We sat side by side on the train east to Boston, close enough that I felt the tantalizing chill of Melinda's skin across the armrest. She was dressed in a thin guise of a human, wearing a long dark coat that was entirely too thin for the weather and betrayed exactly what she was trying to disguise: that she didn't feel the cold at all. I let myself smile limply over that small, un-Melinda-like mistake as I peered out the window at the snowy New England countryside. I was bundled—once again in Melinda's borrowed clothes—with a thick scarf masking the fresh bandage at my throat. I leaned my head against the window and shadowed my vision with my lashes, making the sunlight fragment and sparkle.
I felt Melinda regarding me out of the corner of her eye, as much as she pretended to be fiercely
