“Fine.” I took his hand, and his long fingers wrapped around mine, his skin cool as the grave. “But if you ever violate the sanctity of my home again—”
“You are in no position to issue threats,” the Grande Dame murmured silkily. “Goddess-touched or not, if you harm my son, I will break you into tiny pieces and shove those through the grate in your old cell for the mice to feast upon. Do you understand?”
Muscles fluttered in Linus’s jaw, the black in his eyes coalescing. “Mother.”
“Very well.” An indulgent smile spread her lips. “Handle matters how you see fit.”
“Thank you,” he said to her, but his eyes never left my face. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” For some reason, that made his lips twitch in what passed for a smile.
Boaz placed his hand on my lower back. “Are you ready to leave?”
I studied Linus for another moment before I nodded. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Twenty
Linus took one look at Wilhelmina as Boaz and I climbed on then slid into the idling sedan with Mr. Hacohen. The driver pulled out behind us and followed us to Woolworth House. No sooner had Boaz turned up the driveway than his phone started going bonkers. He was hitting redial before we parked.
While he talked, I watched the driver carry Linus’s bags onto the porch while the man himself stood on the lawn and gazed up at Woolly with fondness that made me feel a skosh better about having him as a house guest.
“That was Heath.” Boaz followed my line of sight and grimaced. “We’ve got a case in Raleigh that needs our attention.”
“You’re leaving already?” I transferred my frown onto him. “I was hoping to get another day at least.”
“Sorry, Squirt.” He tugged the ends of my hair. “Duty calls and all that.”
“Don’t have too much fun with your new partner.”
“I won’t.” He radiated smugness at my snappish tone. “She’s married.”
“Oh.” That absolutely was not relief coursing through me. “Guess you’ll have to get your jollies elsewhere.”
“Guess so.” He gazed down at me, paying particular attention to my jeans, like he had an idea about where said jollies might be found. “Are you sure you feel safe being alone with Linus after all he’s done?”
I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. “I’m too valuable to the Grande Dame for him to lay a finger on me.”
“It’s more than that.” He tugged on the end of my braid. “He knows a workaround for your wards—”
Linus must have walked over while Boaz and I were saying our goodbyes. As usual, his presence had rendered everyone else invisible. I really had to work on my situational awareness skills.
“I’ll show you what I did to Woolly and how tomorrow, Grier. We can work on ways to shore up her wards so that it can’t happen again.” Ignoring a black look from Boaz, Linus gestured toward her wards. “We also need to discuss your vandalism problem.”
Vandalism was a pretty word for the ugly act of disfiguring my home. “Woolly is my top priority.”
“I can help you make the necessary repairs,” he offered. “She will require new wards.”
“Not if you’re the architect.” To create a new design, you must also understand how to deconstruct it, and I wasn’t about to hand him an all-access pass to Woolly’s defenses.
“Consider it your first assignment.” He rubbed the stubble across his jaw. “We’ll start with one of my designs, and you can unravel it until you learn the underpinnings. For a final exam, you can construct your own wards, and I’ll launch an offensive to test them.”
Homework the fifteen-year-old in me whined. Good thing the twenty-one-year old was tougher.
A cellphone trilled in the conversational lull, and Boaz cursed, ignoring it in favor of addressing me.
“Don’t forget my number,” he warned. “I’ll be back in two weeks. Pencil me in your schedule.”
“Will do.” An easy promise considering I had no schedule.
Gently, oh so gently, he gathered me against him, palmed my cheek and brushed his lips over mine in a gentle kiss that flushed my skin. “I mean it. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.” I cleared my throat. “And stop kissing me.”
He wet his lips like he wanted another taste. “What’s a goodbye smooch between old friends?”
“Behave.” I waggled my finger at him. “Be safe.”
“I will definitely be one of those things,” he agreed, backing away. “Later, Squirt.”
Boaz paid Linus no mind at all as he hopped on Willie and sped away while Linus acted bored with him.
“Let’s see about getting you settled.” Linus and I climbed the front porch together, and I sang out, “I’m home.”
The porch light blazed in welcome, and the front door opened under my hand as I glanced back at him. “Your old room probably needs a good airing. I haven’t cleaned any of the spaces I’m not using daily. I have clean sheets if—”
I jumped a foot in the air when the front door slammed on my heels. On the other side, Linus swore with impressive eloquence. “Woolly, what are you doing?”
The floor registered rattled and hissed, spitting condensation on my ankles.
“Guess you figured out it was Linus who sent the wraith, huh?” I winced as a door slammed somewhere upstairs. “He’s very sorry for what he did to you, and he promised to show me how to fix it so no one can hurt you again.”
Woolly stayed silent, her decision made.
“I understand.” I wouldn’t press her on this. “He has to earn you trust. Mine too.”
The chandelier in the foyer sparked to life. Good. At least she was listening.
“How about this? I’ll settle him in the carriage house for now. You can make up your mind about him later, and I’ll honor whatever you decide.”
The locks on the door twisted click, click, click, and she opened it a crack.
Linus stood there with a hand covering his face and blood dripping through his fingers.
“Woolly,” I squeaked. “You broke his nose.”
That was not the way to impress his mother into letting us continue our two-woman show.
“She has every right to be angry.” His palm muffled his voice. “I’m sorry, Woolly. I was given no choice.”
Meaning he was wrapped around his mother’s little finger. At least he knew it. At least he owned it.
“Do you remember the way to the carriage house?” It was a stupid question. Of course he did. He knew the property almost as well as I did. “Head that way, and I’ll grab some ice and meet you there.”
Operating in panic mode, I bumped the door shut with my hip, dashed into the kitchen, and filled a sandwich bag with ice. I veered into the downstairs bathroom and grabbed a washcloth for insulation on my way out the back door into the garden. The carriage house was closer this way, and I almost beat Linus there since he had to juggle the gate and his luggage one-handed.
“The living room is a mess.” I held the door for him. “Watch your step.”
I trailed after him, passed him the washcloth, and watched as he took in the stacked trunks.
“Are all these…?” He let the sentence trail, muted by the fabric. “It’s dangerous to leave anything that belonged to Maud where a thief might luck onto it.”
“Boaz packed up all her things after I was sent away. He kept the trunks in his parent’s garage for a few years, until the estate was settled and he was sure I got to keep Woolly. He stashed everything out here so I wouldn’t have that job waiting for me.”
“He expected you to come home?” Linus dropped his bags near the door. “He must have a lot of faith in the system.”
I angled my chin in his direction, unable to decide if he was being sarcastic. “He never gave up on me,” seemed like the safest answer. “In some ways, it was as much for him as it was for me.”
Linus appeared to consider that and nodded the
n picked up his smallest bag. “Is the bathroom this way?”
We had never played in this house as children. It reminded me too much of a mausoleum, as though Mom was walled up out here like in the ghost story I’d told Volkov.
Shaking off those grim thoughts, I guided him into the small half bath near the spacious laundry room. “Anything I can do to help?”
“It depends.” He leaned over the sink to assess the damage in the mirror. “Have you ever reset a broken nose?”
“No.” I had a strong stomach, though. Necromancers were born with cast-iron guts. “Can you walk me through it?”
“How steady is your hand?” He retrieved a fountain pen from his jacket and passed it over to me. “A pen feels different than a brush, but magic guides it all the same.”
“I’ve never seen anyone use a pen for sigils.” The scent of herbs and the tang of magic wafted to me when I pulled off the cap. I drew a smiley face on my fingertip, and potent magic sparked in the ink, causing my skin to itch. “I was trained with a brush.”
“It’s an experiment.” He shrugged it off like a groundbreaking innovation was no big deal. “I use brushes for resuscitations and complex magics, but I’m convinced a fountain pen and an empty cartridge work just as well.”
“That’s surprising.” I glanced over at him. “I would have pegged you for a traditionalist.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Grier.”
Maybe so, but I knew the most important thing. He had been planted in my life by his mother, and I would soon reap what she had sown.
Twirling the pen through my fingers, I glanced up at him. “What do I do?”
“Listen and follow my directions.” He sat on the closed toilet seat. “I’m going to walk you through a quartet of sigils that ought to fix the problem.”
“Ought to?” I hesitated. “Is this more of your experimental magic?”
“I test theories out on myself all the time.” He tilted his head back, holding the cloth under his nose in anticipation of a fresh bleed. “Can you handle this? I’ve learned to draw the sigils backwards when I have to use a mirror. I can—”
“Just walk me through it.” A thought occurred to me. “My magic is on the puny side. Will it be enough?”
“For this? Yes.” Determination honed his features. “We’ll address your magic tomorrow in class.”
A spark ignited in my chest. The Grande Dame hadn’t mentioned my magic in any of her speeches. I’d assumed since she wanted my blood that my education would be practical, in the same way Maud taught me theory for concepts I would never, as an assistant, use. But if she wanted me able to perform resuscitations eventually, then maybe this education would be more hands-on. And if I got my full powers back online…
“Grier?”
I snapped to attention. “I’m ready.”
Slowly, he walked me through the four interlocking designs required to create the peculiar healing motif. I cupped his chin in one hand and rested the other against his cheek while I worked. This close to his freckles, I had to admire my childhood self’s restraint. How he had survived to adulthood without me connecting all his dots was a minor miracle. One cluster in particular, just under his left eye, reminded me of the petals on a daisy, not that I would ever tell him so.
“Did you get contacts?” I finally had to ask. “Your eyes are so much darker than I remember.”
The change from a murky, lake-water blue to rich indigo distinguished him from his mother.
Needless to say, it was an improvement as far as I was concerned.
His brow furrowed. “I’m surprised you remember my eye color at all.”
A pulse of embarrassment thrummed through me. We hadn’t been close as kids, but it’s not like I’d never noticed him. He’d sat across the table from me at dinner, nose stuck in a book, ignoring Maud and me while we chattered, a million times.
His weight seesawed on the seat before a calm descended over him, and he resumed his perfect posture. “It’s an unexpected side effect of bonding to a wraith.”
Thinking on the shadows that whirled in his eyes when his temper rose, I had to admit it made sense. What other changes, too small or seemingly benign to notice, had the wraith inflicted on him? There must be other costs to wielding such power. I was shocked his mother allowed him to initiate the bond.
Linus studied the blades of grass stuck to the tops of my feet with dew. “Does it bother you?”
“Your eyes?” I glanced between them, weighing memory against reality. “No. I was just curious. My memory isn’t…” Trustworthy? Reliable? Accurate? I had no memory of resuscitating a man. What else had I forgotten? “Most of my life from before is intact. Or it seems to be as best I can tell. All the rest is a blur. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when a memory is true.”
“You’ve only been out for a few months,” he said gently. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Recovery takes time.”
The kindness did it, snapped some tether reining in the temper his mother had unleashed down in the Lyceum, and I had to fight the sudden urge to stab him in the eye with his own pen, because that would get me a passing grade for sure.
The Grande Dame had twiddled her thumbs while I was sentenced, and she would have kept on twiddling until she received my death announcement and laid claim to the rest of my inheritance if I hadn’t proven more valuable to her alive.
This act of Linus’s was good, too good. There was no way someone like the Grande Dame had produced a thoughtful, kind heir instead of a raging psychopath. There had to be more he was hiding from me, just like Volkov. And just like Volkov, I was sure the truth about him would sucker-punch me eventually.
Paranoid. Yes. I was. I liked to think I’d earned it the hard way.
One final sweep of the borrowed pen, and the effect was instantaneous. His swollen nose emitted a crunching sound, and his eyes watered as the bridge realigned while I watched.
“I think we’re done here.” I capped his pen, stuffed the bag of ice in his hands, and walked out. “Night.”
“I meant the wraith,” came his answer.
The wraith? Oh. That’s what he had been asking if I minded, not his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I stopped outside the bathroom. “You’re here now, it’s here now. It’s not like I can separate you two, and it’s not like I invited either one of you.”
I walked out before I said something I would regret. The fact remained that I needed his help, now more than ever if he was serious about returning my magic to me. Huffing out a breath, I made a promise to myself that tomorrow I would behave. I would be polite, gracious, and absorb every crumb of information he was willing to feed me until I was bloated with knowledge, until I could stand on my own and protect what was mine.
Too wound up to go back in the house, I trotted around to the front porch and plopped down in the swing. I toed off the planks, dropped my head back to stare at the ceiling fan whirring overhead, and let the chill in the night air cool my temper.
I was free. I was home. And the Grande Dame had just given me another weapon to add to my arsenal.
Linus was here to educate me, and what I wanted to learn most was what had really happened to Maud the night I was framed for her murder. Still aching from her loss and stunned by my change in circumstances, I hadn’t dwelled on the specifics of my good fortune. But that was before I learned Maud had been keeping secrets from me, secrets that might one day cost me the freedom I had just won.
It was time I learned the truth. About her death, Mom’s life, my father’s identity. All of it.
Let the Grande Dame have her schemes. I was hatching a few of my own.
May the best necromancer win.
What’s Next?
The first novel in my new urban fantasy series, The Foundling, will be released by Piatkus on October 17, 2017. You can read more about Bayou Born here.
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About the Author
Hailey Edwards writes about questionable applications of otherwise perfectly good magic, the transformative power of love, the family you choose for yourself, and blowing stuff up. Not necessarily all at once. That could get messy. She lives in Alabama with her husband, their daughter, and a herd of dachshunds.
www.HaileyEdwards.net
Also by Hailey Edwards
The Foundling
Bayou Born #1
Bone Driven #2
Death Kneel #3
The Beginner’s Guide to Necromancy
How to Save an Undead Life #1
How to Break an Undead Heart #2
How to Claim an Undead Soul #3
Black Dog Series
Dog with a Bone #1
Dog Days of Summer #1.5
Heir of the Dog #2
Lie Down with Dogs #3
Old Dog, New Tricks #4
Black Dog Series Novellas
Stone-Cold Fox
Gemini Series
Dead in the Water #1
Head Above Water #2
Hell or High Water #3
Gemini Series Novellas
Fish Out of Water
Lorimar Pack Series
Promise the Moon #1
Wolf at the Door #2
Over the Moon #3
Araneae Nation
A Heart of Ice #.5
A Hint of Frost #1
How to Save an Undead Life (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 1) Page 22
