The wraith swelled until he filled the doorway with his tattered black cloak, his bone-white fingers curved into claws he clacked together at his sides.
“Confidential,” Heinz agreed, his voice pitched higher. “My lips are sealed.”
“Good.” Linus dismissed him with a flick of his wrist reminiscent of his mother. “You may go.”
“Imperious much?” I mocked his gesture. “You may go now, peasanth.”
Linus didn’t crack a smile as he sank into a chair angled toward the bed. He penned fresh healing sigils along my jaw where the ones he had inked on had begun to flake. Cooling magic enveloped my mouth, and my tongue tingled like I had eaten one too many jalapenos. The swelling reduced, and the pain eased to a dull throb. There were runes that would stop the ache entirely, but he knew I wouldn’t go for those.
“You must end this madness with Taz.” After dusting the reddish-brown crumbs into his palm to toss in the trash, he toyed with the ends of my hair where they fanned across his pillow. “She’s too advanced for a beginner. She’s a skilled fighter, but a poor teacher. She doesn’t grasp that she can’t beat the knowledge into your head.”
This was a conversation I sensed had been a long time in coming. For weeks, Linus had allowed us to spar. No, that’s not right. Unlike other men in my life, he didn’t view my decisions as a thing he had the right to allow or disallow. More like he had kept his mouth shut, the way a friend might, while watching another friend embrace a bad decision with arms wide open because they craved recklessness or needed an outlet.
“I like her.” From the hips up, at least. “She doesn’t pull her punches, and she trusts me to take care of myself.”
Catching himself, he withdrew his hand. “What would Boaz say if he saw you after one of your practices?”
I flinched, well aware I resembled hamburger meat most nights, and his eyes gleamed with triumph. “He would kill her.”
“I’ve been tempted,” Linus muttered.
“Linus.” I must be hearing things. “You’re supposed to be the rational one.”
“Let me offer you an alternative.” His muscles stiffened in expectation of a swift rejection. “I have a friend who teaches self-defense. Work with him a few months, learn the basics, and then you can graduate to Taz. Against all odds, I am aware of how much you like her. But she isn’t for you. Not yet.”
“I’ll think about it.” With my jaw pulsing in time with my heart, it was hard to argue the point with him. “I’ll have to talk to her, and to Boaz, first. I don’t want them to think I’m ungrateful or that I’m wimping out on them.”
“May I?” Linus picked up my cell from where someone had placed it at the foot of the bed and held it out for me to unlock. Curious, I did as he requested then waited to see what he wanted to show me. “This was the first time.”
He turned the screen toward me, and I got an eyeful of the picture I had taken to send Boaz as a sort of thank you before common sense prevailed, and I deleted the text. He would have blown a gasket if he had any idea how intense our sessions got or that Linus refereed with the caveat I allowed him to heal me afterward.
“Your lessons have escalated. You’re showing marked improvement, but you’re also sustaining worse damage.” As my private nurse, he ought to know. “You owe neither of them gratitude for this.”
“I’ll handle it.” With a grimace, I deleted the picture like I should have already done. “Promise.”
Relenting at last, Linus blacked the screen then placed the phone out of my reach. “I’ll bring your things in here, and you can get started on your homework.”
“Are you serious?” I gestured to my face. “This doesn’t earn me a free pass?”
“You’re off tonight, you won’t take the painkillers, and you won’t let me paint on a sigil to dull the hurt.” He moved in for the kill. “Woolly and Amelie and Oscar will hover over you if you go home, so you might as well stay here in the quiet and be productive.”
“Teacher logic strikes again.” As much as I hated admitting it, he was right. I didn’t want to go home yet. I couldn’t face an entire night of Amelie snapping covert pictures to text her brother along with updates when he seemed to have forgotten my number. One call, and he could get news right from the source, but my phone remained silent.
The uncharacteristic quiet on his end made me nervous. Usually bouts of introspection where relationships where concerned ended with him spouting it’s not you, it’s me or another canned response guaranteed to result in raccoon eyes for his current girlfriend.
Except, for the first time, that ‘current girlfriend’ was me.
“Fine.” Despite the headache, and yeah, okay, heartache, I caved. “But I’m not reading another word on the greatness of horned owls.”
Four
Night passed in blissful silence at the carriage house. Linus had his own work to keep him occupied, so he didn’t hover while I studied. His mastery of the art of silence was so complete, I didn’t notice him leaving to pick up soup for our dinner. The logo on the cup he pressed into my hand matched an upscale bistro in town I avoided like the plague due to its High Society vibes. They might not hand out fourteen-karat spoons, but their clothlike to-go napkins were stuffed with gold-tone utensils.
I forgave them their ridiculousness when I took my first mouthful of French onion soup heavy on the Gruyere and decided maybe I could revisit my avoidance policy.
Lounging in bed with a full stomach made me drowsy, and I blamed that for musing on how nice it must be to live in a house unable to form its own opinions on your life choices. Instantly, I regretted thinking I could get along without Woolly when I was all she had left. If that meant she clung a little tighter than necessary, then so be it. Though, truth be told, the break from Amelie was welcome, and I didn’t experience even a twinge of remorse for acknowledging that.
Maybe Maud had been onto something by only allowing us to sleep over once a week.
“Are you ready to go home?” Linus appeared in the doorway, black-framed glasses sliding down his nose and eyebrows raised. “I can walk you over, but I’ll have to call Amelie to help you upstairs.”
“Sorry about that.” I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress. “Woolly cultivates her grudges the way Maud used to nurture her plants.”
“I broke her trust.” He rushed over and tossed his glasses on the bed before helping me stand. “It will take time for her to forgive me. I understand that.” He hooked his right arm around my waist to hold me steady then draped my left one across his shoulders. “Though, at times, I’ll admit it is inconvenient.”
“She’ll forgive you eventually,” I assured him. “She loves Oscar, and she knows you’re the reason he’s here with us. That alone earned you tons of bonus points.”
Though I didn’t have the heart to tell Linus that Oscar was still shy of him, which meant grateful or not, Woolly wasn’t going to let him in anytime soon.
We shuffled our way across the yard, and she allowed him on the porch without so much as a reprimanding flicker. Amelie flung open the door and her arms at the same time, and I felt like a dirt sandwich accepting her hug when I had been avoiding her for hours.
“I’m going to murder Taz,” she growled, and I stiffened in her hold. “Geez, Grier, I don’t mean it in the literal sense.” She drew back and examined me. “Though my brother might once he gets a load of this.”
I thought back to my phone, which hadn’t rung a single time tonight. “Have you talked to him?”
“Yes.” She released me to rub her ears. “I’m shocked you didn’t hear his bellows from across the yard.”
“I haven’t heard much of anything from Boaz.” The words slipped out before I could call them back.
Ugh.
I didn’t want this to be me, the jealous-girlfriend type who craved each meager scrap of attention. But I also had no idea how the whole relationship thing worked. Did I have the right to demand more? Or was I supposed to let him dole out what he thought was enough? And was the reverse true? Not that I’d had much chance to ice him out thanks to smacking up against the brick wall of his inattention.
Amelie mashed her lips into a hard line, her gaze skittering like a spider up the far wall behind me.
That…was not reassuring.
“I’ll come for you at dusk,” Linus said from the porch. “Call if you need anything.”
“Go home. Rest.” I took his hand and squeezed it. “You’ve done enough for me for one day.”
Pink saturated his cheeks as he tightened his long fingers around mine. “It’s my pleasure.”
At least Amelie had the good manners to wait until the door shut behind Linus to mock him. “It’s my pleasure.” Her arm slid around my waist. “Who talks like that?”
“He does.” A prickle of irritation made me wish I could manage the steps up to my room alone. “What’s your problem?”
“Why didn’t he bring you straight back here?” she demanded. “Woolly and I were worried sick.”
The old house groaned, a sure sign she didn’t want to be used as leverage in our latest spat.
“He can’t enter Woolly, remember? The carriage house was closer, so he took me there.”
“Convenient,” she grumbled.
“Heinz popped in for a house call—” I kept going, talking over her mini rant, “—and he told me to take it easy. Since I was off tonight, Linus propped me up and put me to work on a lesson.” I slid her a stern look. “It was nothing nefarious.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t have to, Ame.” I patted her back. “He’s not your problem.”
Amelie tensed at my tone but kept going. “Boaz is pissed.”