Odd. Very odd. But not odd enough for me to ask. Curiosity would only encourage him.
“Visiting Amelie,” he said, the gun in his hand wilting. “I heard screaming and came to investigate.”
With my history, I couldn’t blame him for being alarmed. That didn’t mean I wanted his concern.
“As you can see, I’m fine.” I limped in front of Hood, placing myself between the barrel of Boaz’s gun and my friend. “Just a training exercise that got too intense.”
A flutter of robes caught my eye as Cletus took point at my shoulder, and I winced at the knowledge he was broadcasting this scuffle live to Linus.
“I heard you all the way from the garage.” Boaz squinted at my hand. “Is that…a foam sword?”
“Like I said—” I tucked the blade behind my back “—training exercise.”
After clearing his throat, Boaz stepped closer. “Grier—”
“You did a good deed, and I thank you for it, but we’re done.”
“As long as I’m here…” He rubbed a palm over his head, ruffling his hair. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you. About the ball. About Adelaide.”
Pride kicked up my chin. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Boaz had made his bed when he broke up with me to propose to her, and now she had to lie in it with him. Adelaide was a better fiancée than he deserved, but maybe her goodness would rub off on him in time.
“I’m still your friend,” he said, the words a silken promise. “I worry about you.”
“The sad thing is, you believe that.”
Fury, scalding in its intensity, far more heat than my single comment warranted, ignited in his eyes, but he was no longer focused on me.
I didn’t have to look behind me to know Linus had arrived.
“You dropped this.” He extended the rolled treasure map toward me, the paper damp and mud-flecked, while tucking his other hand into his pocket. “I thought returning it might earn me a place in your crew.”
Poor Oscar. And poor Lethe too. She hadn’t meant to scare the ghost boy so badly he dropped his map.
She was getting more paranoid about her impending motherhood by the day, and this incident wouldn’t boost her confidence in that department.
Accepting Linus’s offering, I tapped it against my thigh. “There are always decks in need of swabbing.”
Linus didn’t kiss me in front of his longtime rival for my affections. He didn’t reach for my hand or touch me in a physical, claiming way. He didn’t cast me any meaningful looks, either. He gave no outward signs our relationship had progressed beyond friendship, though Boaz had overheard us at the ball and had to know better.
The fact Linus was fine not crowing his victory didn’t surprise me. He was a quiet man, and his victories were often kept just as silent. Even the word—victory—was mine, not his. He wouldn’t see it that way.
“What are you talking about?” Boaz slid his gaze past us to Hood, who kept his fin proudly in the upright position. “This is—”
“None of your business.” I cut the gwyllgi a pleading look. “Escort Boaz to the carriage house, please.”
“Sure thing.” Unashamed, Hood kept his hand propped on his head. “Swim this way.”
Boaz frowned at him, and then at me, but he left without further comment.
Sadly, he didn’t swim this way. Too bad. It would have been hilarious.
“I saw you drown.” I faced Linus. “Does this mean you’re an aquatic zombie? An undead merman? A zerman perhaps?”
Amused, he ducked his head. “I am whichever fits best into your narrative.”
Tempted to chastise him about his malleability, I swallowed the words when his cool lips found mine.
“Mmm.” I smacked a few times. “No fishy aftertaste.”
“I did brush.” He kissed me again, slower this time, and my knees melted. “I even used mouthwash.”
“That must be it.” Nails biting into the hilt of my sword, I glanced up at him from beneath my lashes. “You didn’t stick out your tongue or chant nanny nanny boo-boo at Boaz. I can’t decide if I’m impressed by your restraint or offended you let his latest infraction slide.”
“I don’t need to prove you’re mine.” Linus skated chill fingers along my jaw, and prickling flesh rose in response. “You’re not a thing I possess. I hold no ownership over you.”
But he belonged to me. I had a piece of paper that said so. I meant to destroy it, but I kept dreaming up excuses not to strike a match and watch one more possible future burn when I had already lost so many.
“And here I was thinking of getting matching tattoos.” I wrote my name across his heart with a fingertip.
A spark of interest lit his eyes, black creeping in along the edges, but he quenched the flare of possessive heat all too soon. “Maybe one day.”
Maybe.
One day.
Linus speak for If you don’t get tired of me before then.
“Step lively.” I set off at a jog, hauling him after me. “There’s still one shark in the game.”
A few minutes passed during which I was reminded I was the least fit person in our group. A fact emphasized when I stumbled over Lethe’s outstretched foot and almost ate dirt. She sat beneath a tree, legs crossed, eating a hamburger. The elastic belt sagged around her waist, and she had twisted the fin to one side to avoid crushing the foam against the trunk.
“Did you hide a snack in the woods,” I wondered, “or did you have one in your pocket when you shifted?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She crammed in the last bite then wrinkled up not one but three wrappers while I looked on with wide eyes. “I’m pregnant, okay? I get hungry.”
“That’s not as comforting as you might think,” Linus mused. “Coming from a shark.”
Lethe stuck her tongue out at him, and proud tears welled in my eyes. I was such a bad influence.
“Where’s the kid?” I scanned the area, but there was no blue glow in sight. “Did you spook him?”
“He’s a ghost.” She grunted as she stood. “What do you think?”
“He memorized the map.” I tamped down the instinctive worry stemming from Oscar and Boaz sharing the same woods at the same time. The Elite had no use for a ghost boy now that the dybbuk had been contained. But still, the concern lingered. “Let’s see if he’s discovered whether X marks the spot.”
The three of us walked together, on two legs, to the location where I had asked Lethe to dig a hole deep and wide enough to accommodate a battered trunk I salvaged from the attic. Filled with glass gems and doubloons cast in brass and zinc, it was a discount pirate’s dream come true.
Oscar wasn’t gloating over his find or scratching in the dirt. He didn’t jump out from behind a tree to scare ten years off my life, either.
Dread pooled in my stomach as I knelt on the undisturbed earth. He hadn’t been here. He couldn’t have dug up the chest alone—he didn’t have that kind of strength—but he wouldn’t have been able to resist getting a head start.
“Spread out.” I dusted off my knees as I rose with a grimace. “We’ve got to find him.”
“He’s a ghost.” Lethe straightened her fin to get it out of her way. “He can’t get hurt, right?”
The question brought memories of Ambrose rushing back to me. The dybbuk Amelie had bonded with fed on spiritual energy. He consumed ghosts, among other things, and he had tried devouring Oscar. That’s why the Elite had used the ghost boy as bait for a trap that nearly killed me.
“Even the dead can be diminished,” Linus said gently, for my benefit.
“I’ll shift.” A grimness settled in the lines around Lethe’s mouth. “My nose is better that way.”
Grateful they supported me and what must seem like helicopter parenting, considering the child was already dead, I waited for her to transform and then pick up his trail.
She backtracked across the property, stalling out between the last place I saw them and where we found Lethe enjoying her snack. The rigidness of her spine warned me I wasn’t going to like what I saw, and my chest crumpled inward when a discarded foam sword, bent in the middle, came into view.
“Oscar,” I called as I rushed over to reclaim it. “Oscar.”
There was no answer as the red magic of Lethe’s transformation splashed up her legs, signaling the end of the trail.
“I was tracking your scent on the sword.” Her nostrils flared, but her lips pinched. “Without it, I’ve got nothing. Ghosts have no smell. They’re visible to us, and we can feel them, but that’s about it. Does he vanish on you often?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted, tucking the foam weapon under my arm. “He was so excited about the treasure hunt. He begged me for weeks. It’s not like him to flake mid-game.”
“He might have expended too much energy.” Linus touched my elbow, offering comfort. “You two got into a sword fight earlier, and he carried it and the map during the hunt. He’s stronger now than he was, but his natural state is incorporeality.”
Intense focus was required on his part—tough for a six-year-old—for him to hold on to objects, no matter how lightweight. Anger helped him manifest too. Yet another reason why I didn’t want to arm him with anything sharper than molded polyurethane foam. Not after what he had done to Marit.
“Maybe you’re right.” The map crinkled in my fist when I tightened my fingers. “You don’t think Boaz…?”
“I doubt he would risk falling further from your good graces while his sister lives on your property.”
“Guess there’s nothing left to do but go home and wait.” I set out in that direction but pulled up short when Hood, sans fin, came into view. “Have you seen Oscar?”
“No.” He searched my face. “What’s happened?”