Wincing, I renounced that thought with my whole heart.
Things would have been easier, all right. For me, not for her. Recalling the vile things he’d forced her to do had given her nightmares. Meaning Woolly was treated to a nightly symphony of screams ringing out from both ends of the hall. So far, she hadn’t volunteered any information she might have gleaned from Ambrose, and neither Boaz nor I had pressed for details.
The problem with the kid-glove approach was it meant we were operating under the assumption she had no idea I was goddess-touched when she might know more about me than everyone else squished together.
“Boaz said you might be heading to Atlanta.”
Torn from my thoughts, I spotted Amelie lingering in my doorway, waiting for permission she never used to have to ask. But the last time we had been alone in this room, things had gotten heated.
“I’m considering it.” I patted the mattress beside me. “What do you think?”
“A tour of the campus might be fun,” she allowed. “Maybe, one day, you could go there. If you wanted.”
Atlanta was three and a half hours away. I could drive that in a day. Not close enough to commute, though I could come home on weekends and holidays. But that meant leaving Woolly alone for whole weeks at a time, and I couldn’t bear abandoning her again so soon. With the wards renewed, the bond between us was stronger than ever, and each pang that wracked her when I left arrowed through me.
“It’s not like that.” I scooted over to give her room. “It’s more that I want to lay an old dream to rest.”
“Do you have to bury it?” She plopped down beside me. “College was always goal number one for you.” An exhale puffed out her cheeks. “Okay, so it was number two behind becoming Mrs. Boaz Pritchard, but it was still up there.”
“So much has changed, though.” I plucked at the comforter. “The big appeal back then was what we have now—girl nights every night, no parents to boss us around, no rules except the ones we make.” I thought about Boaz, about the phone that never flashed with his number. “I’m not sure I know what I want anymore.”
“Life is funny that way.” She flopped onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Boaz partied all night, slept through most of his classes, and still managed to get an associate degree in criminal justice.” She kicked her heel against the mattress. “I never partied, studied all night—heck, my last professor asked me to donate my binder full of class notes and diagrams to her—and I still managed to ruin my life.”
“Ame…”
“This is not a pity party.” She shoved my shoulder. “This is not about me. This is about you.”
Lately it felt like everything was about me, and I hated being the center of so much attention.
“What do you want to do?” She turned on her side facing me and braced her cheek on her fist. “Can you deal with Linus for three days?” A chuckle moved through her. “Just make sure you don’t drive. He might start lecturing and put you to sleep at the wheel.”
I smiled. It was what she expected. But it bothered me how quick she was to cut him down when he had done so much to help her. Even Boaz was acting nicer to him these days. Then again, maybe that was part of the problem. What I saw as an act worthy of thanks, she might view as him kicking off a chain reaction that landed her nameless, jobless, and hopeless.
“He’s not so bad.” I palmed her forehead and shoved her down on the mattress. “You played peeping Tom through his bedroom window. What happened to that?”
“He’s easy on the eyes. I’ll give him that. He grew up hot.” Gaze distant, she linked her hands across her navel. “I don’t…” She wet her lips and tried again. “I don’t remember everything that happened. With Ambrose.” The cracked plaster ceiling held her rapt. “But in my dreams I’m him again. We’re being chased. Standard nightmare fare, really.”
Barely daring to breathe, I nodded my encouragement before the words dried on her tongue.
“The thing tracking us is like a wraith but not. Black mist come to life, and I do mean life. It’s not insubstantial. It’s real. Alive.” A tear streaked down her temple. “When it catches me, and it always does, it whirls me around, and its hand is like ice. The creature carries a scythe, and it…” Her hand lifted to her vulnerable throat. “He takes my head, Grier. Every time. And the last thing I see is always the same. Linus’s face beneath the hood.”
A quick flash of Linus standing at the sink, black mist pouring off his skin to pool on the floor where it lapped hungrily at my ankles, burst into the forefront of my mind. “Linus isn’t the grim reaper.” But he was bonded to a wraith, and he was the keeper of Society law in Atlanta. “You’re atoning, Amelie. Bit by bit, day by day. He won’t harm you.”
Unless she went off the rails, but Amelie didn’t need me to spell that out for her.
A hoarse laugh left her throat. “I had no idea my imagination was so vivid.”
Repressed memories weren’t the same as imagination, but I would be inviting her to dig around in my head if I did the same to hers. “It will get better.”
She wedged her elbows under her. “Has it gotten better for you?”
“Not yet.” I stood and finished dressing. “But I have to believe that it will.”
She shoved up the rest of the way. “When do you give Linus your answer?”
“In about fifteen minutes.” I fiddled with the hem of my shirt. “I have to talk to Odette first.”
“I’ll give you some privacy.” She pulled out the collar of her tank top and took a sniff. “I need to shower. It’s been a few days.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I wasn’t going to say anything but…”
The pillow smacked me square in the face before I could finish.
The next ten minutes were a blur of feathers, linen, and squeals.
Just for a second, it almost felt like the good old days.
The sensitive nature of my conversation meant I could no longer use speakerphone outside of Woolly. I was forced to hold my phone against my cheek, which limited me to using one hand to deadhead the wilting flowers. Amelie teased me about investing in a Bluetooth earbud, but I wasn’t a fan. I tried hers once, and it kept popping out of my ear. The cheap ones were crap, and I was too thrifty to invest in a piece of tech I didn’t want. Ugh.
“Ma coccinelle,” Odette cooed. “How is your jaw?”
There was no point in asking how she knew. While Odette couldn’t see into my future, she had become a pro at glimpsing it from reading others who knew me or whose lives intersected with mine.
“It’s not too bad.” I touched my cheek in reflex. “Little sore, but it hasn’t slowed me down.” I gave an odd laugh. “The weird thing is my tongue was actually separated from my body, and it’s fine. I can barely see the scar when I stick my tongue out at the mirror, and it doesn’t hurt at all. But my jaw? Which is still firmly attached to my face? Now that sucked.”
“When we cut away that which hurts us most, that which remains compensates for the loss.”
Unsure what to say to that, I kept swiping my tongue along my teeth, going for a thoughtful silence.
“Linus is every bit as skilled as Maud was at his age.” Amusement suffused her voice. “How is Boaz? And our Amelie?”
“She’s adjusting, bored out of her mind, but she’s making peace.” I got all gooey inside when I told her, “Boaz came for a visit when he heard I was hurt. I wish he could have stayed longer. I miss having him around.”
The sound she made in the back of her throat could have meant anything from ain’t true love grand to it’s easier to miss what’s not in front of you. Sometimes it was hard to tell with Odette.
Without question, her attachment was to Linus. She was fond of Boaz, in the way Maud had been, content with our friendship as long as it led to nothing more. But I lived in fear of her picking a side, not that there were sides to be chosen, but I wanted a surprise. I wanted to make my own choices, my own mistakes, even if that meant getting my heart broken.
“You’re excited,” she decided. “I can tell. What’s making you happy, so I can join in the celebration?”
“Linus invited me to join him in Atlanta for a short trip. He’s meeting a colleague at Strophalos to work on a project, and he thought I might enjoy a tour of the campus.”
“Ah. Already he has learned the way to your heart.” She cackled. “What do you need from me?”
“I don’t always call begging favors.” Thinking back on the reasons for my last several calls, I deflated. “Maybe I do only call when I want something, but I don’t mean to. I don’t want you to feel like I’m using you.”
“You’re family,” she chided. “You can ask me for anything, bébé, and I will give it to you if it is within my power.” Laughter threaded her voice. “You want me to spend a few days with Woolly, yes? To keep an eye on Amelie while you’re in Atlanta?”
“I thought you couldn’t read me?”
“You have an unorthodox houseguest. You have an unorthodox house. You want to go on a short trip, and you would never leave either unprotected. You don’t have to be a seer to understand that, Grier.” The ocean roared to life across the line. She must have stepped out onto the beach that was her backyard. “I will pack my things. Let me know when you need me.”
“I’ll do that.” I paused. “Odette?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome.” Seagulls cried in the distance. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Pivoting on my heel, I tapped the phone against my chin and watched Woolly for a moment.
I might have won this battle, but the war was far from over.
Eight