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"Hey," I said, nipping that bud of thought before it blossomed further

His head whipped up and he ht a beaker with his elbow and knocked it over It tumbled from the counter, hit the floor and shattered before he could catch it

He stared at ain"

I offered hihtly, "Back like Jack In like Flynn Ready to brainstorm like--" I couldn’t think of a name that rhymed with brainstorm "--Einstein on his best day?"

He didn’t smile back He looked tired and there were dark circles under his eyes

Grabbing a nearby broo up the broken glass Without taking his gaze from the floor, he said, "It’s been thirty-five days, four hours, and--" He looked at his watch "--sixteen minutes since you were last seen alive, in case you ondering But I doubt you were Ti to you that it one this time, as near as I was able to calculate You were last spotted leaving Chester’s the night of August eighth"

If the way he was beating the floor into sube his mood by, he was seriously mad at me

I considered the past twenty-four hours I’d had a job to do I’d done it "I’m sorry," I said siotteninto the Silvers with Christian, I’d gotten s since then Such as, it’s pure hell when you care about soone and you don’t know if you’ll ever see theain

Ithe floor with a cleaning i for a fewa word then finally stopped and looked up at uarded, remote

"I mean it," I said softly "I’m sorry Time really didn’t o back into the White Mansion Forbefore you went into the Silvers did you know you had to go?"

He was asking if there’d been enough tie to hi as it took me to freeze-frame directly from Chester’s to the White Mansion Critical means ‘at an iainst the counter and gazed intofor or what he decided he found but he finally relaxed through his shoulders and said softly, "Well, then Dalad to be back, Dancer"

And just like that there was no tension left in the room

I loved that about him He didn’t even need to knohat I’d done Only the parameters of it that affected the respect and consideration he felt was his due if I wanted to be his friend I hated that he’d been worrying about ain I hated the dark circles beneath his eyes, so I extended an olive branch, so I’d never done in the past It made me unco it "If it’s at all possible, I proo into the Silvers again"

He inhaled sharply, not ree of accountability to him I’d never pero somewhere, I would bloody well find a way to leave hi

Then he was talking athe preferred theories, eyes sparkling

Dancer was convinced the black holes suspended slightly above the earth weren’t remotely the same as the ones in outer space "I think the ones up there"--he jerked his head toward the ceiling--"are naturally occurring phenoht to be what and where they are The theory is that primordial black holes were birthed at the dawn of time, have always existed and for some reason need to I like to think of the up old, defunct detritus, clearing the way for new things to be born The holes we’re dealing with don’t behave in accordance with modern black hole theory While it’s possible --I ht up until Einstein turned everything on its ear--the set off our black holes is that they’re anathe, should never have come into existence, and are in cos"

"They smell? I never noticed a smell and I have a super sniffer"

He ducked his head, looking uished by his ability to sniff out the difference between a superior theory and one not worth pursuing"

I sot a super sniffer, too"

He grinned "I suspect these entities are literally spheres of ‘unical sense because I tend to lean toward everything being explainable by science, but I also believe in God, and the Fae are real and s we can’t yet explain or understand"