I savored her mothering while I had the chance. “Are you sure you don’t need anything before I go?”
“Amelie and I can entertain ourselves.” She reached for Amelie and took her hand. “Can’t we?”
A peculiar expression flickered across Amelie’s face, a close relative to panic, but she schooled her features before I could be positive. “Sure. Yeah.”
I collected my bag from Amelie, stepping on the porch as Odette led her into the house. I watched them walk arm in arm toward the kitchen, wondering what Odette had up her sleeve and wishing I could linger and be part of whatever treat she planned on concocting. I was trying to banish the annoying sensation I was forgetting something important when an impact to my spine slammed me against the rail.
“You didn’t say goodbye.” Oscar cinched his arms around my neck until I couldn’t breathe. “I was hiding, but you didn’t come find me.”
Ah, that would be the thing I was forgetting.
“Sorry.” I pried him away from my throat and sucked in oxygen. “I searched for you through Woolly earlier, but I couldn’t sense you. I thought you must not be home.”
One day I ought to ask if he made a conscious decision to go wherever ghost boys went or if he simply dissipated when his reserves petered out, but I wasn’t sure he knew, and I didn’t want to upset the kid.
“I was in the basement,” he announced proudly. “It’s the best place to hide ever.”
Safe behind Maud’s wards, wards he shouldn’t be able to cross to a basement he shouldn’t be in.
“I bet.” I glared up at the porch light, but Woolly pretended not to notice. “We’re having a chat when I get back.”
Woolly flickered the bulb in a so what gesture that had me second-guessing—or was that tenth- or eleventh-guessing?—the wiseness of this trip. I couldn’t afford for my house to start sassing me now.
“The Odette lady has a bright glow,” he told me. “Is she nice?”
“She’s the best.” I collected my suitcase, ready to try again. “Remind her you’re a secret, okay?”
Odette was known for talking to herself, or at least to things outside our perception, so Amelie wouldn’t think too much of it if she got caught chatting with Oscar, but there was no sense in taking unnecessary risks. With Boaz only a phone call away, I wanted all mentions of the little terror far from her thoughts when her brother called.
There was no reason to believe the Elite, let alone Boaz, would have a problem with me keeping the kid, but they had wanted to use him as dybbuk bait, so I wasn’t keen on that crowd learning of his continued existence.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission, or something along those lines.
“I’m tired of being a secret,” he pouted. “You said I’m family.”
“Yes, you are.” I patted his cheek. “But you’re also family that not everyone can see or understand. It won’t always be like this. Amelie will move out in a few months, and you’ll have run of the house. After that, I can bring over friends who can see you for you to play with. How does that sound?”
He sank like a lead weight had been attached to his ankle. “Like Mr. Linus?”
“Yes, Linus is one of them. He’s a good man, Oscar. I promise he won’t hurt you. He’s the reason why you got to leave the Cora Ann. He wouldn’t have—” found his remains then returned them to his family, “—relocated you if he didn’t want you to have a better life. Afterlife. Whatever. That doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“I guess not.” He sighed in the way only small children can, as if all the oxygen in their bodies has been expelled, leaving only a boneless sack of meat behind. “I’ll be nicer since you like him.”
“I do like him.” I collected my bag. “You will too once you get to know him.”
Movement drew my gaze to the front yard and the man standing there, who had probably overheard our whole conversation.
“It’s time for me to go.” I waggled a finger at him until he laughed. “Be good for Woolly. She’ll tell me if you misbehave.”
“I’ll be good.” He squeezed me so hard I decided he must have been a boa constrictor in his previous life. “Promise.”
After disentangling from Oscar, I leaned against the wall and rested my forehead on the siding. “I’ll be home soon. Call me if you get lonely or scared, and I’ll come straight back. Okay?”
The porch light flared with sudden warmth as good as a hug, and when I straightened, I noticed the curtains in all the windows shooing me toward Linus.
I took the hint and met him in the grass, cringing at his sleek Tumi carry-on in black. Mine was also Tumi, an older model, but still serviceable, despite its custom purple shell being spackled over with Lisa Frank stickers that shouted tween me’s eye-gouging taste for all to see.
“Now I know how Maud felt when she left me behind with a sitter.” I toyed with the telescoping handle. “I never thought of myself as particularly maternal but…”
“They’ll be fine,” a voice promised from the darkness.
“Taz?” I jogged toward her as she stepped from the shadows, only the twinge in my jaw reminding me why it was never smart to rush Taslima. “Hey.” I stopped six feet away. “It’s good to see you.”
“I owe you an apology.” Head bowed, she planted her feet at parade rest and pinned her arms behind her back. “I assured Boaz I could handle this assignment, but I failed you.” Unable to glimpse the fire in her eyes, I didn’t recognize her. “I have trouble separating the past from the present sometimes. It’s why I had to leave the army and go sentinel. Only my own kind understands the switch that gets flipped in my head.”
Slowly, I approached her. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” She shook her head once. “It’s not you, it’s me.”
“You hang out with Boaz too much if you’re spouting his favorite lines.”
The laugh I expected never came, and she raised her chin to look at me. Measure me, more like it.
“My baby brother was all mouth and not willing to bow to his betters.” Lingering fondness curved her lips in a bitter smile. “He sassed the wrong boy and was killed by a High Society punk when he was eleven. That boy used magic to trap him one day on his way home from school so he couldn’t run away, and then the punk beat Rajib to death. I almost returned the favor. I would have if my father hadn’t peeled me off him.”
A sour taste clogged my throat. “I had no idea.”
“It was a long time ago.” She peered up at me. “I like you, Grier. You’re different. You’re like us, not like them.” She cut her eyes to Linus. “But I can’t spar in your gardens, in front of your talking house, with the Grande Dame’s son playing referee, and pretend you’re one of us when you’re not.” A thread of anger wove through her voice. “You’re the farthest thing from it.”
“Why would Boaz do this?” Pairing us up to fail. “He had to know how hard this would be for you.”
“See?” She laughed, a crazed sound. “You don’t think the way they do. You care about others.” She tugged on her earlobe. “Boaz thought that goodness might fix me, that you might—I don’t know—heal me.”
Never in a million years had I expected her to say that. As often as I had to peel him off the ceiling when I did something he disagreed with, I had no idea he thought I was capable of more than getting in trouble.
“I’m going to take some basic self-defense classes for a while,” I found myself telling her, “but I’d like to train with you again when I’m ready. You’re amazing, and I want to learn to move the way you do.” To flow like water and kick like a freaking mule. “We can rent space in a dojo if meeting here is too hard.”
“I’ll think on it.” Her posture relaxed, and she squinted up at me. “What about Boaz?”
I packed as much defiance into my smile as it would hold. “What about him?”
Cackling, she bared her teeth in a sharp smile. “You’ll do, Grier. You’ll do.” She saluted me as she faded back into the shadows. “Call me when you’re ready. We’ll see what you’ve learned.”
Feeling smug over my minor rebellion, I strolled to Linus, who shook his head at me. “What?”
“I still don’t understand.” He jerked his chin toward Taz and started walking down the driveway.
“She doesn’t go easy on me because of who I am.” There was more, but it was hard to put into words. “She’s angry.” Until tonight, I hadn’t understood that anger was the well she was drawing her water from, but looking back, I should have guessed. “So am I.” Lost family, lost time, lost hope. “We might be good for each other.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed without pushing. “Would you like to meet your new instructor while we’re in Atlanta?”
Dread started creeping up on me in anticipation of the crimson Lincoln that ferried Linus around town, the model identical to the one Volkov had favored. “He’s not local?”
“Most of my contacts are in my city.”
Until that moment, I couldn’t have told you if Linus had ever referred to Atlanta as his, but I heard the possessive edge, the anticipation, like being parted from it was a physical ache. Proving once again I was a crap friend, I had never asked if he was magically bound to his city. Was his anticipation homesickness or a magically fueled compulsion?
He wasn’t meant to stay in Savannah forever. Only long enough to help me get my feet under me.
The sudden tick-tock of a countdown rang in my ears, and I shook my head to clear the noise.
“You’ll like Mathew.” After frowning at his watch, he scanned the road. “He offers basic self-defense classes at Strophalos twice a year, that’s how we met, but he travels all over the state.”