maybe not. But I was starting to get a pretty good idea.

She wasn't feeling nothing. She was feeling too much. She was blocking it all out. That was a survival skill, and her still-beating heart was proof that it worked.

I got swirling eyes and the capacity to shatter windows with my bare voice. Tod got teleportation and invisibility. The supernatural world is so far from fair.

And the council doesn’t recognize any kind of temporary insanity defense. Which was a real shame, because most of the councilmen had considered me crazy for most of my life.

Bold. Risky. Dramatic. I approve.

He took both of my hands, twisting to face me more fully on the flattened box beneath us, and again the colors in his irises seemed to pulse with my heartbeat.

This seems headed into girl-fight territory," Tod said. "Should I make popcorn?