“Seventy-two hours,” I stressed to Woolly. “Three days, a long weekend.”
Woolly killed the lights throughout the house, leaving me standing in the dark.
“Amelie will be here,” I reminded her. “You won’t be alone.”
A death rattle of laughter shook the blacked-out chandelier.
“Okay, bad example.” Woolly’s grudge was airtight on that front. “How about Oscar?”
Light flickered in a single bulb. She was listening.
“I can’t bring him with me. It’s too dangerous. You’re the only one I trust to protect him.” I played my trump card. “And I asked Odette to stay. What do you say to that?”
Two more bulbs sparked to life, and a third blinked with indecision.
“She doesn’t know about Oscar moving in yet,” I tempted her mischievous side. “Think how much fun you two can have with her until she figures it out.”
Brightness exploded in the room, and my eyes ached like they had been stabbed, but she was onboard.
“Boaz might have been half the reason I was always in trouble as a kid,” I told her, “but you’re the other half.”
Warmth spooled up my leg from the floor register, and I leaned into her hug. Right in time for her to blast arctic air up the leg of my pajama shorts.
“Dang it.” I hopped out of range. “That was evil.”
Lights winked to life throughout the rest of the house as her laughter trailed her.
With two out of three parties in agreement, I sought out the third. I found Amelie in the parlor Maud had decorated as an office. She never worked in there. It was all for show. But Amelie was putting it through its paces. With her damp hair swept up in a bun on top of her head, and her matching pajama set—a marked improvement over the tank top and boy shorts combo—she looked like a young professional at work. If you overlooked the Smurfs frolicking across her thighs.
“So,” I started. “Atlanta.”
“You cleared it with TPTB?” She kept writing until she finished her thought. “The trip is a go?”
“The Powers That Be have agreed to let Odette hang out while I’m gone.”
“Woolly is still mad at me.”
“Yeah, she is.” She took things like attempted murder seriously. Given Maud had bled out on these planks while Wooly bore witness, unable to save her, I couldn’t blame the old girl for clinging to her remaining family.
“That’s fair.” She tossed her pen on the desk. “I hope you have a good time.”
“Me too.” I sank in the chair opposite her. “I’m nervous.”
“This is your first trip after…” Her lips twisted against speaking the word. “You’ll be fine. Linus will protect you.” A shrug rolled through her shoulders. “He proved that at the Lyceum.”
Amelie’s recollection of those events was hazy at best thanks to the whammy from the wards Linus and I had used to contain her aboard the Cora Ann. All she recalled for sure was what happened after, during her trial, when Linus uncovered a plot to send half a dozen vampires to attack Woolworth House.
The Grande Dame had played to her audience and made them all believe the vampires had wanted to do me harm, but we both knew the truth. They wanted to capture me and drag me back to the Master.
At least Volkov was no longer booking our honeymoon trip. Though his absence might make things worse. There was no guarantee just because he was out of the picture that the Master hadn’t lined up another goon to tie the knot with me in the misplaced hope it would bind me to his clan by vampire law.
“I’m tired of being protected,” I sighed, “but you’re right. I’ll be safe with Linus.” And Cletus.
Amelie twisted her fingers on the desktop. “Grier…”
“Hmm?”
“I support what you’re doing. You’re making yourself stronger and smarter, better able to take care of yourself.” Her hesitation told me I wasn’t going to like what came next. “But you have to keep in mind there’s a reason why you’re being protected.”
Ice glazed my spine as I stood there, frozen, waiting on her to out me as goddess-touched, and it was almost a relief to have it in the open.
“First Atramentous, then Volkov, then me.” Her chin dipped. “It’s like you’ve got a bull’s-eye painted on your back. I don’t know why that is, but maybe we should find out?”
Torn between relief and disappointment, I nodded. “I’ve been thinking along the same lines.”
“That’s why you contacted the Marchands,” she realized. “You’re already digging.”
“Yeah, I am.” How deep, I couldn’t tell her. Not yet. Maybe not ever. “I want to know what happened to Maud.” While the truth, it wasn’t the whole truth. “There might be answers there.”
After all, Maud had known what I was, and had been terrified enough to lock her library and throw away the key to keep others from reviving her knowledge.
“Have you tried asking Woolly?” Amelie glanced around the room. “Your connection is back online, right?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard. “And no. I haven’t asked her.”
I had no excuse for not posing the question now that our bond had been revamped. Except fear. More like pants-wetting terror.
Whatever she had witnessed would get shot straight into my head, and I…wasn’t sure I could handle it.
What if she flipped through the scrapbook of her memory, reliving each snapshot of Maud’s death? What if I had to watch her die in slow increments that I could do nothing to stop? I would be trapped, as helpless as Woolly had been, caged in her memory and unable to act as my whole world shattered. Again. What if…? Gah. I hated this game. I had played it on too many nights in my cell.
“It’s okay to wait.” Amelie glanced up at me. “It’s all right if you’re not ready yet.”
Nodding was the best I could manage, and it still felt like my head was so wobbly it might pop off and roll across the floor to stop at her feet.
“You’re late for class,” she informed me with an arched brow.
“How can you tell?” Her phone was tucked behind her laptop, and there was no clock in the room.
“Oh, I have my ways.” Her eyes darted toward the window. “Let’s just say I’ve got this feeling.”
I rose from my chair and drifted toward the window to find Linus standing near the back steps, waiting.
Usually, the promise of good food kept me punctual. No wonder he was worried about me.
“Time to face the firing squad,” I said wryly. “He does not appreciate tardiness.”
“Want me to write you an excuse?” She scooped up her pen. “Grier was late to class because she was planning a trip with a pretty boy nerd who—”
Face going up in flames, I turned on my heel to go. “I’ll bring him an apple and take my chances.”
Evil laughter trailed me into the kitchen. Turns out I had no apples, so I lifted a pack of strawberry oatmeal and carried that and my grimoire out with me. Our eyes clashed the second my foot hit the porch, and Linus exhaled, long and deep, like he couldn’t breathe until he laid eyes on me.
“Heads-up,” I called and tossed him the packet, which he caught with ease. “I brought you an apple.”
“Oatmeal?” He rubbed his thumbs along the crinkled edges. “This says it’s strawberry flavored.”
“Check the ingredients.” I met him in the garden and winked. “Skip the big words you don’t know.”
His eyes glittered with humor when he looked at me and then the packet. “Ah. Dehydrated apples.”
“Yep.” I moved to reclaim the packet, figuring he would just throw it in the trash. He wasn’t much for convenience foods, or food at all, really. “They chop them up, dye them pink, add flavoring, and call them strawberries.”
Linus held it out of my reach. “You gave it to me.”
“You can’t want that.” I crossed my arms over my chest in challenge. “You won’t eat it.”
“You gave it to me.” He cupped his hands around it like he was scared my next grab might be successful. “I’m keeping it.”
“You can’t be so hard up that you’re going to hold on to an oatmeal packet. It’s not even brand name.”
Pink brushed his cheekbones, highlighting his freckles and the adorable cluster that resembled a daisy beneath his left eye, and he gestured for me to follow him into the carriage house, where he placed the oatmeal packet in the china cabinet.
I meant to trail after him, but my feet got stuck in front of that china cabinet. A packet of oatmeal, not even an actual apple, and he had given it a place of honor in his home.
Thinking back on all the little things he had done for me, all the not-so-little gifts he had bought me, all the meals he had cooked for me, I cringed from the comparison. The grimoire alone was worth a small fortune while I had gotten the entire box of oatmeal for less than two dollars.
Sensing his eyes on me, I rushed to catch up and dropped into my usual chair. “About this trip to Atlanta.”
The tension in his shoulders ratcheted higher. “Have you made up your mind?”
“I want to go.” I set Eileen on the table then petted the grimoire, its multiple eyelids fluttering in ecstasy. “If you still want me? To go, I mean.”
“I want you,” he said, tendrils of black chasing across his irises, “to go.”
The temperature in the carriage house shot up about a thousand degrees, and I started to sweat.
Thanks to Boaz, my brain had twisted Linus’s innocent comment until his pause made it sound flirty.
Resisting the urge to fan my face, I smiled weakly. “Well, that’s settled then.”
“You’ll enjoy Strophalos.” He sank into the chair across from me and flipped through his syllabus, which did nothing to hide his smile. “Every necromancer should see it at least once.”