Needless to say, I did not go to the hospital. Or to see a doctor. There was nothing wrong with me that a pint of ice cream wouldn’t fix, but I couldn’t very well explain to Boaz that I was bingeing because he had opened my eyes to an unsettling realization that had been creeping up on me for weeks.

I liked Linus. Maybe not epic love story like, the way I used to feel about Boaz, the way I maybe still did?

As much as I wanted to hit my favorite ice cream parlor to hide my sudden need for a double chocolate chunk fudge cone, I had obligations. Boaz had cleared his schedule to visit me, and I couldn’t duck out on him. And, yeah, maybe I was counting on the way his larger-than-life personality blocked out everything else to shore up my resolve that I didn’t like-like Linus.

I took the stairs two at a time, the birdcage swinging from my fingers, and the porch creaked in question. I was back early, and the old house knew something was up. Linus was no slouch, and he never cut classes short. She was right to be suspicious. But there was no good way to tell her I was having impure thoughts about the guy who had violated her trust instead of the one she adored. Though impure might be too strong a word. It’s not like I was picturing him naked, I was just…picturing him. And that was bad enough, all things considered.

“I’m not feeling so hot,” I told her, and it was the truth. “Linus let me go early.”

Concern warped the boards under my feet until I had to choose between stopping or face-planting.

“It’s not my jaw.” I brushed my fingers across Linus’s handiwork. “I’m just out of sorts.” The door swung open to reveal Boaz standing in the kitchen shoveling in cereal. “Have you eaten all your waffles?”

“You say all like there were dozens of them when in fact…” his lips moved in silent calculation, “…there were only sixteen fatalities.”

Suspicion confirmed, I made a mental note to buy more the next time I went shopping.

Casually munching, he gestured toward me with his spoon. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

That made two of us. Three if you counted Keet, who was thrilled to skip our lessons. The little dork was actually tweeting his heart out while hanging upside down from his perch. “Linus gave me the night off.”

“Really?” His eyebrows climbed. “Did Mumsy need her toenails painted?”

I cracked a forced smile. “You’re bad.”

“I never claimed to be otherwise.” He turned up the bowl and drank down his milk. “I’ve got a while before I have to go.” Whatever he saw on my face had him ducking down to kiss me with sugary lips. “I’ll be back soon. I get four days off in two more weeks.”

“I’ll add it to my calendar,” I grumped.

“Are you pouting?” He tapped my chin with his hooked finger. “You can’t miss me that much.” A purely masculine gleam brightened his eyes. “Do you?”

“Stop fishing.” I stuck out my patchwork tongue. “You just got here, and you’re already leaving.”

“Work sucks.” His gaze fixated on my mouth. “I would quit all this if I could.”

“Do you mean that?” Joining the sentinels hadn’t exactly been his idea.

“I enjoy the job. I like my unit. Becky is a hoot. She’s a good partner to have at your back.” His knuckles grazed my cheek. “What I don’t enjoy is the leaving.” His voice softened. “I want to be home more often.”

“So you can spy on Amelie?” Goddess only knew who he had watching her since I wasn’t a snitch.

“I need to keep an eye on her.” His rough thumb glided over my bottom lip. “I need to keep an eye on you too.” He exhaled. “It kills me not being where I’m needed.”

“Will things always be like this?” I had no idea what the career of an Elite sentinel entailed, not really.

“I can’t say for certain.” His expression shifted into thoughtful lines. “Things are intense right now.”

“The Undead Coalition?” The governing body for vampires balanced on the knife’s edge of an all-out civil war. Longtime members, wealthy and powerful clans, were withdrawing from the organization, forsaking the protection of the Society, and joining a movement spearheaded by the master vampire responsible for kidnapping me. The clans left behind were getting antsy. A war with this splinter cell meant pitting them against their brethren or suffering the wrath of the Society. Rock, meet hard place. “Are things still destabilizing?”

“Yes.” He dropped his hand. “Half of the master vampires in the Coalition are in favor of maintaining the old laws. The other half are fighting over every damn thing and bogging down the system. Of those masters, half have established ties to vampires we found at the estate where you were held or to the vampires the dybbuk killed. Odds are good they’re plants meant to gum up the works, and they’re doing a damn fine job of helping chaos reign.”

“Any fresh leads on the Master?”

“I would have updated you if there had been.” He hooked an arm around my shoulders and led me into the kitchen. “Classified intel or not, your safety is my first priority.” He put his bowl and spoon in the dishwasher then turned back to me. “Has Linus mentioned what his mother learned from the masters involved in the attack?”

“Four out of the six committed suicide by ingesting UV capsules prior to interrogation.” Perhaps scenting the trap, they came prepared with a pill stuffed between their cheek and gums. All they had to do was bite down and incinerate. “The others carried their secrets to the grave.”

Boom.

A percussive blast struck the wards surrounding Woolworth House, and the resulting tremors rattled the foundation beneath my feet.

Panic seized my lungs in a vise as I ran into the living room. “Woolly?”

“Grier,” Boaz snapped. “Get back here.”

With the wards operating at full power, I had nothing to fear as long as I was in contact with the house. Before he could catch me, I bolted out onto the front porch and kicked off my shoes. I stood barefoot on the peeling boards, flexing my toes, reading the magic.

Mentally, I reached for the wards, drawing their weft and warp into sharp focus. Ear-splitting dissonance near the front steps clued me in to where Woolly had been struck. I examined the area, turning over the weave in my head, but found nothing. Confident she remained secure, I scanned the yard, my gaze landing on the carriage house.

Linus.

Fingers trembling, I palmed my phone and jogged down the side of the wraparound porch. I thumbed the keys and pressed the phone to my ear, relaxing when it connected with a static burst of background noise that hinted at a location downtown. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the Lyceum.” A dark undercurrent sharpened his tone. “What’s wrong?”

“Woolly was attacked.” The planks under me shivered, and I amended, “She’s under attack, right now.”

A furious growl rose behind me, and I didn’t have to turn to know it was Boaz and that he was pissed.

“Get your ass back in the house.” He wasn’t looking at me, he was scanning the garden for signs of intruders. “I mean it, Squirt. There’s nothing you can do out here except make yourself a target.”

“For once, we agree,” Linus murmured. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Hating that they had ganged up on me, and that they were right, I stomped back into the foyer and stared up at the chandelier. “What can you tell me, girl? You’ve got to give me something here.”

Woolly projected images in my head, the chaotic jumble difficult to understand since houses and people didn’t process information the same way. One picture I had no trouble recognizing. The front porch stood out in stark relief. That was the unharmonious area I had already identified. There were other flashes too: a radiant starburst, a fallen tree limb, and two English peas. None of them made sense.

I patted the wall to let Woolly know I was proud she had done her best. “Where’s Amelie?”

Boaz, right behind me, no doubt to make certain I followed orders, blanched. “She didn’t do this.”

“What?” I fully disconnected from Woolly and shook my head clear. “I didn’t say she did, but we both felt the tremors. Where is she? Why didn’t she come running too?”

The rest of the blood drained from his face. “I don’t know.”

“Let’s split up.” She had to be here somewhere. Linus hadn’t bound her to the house as he promised his mother, but surely Amelie wasn’t so foolish as to have used the distraction to escape. “We’ll cover more ground that way. Start in the attic? I’ll take the second floor.”

We raced upstairs together, peeling apart on the landing. I shoved into her bedroom. Empty. I moved on to mine. Empty. Other rooms lined the hall. I ducked my head into each of them. Empty, empty, empty.

Amelie wasn’t here.

A flash of blue light snared my attention as a small boy popped into existence beside me. He wore a dark blue sailor suit with sagging ankle socks and dirtied canvas shoes. A matching cap, wrinkled within an inch of its life, sat at a jaunty angle on his mass of blond curls. “What’s wrong? I heard yellin’.”

Apparently good diction was a respect paid only to strangers or parents, and I was neither. The more comfortable Oscar got with me, the more he relaxed, and the more suffixes he axed off words.

I affixed a smile on my mouth for his sake. “We can’t find Amelie, that’s all.”

“Is she playing hide-and-seek?” The black voids of his eyes sparkled like polished coals. “Can I play?”

“Sure thing, kid.” I could use all the help I could get. “First one to find her wins.”

“Deal!”

Magic swelled in the room, easy to sense through my connection to Woolly, and he vanished.

I met up with Boaz out in the hall as he was climbing down from the attic. “Well?”

“No luck.” He folded the access ladder up then secured the hatch behind him. “She wouldn’t leave.”

Blue light blasted my corneas as a boyish face appeared at the end of my nose.

“I found her,” Oscar crowed. “I win! I win!”

Smiling to acknowledge his victory, I cut my eyes toward Boaz, but Oscar wasn’t great with hints.

In all the excitement, the little ghost had forgotten we couldn’t talk openly in front of Boaz for his safety.

“Since she’s not inside,” I reasoned with Boaz, “she must be outside.” I made a subtle gesture at hip level for Oscar to lead the charge. “The wraparound porch covers a lot of real estate. We need to search all four sides.”

Indecision warred with Boaz’s driving need to secure his sister. “I’m going with you.”

On the porch, I nudged him in one direction while Oscar and I went another.

“This way.” Oscar gripped my hand and tugged me along after him. “She must have felled asleep.”

“Fallen,” I corrected absently, and then winced at the habit I had picked up from Linus.

We raced around to the left side, which pulled the carriage house into view, but there was no Amelie. The back porch was the same. Not expecting much from the right side, I almost tripped over her crumpled form before Oscar slammed on the brakes.

Hitting my knees on the wood, I checked her pulse. Steady. That was all I knew to do.

“Good job, kid.” I ruffled his hair. “We’ll talk prizes later, okay?” I held a finger to my lips in a reminder that his living with me was a secret between Linus and me for now. Not even Amelie could know since telling her was the same as whispering in Boaz’s ear. “Can you go play with Woolly?”

“Sure.” He bobbed on the breeze. “She lets me play in the secret room when I behave.”

Gut sinking into my toes, I grasped for him. “I don’t think that’s such a good—” my fingers sliced through air, “—idea.” The urge to smack my forehead itched my palm, but at this rate I would give myself brain damage. “Woolly, tell me you’re not letting him play in the basement.”

A breeze whistled innocently through the eaves.

Fiddle-de-dee-sticks.

We three had to have a chat about boundaries before he went poltergeist and got us all in trouble fooling around unsupervised down there.

“I found her,” I called out as Boaz rounded the corner. “She’s breathing, but she’s out cold.”

On a hunch, I pulled up the leg of her pants, exposing her sock and the tattoo Linus had given her to contain the dybbuk’s energies. The reddish-black ink glittered and swirled, almost alive under her skin. I touched it, and the magic burned hot. I yelped and stuck my fingertip in my mouth.

“What is it?” Boaz crowded her other side, phone pressed to his ear, but his attention shifted to his call before I could tell him. “Heinz, hey, my sister’s unresponsive. I need you here yesterday.” He paused. “Thanks, man. I owe you.”

“Her tattoo is hot.” I turned down the top of her sock and checked for scorch marks, but the fabric appeared to be fine. For the sake of thoroughness, I also checked the cuff of her jeans, but it wasn’t blackened either. “Can you feel it?”

He pressed a single finger to the intricate design that reminded me of a Celtic knot. Showing no visible reaction, he cupped her whole ankle in his wide palm. “Her skin feels normal to me. The ink does too.”

“I don’t get it unless—” I chewed my bottom lip. “You can’t feel it because you’re…”

“I’ve been Low Society all my life.” An amused smile tugged up one side of his mouth. “You can say it. I’m not ashamed.”

“It’s not that,” I hurried to assure him. “It’s about magic.”

“Ah.” He took my hand and examined the pinkened skin on my finger. “That makes sense.” He kissed the stinging tip. “You designed the tattoo. Does that link you to its magic?”

“I redesigned the sigil, but Linus tattooed her.” I was having trouble looking away from his mouth. “If anything, it should respond to him, not me.”

Embedding ink in skin wasn’t the same as using ink with a brush or in one of his modified fountain pens on skin. But he must have proven the method safe or else the Society wouldn’t have granted his patent. The one thing I still believed in was their dedication to customer satisfaction as it applied to their profits.

A faulty product created no revenue stream and kicked the door open for lawsuits that cost money, two fates worse than death according to the High Society. Therefore, tattooing sigils must be a valid magical application with no lasting side effects that might prompt a disgruntled customer to demand restitution.

All my anger toward Amelie stalled out as I held her hand, linking our fingers, waiting on help to arrive.

The distant clang of the garden gate as it closed had me straining to hear footfalls cushioned by grass.

“Grier,” Linus expelled my name on a relieved breath when our eyes met.

“Oh, look. The cavalry has arrived,” Boaz grumbled. “Will Woolly even let him on the porch?”

I don’t think I imagined the smug twist to his lips at the knowledge she approved of him, not Linus.

“Some days more than others.” She was grateful to him, but she was also still hurting from his betrayal. Forgiving him for breaching her wards, kidnapping Keet, it would require time. “I better go make sure.” I rushed around to the back porch and found Linus standing in the grass, fists clenched, with Cletus wavering behind him. “Woolly, let him in.”

The porch light brightened in acknowledgment of my request. For once, she wasn’t fighting me.

“It’s safe now.” Under different circumstances, I would have laughed at his hesitance, but nothing about this struck me as funny. Woolly and I were under attack. Again. I stood on the bottommost step and held out my hand. He took it, wrapping his cold fingers around mine, and I hauled him through the barrier encompassing Woolworth House. “Come on. Amelie’s this way.”

“Amelie?” He matched his stride to mine. “Was this her doing?”

As much as I wanted to defend her with a vehement no, I had to admit, “I don’t know.” We rounded the corner. “We found her out here like this.”

Boaz swung his head our way, and his gaze dragged down my arm to the hand still holding Linus’s.

“Any idea what happened?” Boaz demanded, his tone sharp. Under his stare, I broke away from Linus so fast he flinched. “Grier is picking up on an anomaly within Amelie’s tattoo. Care to give your two cents?”

Having his arm almost yanked out of its socket mustn’t have fazed Linus as much as I thought. He knelt beside Amelie and examined her tattoo, jerking his hand back the instant his fingers brushed the ink.

“That was unexpected.” He didn’t meet my eyes, just angled his chin in my general direction. “You sensed the heat too?”

“It burned me.” I rolled my thumb over the sore spot. “I have a blister.”

The thoughtful way he inspected his pointer made me think he had suffered the same negative reaction. I half expected him to offer to soothe my hurt, and when he didn’t, it almost stung. “Does Woolly have any ideas about who or what attacked her?”

“No.” I patted the nearest railing. “The images she sent me don’t make much sense. She’s aware of where she was struck—on the front steps—but not how or who initiated the strike.”

“What do you think it means?” Boaz asked Linus. He wasn’t looking at me either. Great.

“There’s no residue on the lawn that I noticed or shrapnel on the stairs. The blow must have been magical in nature.” He confirmed what I had been thinking. “That might explain why a siege against Woolly resonated through the tattoo on Amelie. Grier designed them both, and Amelie was within Woolly’s protective bubble at the time.”

A chill scrabbled down my spine. “You’re saying Amelie is linked to Woolly?”

“No.” Linus tugged her sock over the design. “I’m saying she’s connected to you.”

Somehow that made it worse. I was used to being responsible for Woolly, but Amelie? Forever?

“Whose blood did you use?” I rubbed my forehead. “Yours or…?”

“Maud was the donor.” He angled his head in my direction without meeting my gaze. “I involved myself as little as possible to make Amelie and Boaz more comfortable.”

That brought Boaz’s head up, and a frown pinched his forehead, but he didn’t share his thoughts with us.

“The wards were inked using Maud’s blood too,” I reminded him. “Her blood could be the connection.”

“There’s power in her blood, potent magic, but it’s…” he searched for the word, “…inert.”

Meaning the energy had survived, but its origin no longer existed. The remaining power took on the tenor—for lack of a better word—of the practitioner. And since I had applied Woolly’s wards, and he had applied Amelie’s tattoo, there was no harmony between them. Each carried its own tune.

“That only leaves the design,” I said, praying he contradicted my logic but not holding my breath.

“Practitioners are inventing original designs and mass distributing them all the time. There’s a thriving patent business. I’m proof of that. There are hundreds of textbooks put into the hands of thousands of children that never elicit this response.” He rose with a frown fixed in place. “No designs are specific to the person who created them. Any residual link, if there was one, should dissolve the first time the sigil is used by another necromancer.”

Thanks to my rare designation, sharing my work with others was unlikely, but it worried me that I might not be able to use it either without running the risk of connecting my client to me. “I’m a freak of nature.”

“No, you’re not.” Halfway to brushing his fingers against the back of my hand, Linus dropped his arm to his side. “I’m going to conduct a search. I can start with Woolly and work my way toward the property line.” Head down, he lingered a moment longer. “How certain are you that Eloise left Savannah?”

“We saw her get into a car. She left the grounds, but we can’t be certain where she went from there.” He nodded and took a step back, but I pinched the fabric of his shirt where it rolled over his elbow to hold him in place. “Do you think she did this?”

“We’ll know more soon,” he promised, easing back until I lost my grip on him. “I won’t be long.”

Flashing lights strobed over us, washing his pale face in reds and blues, as an ambulance screamed into the driveway. Two doors slammed, and two sets of footsteps pounded up the flagstone path. However, in a surprising move, neither of them braved the steps. One must have possessed enough magic to sense the wards. Or they came armed with equipment that helped them perceive any hidden dangers they might encounter on calls.

“Medic,” Heinz called. “Get your hot, fresh medic.”

“We’re back here.” As Linus left, I stood to go fetch him. “I’ll come get you.”

Woolly, for her part, was as polite as could be to the men, allowing them on the porch with nary a flicker of her opinionated porch light. Both men were Low Society and gaped as her curtains flittered, and she preened beneath their regard. Nudging them out of their stupor after she batted her blinds at them, I guided them to Amelie. Luckily, a downed patient was enough to snap them out of their trance.

Chewing my thumbnail, I hovered behind the guys while they examined Amelie.

“Let me try something,” Heinz said at last. “Does she have any allergies?”

“No.” Boaz beat me to the punch. “What do you have in mind?”

“I’ve seen kids with these symptoms. Only High Society, though.” He snapped on a pair of gloves. “A magical interaction in the blood causes the problem. The condition is linked to new bonds formed with familiars. For a while, it’s push and pull while the two acclimate to one another. Most animals have a stronger survival drive than people. They pull too much energy from the kid, and the drain knocks them out cold.” He held out his hand, and his partner slapped a plastic kit across his palm. Inside, vials filled with what resembled diluted ink sloshed. “This mixture won’t break the bond, but it confuses the magic long enough for both parties to normalize.”

There was no hesitation in Boaz. “Do it.”

Amelie gasped awake ten seconds after Heinz depressed the plunger.

“W-w-what…?” She sucked down huge lungfuls of air. “Boaz?”

“Everything’s okay, sis.” He pinned down her shoulder. “You winked out on us there for a minute.”

“Miss Amelie, you’re coming with us.” Heinz conducted a quick examination then nodded his satisfaction. “I’ve never seen a Low Society necromancer exhibit these symptoms. We need to run a full screen on you.”

“That’s out of the question.” Boaz rubbed a hand over his face. “Know any phlebotomists who make house calls?”

“Sorry, man.” Heinz cringed while yanking off his gloves. “I wasn’t thinking.”

High Society necromancers learned early how to tap their own veins, but Boaz’s training wouldn’t have been the same. Given the circumstances, I wasn’t about to suggest he allow Linus to do the honors, and I was too out of practice to offer to do it myself.

“Amelie is under my protection,” I informed Heinz. For the next six months, I was her sole means of support. “Contact whoever can do whatever she needs and send them out here. I’ll cover the bill.”

The look Heinz turned on me conveyed many things, but chief among them was gratitude for taking care of his friend by providing for his sister. “I’ll do that.”

Once the paramedics left, Boaz carried Amelie inside then made her comfortable on the couch. Wanting to give them a moment of privacy, I waited for Linus on the porch. I was a tad concerned Woolly might bar his entrance now that Amelie was out of danger. I needn’t have worried. Linus appeared not five minutes later, exchanged words with the house, then joined me near the door.

“We can’t send those samples to a Society-owned lab.”

“You’re worried someone will trace her condition back to me.”

Hearing our voices, Boaz snapped his head toward us, his gaze bouncing between us. After kissing Amelie on the forehead, he ambled over to add his two cents.

“What do you propose we do then?” An ugly, bitter noise rose in his throat. “You must have all the answers, right, Professor?” Muscles fluttered in his jaw. “You’re the one who oversaw Grier when she designed the new wards on Woolly, and you’re the one who tattooed my sister. Seems to me if you don’t know what you’re talking about, then you ought to get a damn clue before you go around handing out advice.”

Linus stared him down. “We both know there are extenuating circumstances.”

Vertebrae popped when Boaz jerked his head from left to right. “What do you propose we do?”

“Discuss this in private, for one.” Linus still wasn’t looking at me when he said, “Put her to bed then meet me at the carriage house.”

“We’ll be there,” Boaz assured him before turning to me. “Help me get her upstairs.”

Imperiousness must be bred into Society males of all castes.

“Yes, sir.” Snorting, I saluted him then headed inside after shooting Linus an apologetic look that glanced off his cheek. He went his way, and we went ours. At the couch, I wedged my shoulder under Amelie’s armpit to give me leverage to heave her onto her noodly legs. “Whatever you say, sir.”

“One day that smart mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble,” he threatened, eyes glinting.

“Gonna be…sick,” Amelie moaned. “Stop flirting. It’s disgusting.”

“I won’t take that personally,” Boaz said magnanimously, “since you’ve suffered a fainting spell and possible head injury, which would explain your lack of respect for my prowess.”

I turned my head against my shoulder to stifle a laugh, but they both heard, and Amelie grinned.

“I don’t need a head injury to know you and your moves are gross.”

“She is your sister,” I reminded him. “I’d be more worried if she did admire your, uh, prowess.”

A full-body shudder rolled through him. “Good point.”

Once we situated Amelie on the bed in her room, Boaz and I approached the carriage house.

The door was shut, of course, and required knocking, which made my jaw clench. He was expecting us. Surely, he would have confined Julius by now. Why not leave the door open? Or at least greet us when we arrived?

Linus appeared six knocks in and gestured toward the kitchen, indicating we should sit at the table. He opted to stand in his usual spot near the sink, like he had set himself apart on purpose, and that self-imposed isolation got on my last nerve.

Maybe I was just having a bad day.

“I have a friend in Atlanta who can conduct the tests we need done.” Linus got straight down to business. “I can drive the sample there for testing. Reardon will handle the case personally, I can assure you, and I will remain with him at all times to ensure the sample is destroyed along with all testing supplies. No one else will have access to Amelie’s blood.”

“Who’s this Reardon?” Boaz demanded. “How do we know we can trust him?”

“Reardon McAllister is a made vampire with no affiliations to any clans. He’s technically a rogue, but he considers himself neutral.”

“What about the clan that made him?” They didn’t vouch for humans they didn’t mean to hold on to.

“He has no clan.” Linus leaned a hip against the counter. “His wife was a necromancer, but she didn’t tell him. He died in a carriage accident early in their marriage, and she turned him against his will.”

“That’s horrible.” I linked my fingers in my lap. “Even so, the Undead Coalition just let him go?”

“Oh, they want him returned to the fold,” Linus said, a cold smile in place, “but he was a human victimized by the Society, and that puts him under the Grande Dame’s purview. He’s a brilliant chemist. His mind is what attracted his wife to him despite his humanity. He teaches at Strophalos, has for decades. That’s how we met. He’s one of the few teachers with dispensation to live on grounds year-round, safe behind the wards.”

“You’re going to Strophalos?” I strained forward like that might get me closer to the acclaimed college for the necromantic sciences. “How long will you stay?”

“Three days at most.” Slowly, his gaze met mine. “You’re welcome to come.”

On my periphery, Boaz tensed, a stone-cold statue hewn from granite.

“I…” the moisture dried in my mouth, “…can’t.”

A flicker of something—disappointment?—shadowed Linus’s face, but he nodded as if I had done what he expected.

“I have to consider Woolly. I can’t leave her alone.” Unable to let it go, I rambled. “And Amelie. I can’t leave her unsupervised. Keet would be fine, but then there’s—” I clamped my mouth shut before I outed Oscar in front of Boaz, “—work.”

“I understand.” Linus kept his tone all business. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

The towering stack of valid reasons I had for not going tottered under that direct hit.

I wanted him to look at me like this was any other night, like there was a breakfast spread between us. I wanted him to listen to me the way he did when we discussed our lessons, not tune me out when he got his answer and it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

I hated when he reverted to this aloof version of himself who couldn’t be bothered with anyone who failed to meet his exacting standards. Tip his nose up any higher, and he’d drown if it rained.

“Would it help?” Boaz asked, voice strained. “Having Grier there?”

“If there are any markers in Amelie’s blood that are magical in nature, it might help to crosscheck them against Grier to see if we can isolate the cause and create a cure. Otherwise…” grim lines bracketed his mouth, “…she can’t practice if there are known side effects to her magic.”

Which put me right back to square one. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be a Society lackey who asks how high when the Grande Dame tells me to jump, but practicing necromancy was a dream out of my reach for so long. Having it offered up to me only for it to be snatched away again was a cruel joke.

“That’s not all, though, is it?” Boaz studied him. “You’re dropping everything to hand deliver this to a reclusive colleague in Atlanta. What aren’t you telling us?”

“Mother’s interest in Grier is contingent upon her ability to practice.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, but I saw them ball into fists through the fabric. “She views her as an investment.”

Boaz asked what I was afraid to wonder. “What happens if there’s no payoff?”

“Atramentous,” I whispered, folding in on myself, sick with possibilities.

“Double jeopardy,” Boaz soothed. “You can’t be tried again for the same crime after an acquittal.”

Unwilling to be coddled, I bit out, “Forgive me if I have my doubts about the legal system.”

“Mother can’t return you to the prison without weakening her reform agenda.” Linus mashed his lips into a bloodless line. “Calling your innocence into question allows for too much speculation on her role in your release.”

“You’re saying the danger isn’t in a direct strike,” Boaz reasoned. “You think, if it comes down to it, she’ll withdraw all support from Grier and let the problem handle itself.”

“Mother would never allow a weapon as powerful as a goddess-touched necromancer, whose fledgling magic might prove capable of binding her progeny to her, to fall into the Master’s hands.” Muscle fluttered along his jaw. “She would execute Grier before allowing vampires control of her.”

An odd lightness spread through my limbs and left me tingling. The wrongness of preferring death to life in a cage pinched my conscience, but only for a second. “Okay.”

“No,” Linus contradicted me, a frown tipping his lips. “Nothing about either scenario is okay.” Boaz grunted reluctant agreement with Linus, who wasn’t done yet. “That’s why I will do everything in my power to understand the connection between you and Amelie, if one exists, and nullify it before anyone suspects such a bond might be possible.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, wishing I had better words for what he was risking for me.

Linus, uncomfortable with my gratitude, inclined his head in acceptance of my appreciation.

Boaz scratched his jaw, his brow furrowed at Linus like he was working through a complex puzzle.

“Reardon’s only interests are in the pursuit of science,” Linus continued, “but there will be dangerous questions asked. Even if we present our case as wanting to examine an accidental bond between a Low Society necromancer and a familiar, he might uncover more of Grier’s secrets on a cellular level.”

A shiver twitched between my shoulder blades. “You’re worried about handing him a new specimen.”

“Yes.” His gaze cut to me then dropped to the floor. “There’s also the dybbuk contamination to consider.”

With Ambrose’s magic swirling through Amelie’s blood, there was no telling what the tests would reveal. It might act as camouflage for whatever havoc my sigils had wreaked on her, which might be a good thing as far as Reardon was concerned, but that also meant yet another layer for Linus to peel back to find our truths.

I was gambling with my future by allowing him to seek out Reardon, but I had no real choice.

“He doesn’t have to know why you’re there. I could tell him you’re one of my students, that I’m tutoring you. He knows I’m on sabbatical, but it’s not unheard of to tutor for extra cash,” Linus said, and I snorted so hard I almost choked on my own spit. Oh yeah. That was totally believable. The Grande Dame’s son needed pocket change. “Or favors if the student’s family has political sway.”

“That might work,” I allowed. “I have zero clout, but I can still trade on Maud’s name if I have to.”

Make no apologies for surviving.

As much as I hated using her name for leverage among the curious, I would do it to protect myself. She would understand. How could she not when she had given so much to keep me safe? Even from myself.

The thrill at his first mention of the campus shriveled. “I still can’t go.”

“Yes, you can.” Boaz reached across the table and took my hand in his, linking our fingers in clear view of Linus, staking his claim. “We can ask Odette to stay with Amelie for three days. Woolly’s a big girl. She can take care of herself for seventy-two hours.” He rolled his thumb over my knuckles. “A short break might do you good.”

“The new wards are holding…” I allowed, willing to be tempted. “But Woolly was just attacked. We don’t know who or what was responsible. I can’t leave her alone. What if they come back?”

“Have you considered hiring full-time security? You’ve just ascended as Dame Woolworth. Everyone will expect you to start building your staff. Why not start there? The rumor mill won’t think twice about why you’re fortifying Woolly if you act now. It’s expected for new heads of family to secure their residences if such measures aren’t already in place.” There was no point in him reminding me how long she had sat unoccupied, how many years she had been vulnerable, so I was glad he didn’t poke that particular wound. “It’s better to have the extra bodies and never use them than to need them and not have them. Say the word, and I’ll handpick a team for you and have them in position by the end of the week.”

More eyes meant more opportunities for Boaz to snoop into my life. I would have to hire a team without ties to the sentinels or to his family, if such a thing existed, to preserve my privacy. Low Society sentinels had cornered the security market. Meaning I would have to look outside the Society for guards loyal to me, a daunting prospect when you removed vampires from the candidate pool. “I’ll consider it.”

“You do that.” His mood buoyed, as if I had already agreed. “In the meantime, I can ask Taz to patrol the grounds while you’re away. Woolly is used to her presence. She might be miffed about her hurting you, but as long as Taz doesn’t touch the house, she ought to be safe. How does that sound?”

“Like you’re trying to get rid of me.” I was only half kidding. Shoving me together with Linus was not his style.

A more normal response from Boaz would have been to toss me over his shoulder and stomp from the carriage house while shouting “Go to hell” at Linus. A reasonable Boaz was a dangerous Boaz.

“Your eyes lit up like stars when he mentioned the campus. I might have been the lame older brother, but I know what you girls had planned. I know what college meant to you, and taking lessons, alone, in your own backyard is a poor substitution.” He glanced at Linus. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he said drily.

“It’s not like I can absorb the whole college experience in three days anyway.” I hated admitting, “Seeing what I can’t have might make it worse, actually.”

Until Maud…and Atramentous…I had dreamed big dreams as a kid. Getting a degree alongside Amelie. Planning how we would live together and how I would marry Boaz to make us real sisters. But those were old wishes for an old life. I wasn’t that person now, and neither was Amelie. Neither was Boaz. None of us were the same. Time and distance and life experiences did that to people.

But I couldn’t ignore the uptick of my pulse when I imagined walking those hallowed grounds.

If Maud had proclaimed me a practitioner instead of an assistant, I would have attended Strophalos the same as any Woolworth.

All this time I had been jealous of Amelie going to college here in Savannah when I was starting to think it was Linus and Strophalos I truly envied. Maybe Amelie had been right all along. Maybe I had been settling. But it had never felt that way, not to me.

These days I had no choice but to embrace my High Society birthright, and I’d had no clue how hard I had been tamping down my resentment until the limitations placed on me were wiped away thanks to a few drops of blood.

“Sleep on it,” Boaz urged. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but it might be a good thing for you to get out and see more than Savannah. You haven’t left town since you were released.”

For the longest time, I hadn’t had funds or a reason to go anywhere. My whole life was in Savannah.

I still had no reason to leave, but maybe…I wanted to go?

“I have calls to make,” Linus said in dismissal. “You’ve got time to think it over and make your arrangements.”

“Okay.” I blew out a breath and stood. “I’ll let you know at dusk.”

Boaz and I headed for the door but not fast enough.

Linus angled his head toward me. “What did the doctor say?”

“Doctor?” Boaz wheeled toward me. “What doctor?”

“There was no doctor.” I pointed through the wall toward Woolly. “There was no time.”

Wise man that he was, Linus said no more, but he let the disappointment shine through his eyes.

Much less circumspect, Boaz growled, “What doctor?”

It was like he hoped the third time would be the charm.

“Come on.” I hooked my arm through his. “I’ll explain on the way home.”