Woolly strobed her porch light when she spotted the familiar grungy van rolling up her driveway. Not the brightest idea on her part, seeing as how Tony was human, and he spent enough time with us to assume we had the funds to repair any quirks in the old girl’s wiring since Linus dropped fifties the way Victorian ladies had dropped handkerchiefs.

Lucky for us, Tony came from oblivious stock. Put an energy drink in one hand and a slice of hot pie in the other, and he was set. He hadn’t even blinked when he found us soaking wet with me wearing Linus’s shirt and not much else.

“You two an item or what?”

The belligerent question when I had just been dismissing Tony’s mental acuity snapped me from my thoughts and put me on alert. “What?”

“You’re always together.” He met my eyes in the rearview mirror, his more bloodshot than usual. “Like always. I pick you two up. I drop you two off. Are you a thing?”

“Yes,” Linus answered, his voice as crisp as the unfolded bill in his hand. “We’re a thing.”

Alarm zinged through my nerve endings, and I stiffened on the seat beside him, but he was donning the mask of Scion Lawson and didn’t acknowledge my shock.

“We are…” I wet my lips, “…something.”

“Whatever.” The hiss of a fresh can opening made Tony sigh. “You’re both grown-ass adults.”

Apprehension had me searching out Linus, whose eyes had gone dark as he traded one persona for another.

The Potentate of Atlanta held my stare, almost daring me to tremble before him, but I had found the seams where his masks met his true face, and we both knew he would let me pry away this façade if I chose.

There was power in that, and I would be lying if I denied the rush was heady, but the kick in my pulse branded me a traitor to my own heart.

I loved Boaz, had idolized him most of my life, and those feelings didn’t come with an off switch.

The van rocked to a stop, and we exited after money exchanged hands.

Linus ghosted his palm over my lower back to guide me, blasting pleasant chills down my spine, but I turned as Tony leaned out his window.

“I’m always down to earn a few extra bucks.” He grinned at me from behind his liquid caffeine. “Got any plans for later? I can stay local if—”

“We’re home for the evening.” Linus kept his expression polite, but his eyes burned with cold fire. “Thank you for your assistance.”

Sobering under that stare, Tony rolled a shrug through his narrow shoulders then peeled out with a screech of tires.

We watched until his taillights extinguished, and then I huffed out a sigh. “He was fishing.”

“Yes,” Linus agreed, a bite in the word.

“Someone got to him.”

“It was time we cut him loose,” Linus said quietly. “Atlanta complicated things.”

When a man like Linus Andreas Lawson III climbed into a grubby van piloted by a human who hadn’t bathed in a week, it put questions into the mouths of dangerous people. And that was before Dame Grier Woolworth joined him.

This small betrayal was his fault and mine for exposing a human to our world and its myriad temptations, but it depressed me all the same.

There was no point in wondering who had bought him. I had too many enemies to count on one hand.

Flickering light caught the corner of my eye, a reminder Woolly had urgent news, and I opened myself up to the wards. Their song welled in me, the bright notes overflowing into my dark thoughts as her love surged within me. “What’s up, girl?”

A flurry of images smashed into me: a black rubber cord, a dented brass button, a blue-lipped smile.

“I forgot Oscar,” I gasped, my heart plummeting into my toes. “I left him on the Cora Ann.” I dropped my face into my palms. “Thank the goddess there’s no protective services branch for undead children.”

Icy fingers pried my hands from my eyes and held them. “I’ll fetch Oscar.”

The offer stung, my fault, not his. “He’s my responsibility.”

“You can’t go back,” he said, and I wanted to hate him for echoing my own thoughts. “You’ll have to cut ties with the Haints after this. Living with one foot in both worlds is drawing too much attention to you.”

The porch light dimmed as his meaning sank in for the old house.

A whisper of presence tickled my skull as she let herself into my head. Thanks to her upgraded wards, she had an all-access pass to my brain, and she used it to review the night through the lens of my memories.

A frantic burst of energy shattered a bulb on the porch.

Fiddlesticks.

“It’s okay,” I soothed. “I’m fine. Oscar will be too. He’s probably having the time of his life.”

Another pop conveyed her disbelief with explosive results.

“You can’t keep hurting yourself.” I walked up the front steps and wrapped my arms around the nearest column. “Everything is going to be all right. I promise.” A watery laugh escaped me. “After tonight, I’m out of a job, so you can expect me to be around more often.”

The light overhead brightened with excitement that almost banished the misery churning in my gut.

Cheek braced against the flaking paint, I cut my eyes toward Linus. “When will you retrieve Oscar?”

“In a few hours,” he decided after weighing the position of the moon. “I’ll give the Haints time to close out their tour and clean up before I go.”

“Thanks.” I screwed my eyes closed. “I still can’t believe I left him.”

The kid must be terrified after I stranded him where he died all those decades ago. I just hoped no one got hurt when he pitched a temper tantrum. Oscar was a good kid, but he was an eternal six-year-old, and that age wasn’t known for its rational thinking.

“He will forgive you.” Caution dictated his slow ascent up the stairs. Linus was blood, and Woolly loved him, but he had cut her deep. Total forgiveness might not be on the table yet, but she was willing to let him pull up a chair. That was progress. “You did the best you could to keep yourself and Hood alive.” He set his hands on my shoulders, light as birds’ wings. “Oscar will care more that you survived than you forgot.”

“Maybe so.” His praise warmed me beneath the bite of his touch. “For future reference, we should invent sigils for gills and a headlamp.” Cool laughter huffed across my face, and I caught myself smiling along with him. “You think I’m joking, but this is me volunteering for extra credit. You ought to take advantage.”

“Never of you,” he breathed, letting his hands fall to his sides where they curled into fists. “I’ll set you up with your lesson before I go.”

A groan escaped me as I pushed off the column. “A near-death experience doesn’t get me off the hook?”

The floorboards trembled under our feet, a nervous flutter, and I bit my lip. Me and my big mouth.

“I have a surprise for you.”

The distraction worked on us both. Woolly rustled her curtains, attention perked, and I cocked my head too.

“Hmm.” I fingered the rubber necklace he had given me. It cost him maybe a dollar, and he strung it with a dented brass button that acted as an anchor for Oscar. “Please tell me it came from a ninety-nine-cent bin somewhere.”

Dollar gifts I could accept. More than that, and I felt their weight. Cheap came with fewer strings attached. Thrifty was my comfort zone, and I appreciated it when he pinched his pennies where I was concerned.

“A surprise,” he clarified. “Not a gift.”

Linus trailed me into the house, his presence a shiver down my spine.

Sweet relief flowed through me. “What is it?”

A twinkle set off the rich navy in his blue eyes. “The very definition—”

“I’ll pester you until you cave.” I jabbed him in the ribs. “I have mad skills. I’ll follow you everywhere you go, and you won’t get a moment’s peace until you spill. Really, I’m trying to help you.”

The smile twitching his lips told me he underestimated my ability to annoy him, but I had tweaked Boaz enough over the years to have the routine down pat.

A pang arrowed through me, hitting its mark. Even thinking Boaz’s name hurt like the dickens.

“I’ve accepted a petition for resuscitation.” Linus crossed into the office and thumped the textbook on the desk Amelie had claimed as her own before her eviction to the carriage house. “You will assist.”

I flinched away from the word. “Will you bring Julius?”

Familiars boosted a necromancer’s power, so it made sense he might want his great horned owl with him to act as a battery. That meant he would have to check Julius out of the Lawson aviary since I refused to let him stay in Woolly for Keet’s sake. And mine. He was dang creepy.

“No.” To soften the use of a designation that still smarted, he gentled his voice. “I won’t need him for this.”

I bit my lip to stop from saying Good. Owls might be the symbol of Hecate, but he was a pain in my butt.

“You need practical experience,” he continued. “This will help you frame how the process works and put your studies into perspective.”

“How it should work.” That’s what he meant. “For a normal necromancer.”

“Your gift amazes me.” His knuckles grazed my cheek, leaving tingling cold in their wake. “None of us are normal, not by human standards.” His eyes softened, the blue warming. “You’re exactly as Hecate intended. Goddess-touched, remember?”

“More like goddess-washed-her-hands-of-me.” I searched his face. “Where was she when Maud died? When I was in Atramentous? When Volkov took me?”

“Grier.” My name tore from his lips. No. Deeper. He made it sound as if it were wrenched from his soul. “I have lost my faith too many times to help anyone find theirs.”

A shocked laugh burst out of me. “Here I thought you had all the answers.”

“I might be a professor, but theology has never been my area of expertise.”

“How can you invoke the goddess when it sounds like you don’t believe in her either?”

“I’ve beheld miracles.” His gaze roved my face. “There must be an explanation for them.”

“I’m no miracle,” I whispered. “I’m…” an abomination in the eyes of the Society, if my former stalkerpire was to be believed, “…a blade to be forged.”

And the Grande Dame had placed me into his hands. That was an incontrovertible truth, and I hated it.

Another mask lowered across his features, that of Professor Lawson. Linus, my friend, was gone.

“Do your homework.” Head angled down, he pivoted on his heel. “I’ll be home before dawn.”

I positioned myself by the window and watched as he exited the house, crossed the lawn and embraced the night as if he had never been a flesh and blood man. He vanished, whisked away by the darkness, and I wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

Amelie peered out the window of the carriage house. Her hand raised in a timid wave I didn’t return.

Heart bleeding out behind me, I crossed the room, sank into the chair, and cracked open the book.

Joyous baying startled me out of the chapter I was reading on the purifying qualities of sage. The debate on the superior properties of white sage versus garden sage as it applied to resuscitations was about as dry as the herb in question, so I rewarded my studiousness with a quick trip onto the front porch to check on the Kinase pack.

Half bullmastiff and half Komodo dragon, three rust-colored gwyllgi romped across the manicured lawn. Powerful jaws snapped at wagging tails. Tongues lolled across razor teeth. Low growls tapered into canine laughter.

Not gonna lie. The tender organ in my chest swelled three times its normal size watching them play like Hood hadn’t just survived a brush with death. Then again, maybe that was the cause for their celebration.

Feeling guilty for my part in his close call, I pivoted on my heel, leaving them to enjoy themselves.

A sharp bark had me looking back as the largest of the three wagged his tail at me.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I called. “I didn’t mean to intrude. You guys can go back to your—” frolicking might not be the best word to use when dealing with predators, “—fun.”

A startled gasp rang out that caused my gut to tighten, and I whipped my head toward the carriage house. Amelie stood in the doorway, her eyes swallowing her face as the origin of the commotion registered.

She looked good. That was my first thought. Amelie had let herself go while living at Woolworth House. The heartbreak from her disownment spiraled her to a darker place than the one she had gone to all on her own by welcoming the dybbuk calling himself Ambrose into her life, into her body, into her very soul.

Oh crap was my second thought as Lethe flattened her ears against her skull and stalked toward Amelie.

Linus warned her about the new security measures, but this must be the first time she had come face to face with them.

“Lethe, no.” I took a step toward the gwyllgi before Woolly trapped me on the spot. “Don’t hurt her.”

She continued her hunt, her eyes flashing ruby malevolence, a rumble moving through her.

Amelie stood her ground for two seconds longer than I would have before slamming the door in Lethe’s face.

Lethe cranked her head toward me, registered my panic, and chuffed out a laugh that fit wrong in her throat while trotting back to join the others who welcomed her with yelping cackles that made them sound more like hyenas than dog-lizard things.

“Not funny,” I growled, wrenching free of Woolly’s hold. “Leave her alone.”

Until her indenture was paid, Amelie remained my responsibility. I wasn’t going to present her to the Lyceum missing a few chunks. And okay, fine, I didn’t want to see her in pain even if she had no trouble inflicting it on me.

A buzz in my pocket had me palming my phone. I meandered back into the office and switched it on speaker. “Hello?”

“Hey.” An awkward pause filled the line when there had never been one between us. “How are you?”

“Neely.” I sank into my chair and clutched the phone like he might feel the embrace. “Cruz wouldn’t let me in your room at the hospital, and he wouldn’t let me visit when you got released.” All the words I had bottled up for the last month poured over my lips. “I’m sorry I got you tangled up in this mess. I’m glad you’re okay. I was so worried.”

“Sweetie, what happened to me wasn’t your fault. You have to let go of that guilt.” Forgiveness gentled his voice, but he hadn’t called once since his release. That I blamed on his husband. Grier approval ratings were at an all-time low on that front, so Neely must have a powerful reason for acting against Cruz’s wishes. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

“I…” I’m fine. That was the safe line, the one I ought to use, but I owed him more than that. “Why are you asking?”

“One of the girls called me tonight,” he admitted. “She said you stepped out on the balcony with some beefcake and missed your cue. Marit found your ripped skirt, and there was blood smeared on the first deck railing. It looks…bad.”

A lump formed in my throat when it hit me he hadn’t sounded panicked when he answered, only expectant. As if I got into these scrapes all the time. Truthfully, lately, I did.

“It’s hard to explain,” I started.

“I figured.” He laughed softly. “I just had to know.” He hesitated. “I’m not sure what the story will be this time. I don’t know how you plan on making this go away.” A second pause lapsed, a record for us. “I don’t care, Grier. I’m your friend, and you need friends right now.”

Tears welled, turning my vision glassy, and they spilled over my cheeks. “Thanks.”

“Don’t cut me out,” he warned. “I will hunt you down if that’s what it takes.”

“You know where I live.” Regret washed through me for dragging him into my world, for wanting to extend him an invitation to stay, for hoping our friendship might survive. “I wouldn’t be that hard to find.”

“Remember that.” A masculine voice rang out in the background, and he breathed, “Cruz is home.”

This time I spared us the awkwardness. “I’ll let you go.”

“No,” he snapped, “you damn well won’t.”

He ended the call before I could find a comforting lie to tell him.

“Neely might be a problem,” I informed the old house. “He wants to stay friends.” And I wanted that too, so much. “He called from an Atlanta area code. He must be staying with Cruz in the city.”

Woolly’s floorboards groaned in sympathy.

“We’ll figure it out.” Bored with lessons, I drifted through the empty house, hating the silence. Growing used to laughter and chatter and the presence of others required less time than adjusting to the lack. Linus was a more subdued guest than Amelie had been. He walked on eggshells around Woolly, but I was the one cracking. At the door leading down into the basement, I palmed the knob. “What happened here?”

The antique knob was blown glass, crackled and discolored with age, but not chipped as it was now.

A curtain flipped in dismissal on my periphery, but I wasn’t letting this go. “Who did this?”

Shame crashed into me when my first thought zinged toward Linus, who had proven himself the most dependable of all my friends. But I still recalled the oily blackness left from the night Cletus broke into Woolly and stole Keet, how it clung to this doorframe, to its knob.

Amelie ought to have won first prize, but fresh wards kept her trapped in the carriage house and narrowed my suspect pool to two possibilities.

The same trio of images flashed in my mind: a black rubber cord, a dented brass button, a blue-lipped smile.

“Oscar did this?” The coil of tension in my gut unwound at her reluctant admission. “How?”

The jumble of pictures she dumped in my head made no sense unless…

“He tried to open the door?” I smoothed my thumb over the sharp edge. “From the outside?”

The overhead light brightened with her confession.

“Why would he do that?” I tested the knob, but the lock held, and she wasn’t forthcoming. “The basement is not a playground, Woolly. Keep him out of there, okay? He could get hurt.”

The floor registers ticked with annoyance, but if she acted like a child, then she got scolded like one too.

“I’m going to shower.” I shoved off the wood and angled toward the stairs. “I smell like the river.”

Her presence followed me up to my room. I was stripping off my ruined clothes when the water cut on.

“Thank you,” I called to her then stooped to pick Linus’s shirt off the pile. I rubbed the fabric between my fingers, the impulse to lift the material to my nose surprising me. Any trace of him would be gone. All I would smell was dampness, sweat and blood. “I should get this dry cleaned for him.” A laugh sneaked up on me. “I wonder if he ever wears the same shirt twice.”

Men like Linus owned closets that made grown women weep with envy.

The old house sighed like she had never given menswear much thought, and why would she care about the opposite sex when Woolworth House had remained a bastion of estrogen until I invited Linus to move in.

After dumping my clothes in the hamper, I hung his on the back of the chair at my small desk then padded into the bathroom. The shower felt divine, and I stood under the spray until my neck ached from hanging my head forward.

A frigid gust of air swirled around me about the time a small hand the exact temperature of ice cubes touched my shoulder.

I yelped and slammed my back against the cold tiles, which shocked another scream out of me.

Oscar materialized in front of me, his expression pinched with hurt, his bottom lip on the verge of trembling. “You left me.” Fat tears brimmed in his black eyes. “You left me.”

Slapping a hand over my heart, I did my best to keep it from catapulting up my throat. “I’m sorry.” I folded my arms over my chest then crossed my legs. “Can we talk about this after I have clothes on?”

A faint glow limned his blue cheeks, and he grumbled, “Fine.”

“I heard you scream,” Linus called from the bedroom. “Oscar?”

“Oscar,” I agreed, a flush heating my skin. “Be out in a minute.”

“We’ll meet you downstairs.”

I rushed through the rest of the shower and climbed into pajamas appropriate for mixed company. Towel in hand, I took the stairs. The guys weren’t on the couch, so I checked the hall. I found them standing in front of the door leading down into the basement.

“What’s going on?” I kept drying until I made a bird nest of my hair. “Why aren’t we in the living room?”

“Oscar has a confession to make,” Linus prompted, but the ghost boy maintained his mulish silence. “He was concerned you left him aboard the Cora Ann on purpose.”

The towel slipped from my fingers. “You didn’t really believe that, did you?”

“You told me not to play in the basement.” He stuck out his chin. “I did it anyway.”

“Get over here.” I opened my arms, and he hurled himself against me. “I would never do that to you. You’re family, kid. That means you’re stuck with Woolly and Keet and me.”

His narrowed eyes cut to Linus. “Mr. Linus too?”

“Yep.” I rolled in my lips to keep from laughing. The kid really didn’t like teachers. “Mr. Linus too.”

“Okay,” he mumbled against my shirt. “Will you tuck me in?”

The kid didn’t sleep as far as I could tell, but I let him pick out a room anyway, and he was developing his own bedtime routine. “Try and stop me.” I tweaked his nose. “First you’ve got to make me a promise you won’t go in the basement again.”

Oscar might be six, but that didn’t stop him from thinking he was the man of the house. “I promise.”

“We’re off to bed.” I tousled Oscar’s hair then smiled at Linus. “See you tomorrow?”

“Sleep well.” Linus slid his gaze from mine to the door. “We’ll discuss your new schedule then.”

I sawed my teeth over my much-abused bottom lip. “Aren’t you turning in?”

“Not yet.” He held his ground, and I did too. “There’s something I must do before dawn.”

An exhausted ghost child tugged my arm nearly from its socket, dragging me away, inch by inch.

As much as I wanted to believe I didn’t question Linus’s motives, that I had enough faith left in me to place in one person, in him, I was trying a new thing in not lying to myself, and I had been burned by people I loved better for far longer.

Smile brittle, I left him to his errand and put the rest in the goddess’s hands.