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can’t do anything until you get rid of the binding.” Bas ruffled his feathers. “I also came to offer advice on how to handle the Dancer. Obviously, you don’t need it. Your charm and persuasive abilities have rendered me speechless.”
    “One could only hope.” Harrison lifted his foot, reached down and unstuck an arrow that had attached to the bottom of his shoe. “You sent me here.” He narrowed his eyes at the owl. “Marguerite’s curse is already distracting me or I would have questioned you first. Is there another way to break the binding?” The Dancer was not ideal. Her flip attitude irritated him.  
    “The old-fashioned way is the quickest, most efficient way. Marguerite wove the first tie of the binding with earth energy,” Bas responded. “There is tremendous power involved in creating and sustaining such a tie. Theoretically, a Dancer who can channel enough light energy could undo it. The problem is finding someone with that capability. I sense the potential in Julie Dancer. If you two join together, the power should be enough to sever the tie.”
    “Join.” Harry repeated the word. Bas didn’t usually use euphemisms.  
    “Shag, boff, bonk,” he promptly clarified. “Sex has power. Even humans use it as a tool in their magic rituals. But be careful. There’s something about this Dancer that I don’t understand, something that feels different.”
    “The difference is she doesn’t bloody know who I am.” Harrison said as he rubbed at his temple.
    Bas blinked slowly. “Marguerite bothers you more than I thought.”  
    The fact that Marguerite had successfully completed the first part of the binding curse didn’t bother Harrison. It enraged him. She sat in his mind like a weed that couldn’t be plucked. He wanted her out. Yesterday. “Julie Dancer may have been raised human, but she is one of us.” A connection that gave him a dark sense of satisfaction. “Once she understands the consequences of this curse, she’ll agree to help.”
    The owl made a strange, gravelly sound.  
    Harrison looked at him suspiciously, but Bas merely spread his wings. With a powerful thrust, the owl lifted off, a soaring shadow against the sun-bright sky.  
     
      J ulie almost ignored her phone, not wanting to rehash the whole strange Harrison encounter with Dorie until her head stopped pounding. At the last minute, years of conditioning triumphed. She picked up her phone, tucking it to her ear as she reached for the ibuprofin in her kitchen cupboard.
    “Hi, Mom.” The voice of her nineteen-year-old daughter made her pause.
    “Hey, Tash. Is everything going okay at school?”
    “School is fine. Grandma just called me.”
    Julie put four extra-strength tablets into her mouth and swallowed, without water. Her mother had promised not to tell Tasha her news until they were all together over the Christmas holidays, about three months from now. Darn the woman. She couldn’t be trusted.
    “Could this be a symptom of menopause?” Tasha’s normally soft voice held an edge of anxiety.
    Julie closed her eyes and slumped into one of the maple chairs that matched the small kitchen table. “As far as I know, homosexuality isn’t a recognized symptom of menopause. Besides, I think Grandma went through menopause a good decade ago.”
    “Then what’s wrong with her? It’s ludicrous for a sixty-eight-year-old woman to suddenly decide she’s a lesbian.”
    “She’s sixty-five,” Julie offered weakly.
    “I know she hasn’t been in the closet all these years. You used to cover my ears when we’d be watching those old Paul Newman movies together because of the comments she’d make.”
    True. Her mother was quite the Paul Newman fan. And not because of his acting skill.
    “Is she supposed to even be thinking about sex? I thought the whole libido thing wound down as you got older and that people had to use drugs or lubricants to even do it.”
      “Well, no. That’s not exactly….” Julie stopped,