Cybermancy by Kelly McCullough

warmed over a week ago.” Cerice’s face clouded, and I held up a hand to forestall her response. “Look, I’m not trying to be funny. OK, maybe I am, but I’m making a serious point. She was dead a week ago. Dead, Cerice. Wrong side of the River Styx. Hades is not a good place to be. I only spent a few hours there, but it’s provided me with a whole new set of nightmares. I’d be deeply shocked if she were acting completely like her old self.”
    “I don’t know, maybe you’re right. I want to believe that, but if feels like there’s something more. It’s so hard. I want everything back the way it used to be.”
    “Give Shara some time to reground herself in the here and now. She’s got to deal with this in her own way,” I continued. “Don’t push.”
    Cerice nodded, but she didn’t look entirely convinced. Who could blame her? Shara was her daughter as much as her best friend, the creation of her heart and her magic, and she had been imprisoned in Hades. Look what that had done to Persephone’s mother, the Earth. The goddess had been so stricken with grief that she’d literally fallen over, turning her feet to the sun so that eternal winter came to hide the goddess’s face where it looked out of Greece. Only Zeus’s intervention with Hades had gotten her upright again, and that not completely, leaving her forever off balance. Twenty-three degrees off, the tilt that gave us the modern seasons. Less poetic than the other version, but at least as true.
    Our entrées arrived then, and we spent a little time in lighter conversation as we paid the excellent food some much deserved attention. When we’d gotten to the stage of filling in the corners, I decided it was time to have a go at relationship debugging.
    “Cerice?”
    “Yes?”
    “I love you.”
    She grinned. “So I’d gathered.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I’m happy that you do,” she said, “but I have to say, falling for someone like me is probably not the wisest thing you’ve ever done.”
    “I didn’t fall for someone like you, Cerice. I fell for you. You’re smart and gorgeous and talented. You’re a splendid coder, and I’d certainly be dead without the help you gave me in my fight with Fate.”
    “Thank you, but—”
    “Hang on, I’m not finished. You’re also deadly slick at avoiding things you don’t want to talk about, like us.”
    She let go of my hand and leaned back into the side of the booth with a long sigh. “I’m sorry, Ravirn. I know the way I am is hard on you. I care for you deeply, and I want us to stay together and see where that goes. I even want to tell you that I love you. I just . . . can’t. Not yet.”
    I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. Words formed in my mind, hurt words, bitter words. Somehow, I held them in. Though my mouth has gotten me into a world of trouble over the years, I’ve always managed to keep it leashed around Cerice. Perhaps because she and Melchior are all I’ve got left.
    “I thought it was Shara,” she said into the silence, “that I was still mourning her passing, or holding out hope for her return, or even just blaming you for her death. I know that’s not true now. I’m not sure what’s holding me back. I don’t really understand myself anymore.”
    “Fantastic.” I couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
    “Please,” she said. “Don’t be angry.”
    “Maybe I should step out for a while and drop back in once you find yourself?” It didn’t come out the way I’d meant it to, and I regretted saying it even before I finished.
    Cerice looked like she’d been slapped. “Maybe you should,” she said. “Maybe while you’re out, you can find out who Raven is.”
    I didn’t have an answer for that, so I picked up the check and headed for the register. After that, Cerice went back to the lab, and I headed for the apartment. We said good-bye, but there was no kiss, no physical contact at all.
     
“Ouch,” said