I’d gotten just the last of the stock put away when the cuckoo clock in the front of the store began to chime noon. It was shaped like a small cottage and was dark brown with age. At the first chime of noon, a small girl in a red cape would move along a track in front, basket in hand. When the sixth peal sounded, a tall gray wolf with glinting yellow teeth emerged from the other side to follow her. He chased her into the cottage, and at the peal of noon, Little Red Riding Hood kicked the wolf out the door.

“She’s almost as brave as you are,” my father had said.

My dad had brought the clock back in several pieces from a scouting trip to Germany. I was proud that I’d been the one to put it back together, to fiddle with the gears and springs and screws until it chimed again.

Noon meant it was time to open the shop. I walked to the door, found Liam Quinn on the sidewalk, arms crossed and staring at an arrangement of Limoges snuffboxes in the window. Not a lot of demand for snuffboxes these days, but they made a pretty display.

He wore jeans and a snug black V-neck T-shirt, and there was dark scruff on his cheeks. He probably had slept as little as I had, but on him the effect was more roguish, more dangerous.

He said he’d talk to me about Nix, but part of me was still surprised to find him there. He was a strange new chapter in my life, and the thread between those pages and the others still seemed fragile and thin.

I flipped the CLOSED sign over, then unlocked and opened the door. “Liam.”

“Claire. Can I come in?”

I moved aside, gestured grandly. “Store’s open. Cash and tokens accepted. You break it, you buy it.”

He snorted, moved inside.

I walked back to the counter, unlocked the metal cashbox from the small safe under the counter, and set it out, along with a receipt pad and pen.

Liam took his time moving through the store, his gaze slipping over furniture, antiques, supplies. After a moment, his gaze shifted to mine, like he’d felt my stare, realized I’d been watching him. He was in my store, on my turf, so I didn’t look away.

“Nix is willing to meet with you tonight,” he said, cutting to the chase.

I winced. Bad timing. “Is there any way we could do it at any other time?”

He just lifted his brows, obviously not impressed by the question.

“I know you’re both doing me a favor,” I said, holding up my hands. “It’s just, on Sunday nights I have dinner with some friends.” I knew the explanation sounded weak—sounded like an excuse—but dinner was my weekly ritual, a dose of normalcy I needed. I had to hold on to normalcy, to Gunnar and Tadji. “It’s important to us. It’s just—”

“It’s normal,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, relieved. “It’s normal.”

“What time is it?”

“Seven thirty.”

“We could come at six o’clock. That would give us an hour and a half. It’s not ideal, but it will work for the first meeting.”

“Thank you. That would be great. But how are we going to do whatever we’ll be doing here? There are monitors everywhere.”

“We’ll leave that to Nix,” Liam said. “Maybe she’ll want to walk somewhere else.”

“You’re sure she’s trustworthy?” I was putting a lot of faith in Liam, in what we were doing, in his ability to keep me out of Devil’s Isle. Nix was an unknown.

“I’m not sure anyone’s trustworthy when push comes to shove,” he said. “But I don’t have any reason to doubt her. I’ve known her for years.”

It wasn’t a rosy worldview, but it was practical. I could appreciate that.