The night of the resuscitation began like any other. Me a quivering mess on the floor in the corner of my bedroom, a sheet tangled around my waist and sweat drenching my hair to my scalp. Linus cooking breakfast in the kitchen, the clatter of pans and whir of the blender drifting up to me.

I sat there, regulating my heart, absorbing the sounds of another person in my space…and not hating it.

More than anyone else, even with Woolly still a bit miffed at him, he belonged here.

Ritual preparation would commence in a few hours, so I skipped the shower and headed downstairs.

Normally, Linus waited to pass me my glass. This time it sat on the counter at my usual spot.

The distance that one small gesture placed between us made my skin itch.

“The issue with the petitioning clan has been solved.” He kept his back to me while he watched a pot on the stove. “We’ll move forward with the resuscitation at midnight.”

“Are we good?” I sipped my smoothie like a good little half-vampire. “You haven’t looked at me once.”

A few attempts failed before he met my gaze. “I was being unobtrusive.”

“Friends fight,” I told him. “Friends also make up, and life goes on.”

Frowning, he glanced out the window leading into the garden where the carriage house sat quietly.

“Sometimes they don’t.” He passed me a spinach and bacon quiche. “And it doesn’t.”

There was nothing I could say to that. Amelie had broken faith with me. Repeatedly. And until I got my hands on the contract, I had no assurances to give him. I wanted us to be okay. I wanted us to get back to normal. But I also wanted to know what mattered to him so much he risked my wrath gladly.

“You never told me which clan hired you,” I said, switching topics. “Or is that confidential?”

“You’ll find out in a few hours.” He massaged the base of his neck. “I need to go finalize the last-minute details. You’ve got time if you want to get in a workout before we leave.”

“Are you on your way out?” I ignored the steaming plate, much to my stomach’s annoyance.

“Yes.” He pushed off the counter by the sink. “I’ll be back in two hours.”

I let him reach the hall before asking, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“No?” He patted his pockets, checking for his wallet. “What am I missing?”

“I already told you.” I waved him over and removed the modified pen from his shirt pocket. “You’re not leaving this house without the sigil.”

An emotion too raw for simple hope warmed his expression. “I thought…”

“I’m mad at you, that doesn’t mean I want you to die.”

With deft fingers, he unbuttoned his shirt and peeled the two halves apart. He hooked his fingers in the hem of his undershirt and pulled it up to expose his lean torso. “It worked well where you drew it last.”

“Okay.” Throat dry, I swallowed a few times to work up my nerve. “Then that’s where it goes.”

I braced my right hand against his cool skin, and that slight touch made his abs ripple.

Once or twice, I could dismiss the phenomenon as nerves or cold hands, but he got chills each time I touched him. There was power in that. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but I was growing aware of it.

I took care with the design, lingering when I could have moved faster, just to enjoy the hitch in his breath from each twitch of my fingers.

“All done.” I capped the pen then presented it back to him. “Now you’re ready.”

Watching him fasten his shirt and tuck it back into his pants distracted me for a minute. That’s why I missed it the first time Linus said, “Make sure you’re ready to leave when I get back.”

After I waved him off with assurances I would be a responsible assistant, I waited on Lethe to arrive.

While I had a moment, I dialed up Odette, feeling guilty I hadn’t called her for Amelie sooner.

“Ma coccinelle,” she breathed. “How is our dear Amelie?”

“Lonely.” Smiling, I accepted the seer already knew the reason for my call. “I was hoping you could visit her.”

A hesitant note entered her voice. “Are those beasts still in residence?”

“The gwyllgi?” I felt out her pause. “They’re staying on the grounds until they repay an honor debt.”

“Ah.” Regret filled the line. “I am sorry, but I am leaving tonight. I’ll be gone for the next few weeks.”

A spurt of unease tightened my fingers around the phone. “Where are you going?”

“To visit an old client.”

“Your clients always come to you” came out sounding petulant, but there you go.

“Not this one.” Affection tinged her voice. “He was one of my first and is still one of my best. Neither of us are as young as we once were, but I make allowances for him that I would not for any other.”

“We’ll still be here when you get back.” I paced the room. “Call and let me know you made it in okay.”

Lethe arrived, and I waved at her to join me in the living room.

“I will.” Odette’s tone was all warmth, almost as good as a hug. “Je t’adore.”

“I love you too.”

The call ended with the sound of the ocean in my ear and a question in my heart. Odette sounded fond of her client. For them to still be in touch, all these centuries later, meant he must have recognized a good thing when he saw it way back then.

Huh.

Odette making house calls. Will wonders never cease?

Lethe took my measure with a sweep of her gaze and cocked out a hip. “What are you up to, missy?”

“I have two hours to solve a mystery.” I picked up the phone, dialed my favorite pub, and placed a ridiculous order for delivery. “All I need is for you to chill in the kitchen, stuff your face, and watch for Linus.”

“You’re sneaking around behind his back?” She clicked her tongue. “I’m oddly proud of you.”

“He was sneaking around on me first,” I pointed out. “It only seemed fair.”

“I won’t lie for you, but I won’t rat you out.” She tilted up her chin. “I eat the food either way.”

“Deal.” I pointed toward the basement. “I’ll be downstairs. Knock if you hear him coming.”

“I can do that,” she said slowly, as if trying to recall if I had ever gone down there.

Key in hand, I made a beeline for the door. Hesitating at the last moment, I darted upstairs and retrieved the goddess-touched artifact before trotting back to the basement. This time, I wasn’t burned getting the lock open, which was nice. The lock cooperated, so no blood was required. That was even better. I still had to wade through the darkness, which wasn’t great. Overall, I considered my second trip a win.

Rushing past the obvious hiding places, I bypassed the library and shoved open the door connecting it to Maud’s lab. Stainless-steel glinted on every surface when I flipped on the lights. It was outfitted with everything a mad scientist could want and then some. Industrial refrigerators for chilling blood and other mixtures, a sink big enough to bathe in, countertops for days. White tiles covered the walls, not that you could see them for the metal shelves stuffed with equipment, and the neat squares marched across the floor that sloped to a drain in the center.

From the middle of the room, I glimpsed her study through an open door.

Unlike the room used as window dressing upstairs, that room was crammed with her journals and private thoughts, personal belongings…and the gold box containing Mom’s heart.

I crossed the space and pulled the door shut, unable to breathe until the latch caught.

Taking a moment, I filled my lungs then turned back to the laboratory.

Bolted to one wall was a boxed-in shelf stuffed with rolls of paper. Recipes, notes, reminders. All of it got tossed there. Maud never threw anything away. The stack reached six feet high and at least that long. Ribbons peeked from between crumpled sheets and wax seals hung torn from curled edges.

Perfect camouflage.

“Here goes nothing.” I climbed the stepladder leaned against the wall and set to work, but every time I shifted one piece, ten more fell into the gap I created. “This is going to take forever.”

An hour and thirty minutes slipped through my fingers with nothing to show for it but papercuts.

Frustrated, I started tossing things on the floor in a heap that would take an eternity to sort.

With ten minutes to spare, I palmed a scroll with an intact seal. Two stark initials pressed into the same glob of red wax. Lawson and Woolworth. This was it. It must be. Maud was too stingy with her signature, and too wise to enter into contracts with her sister, for me to believe otherwise.

A sense of triumph fueled my hop from the ladder, and I smiled as I carried my treasure into the library and claimed my old seat. I paused with my fingernail beneath the dried medallion, but I was too tired of secrets to let a momentary fear of what the scroll might contain stop me from prying it open.

I read the first line. And then I read it again. Thinking I had misinterpreted the information, I tried a third time. When that didn’t work, I read it out loud to see if that helped.

“I, Clarice Woolworth Lawson, offer my son, Linus Andreas Lawson III, in marriage to Grier Marchand Woolworth.”

The paper fell from my hands to curl on the table. “We’re engaged.”

Woolly, the big chicken, chose that moment to creep nearer.

“This is what you both wanted to hide from me?” I flicked the roll with my finger. “A marriage contract?”

The light over my head flickered in answer.

“He said his mother shredded her copy.” The reason was obvious. “These announcements are made official when the younger party turns eighteen.” I was in Atramentous for that birthday, a lost cause. “She wanted him free to pursue other avenues.” I slumped in my chair. “We’ve been engaged since I was ten.”

Linus must have known the contents if he worried how I would react. But, knowing the secret, I had to wonder if he was panicked I would enforce the bargain. Right now, the power was in my hands. I could vanish it, and no one ever had to know. There must have been witnesses who signed, but my eyes refused to focus on the fine print. They would follow the Grande Dame’s lead and keep their mouths shut regardless.

I lifted the scroll again, the paper too light to hold the future of two people within it, and I didn’t know what to do.

This was leverage. Over the Grande Dame. Over Linus. Over me, if it slipped out of my hands.

I had suspected it, sure. In an abstract sense. But the reality had just slapped me in the face.

Three rapid knocks rattled the door, and I froze with the contract in my hand. I was out of time.

Secure in the knowledge no one else had access to the basement, I hid the opened scroll beneath a stack of miscellaneous research and half-finished homework then dashed up the stairs and into the kitchen.

The front door opened as my butt hit the chair, and Lethe raised her eyebrows while gobbling steak fries.

“Grier?” Linus called from the living room. “Are you ready to go?”

Crap. I forgot to change. I smacked myself in the forehead and looked to Lethe. “Help?”

She sighed around the straw of her drink and called, “Linus?” She shoved me off my chair. “Is that you?”

“Lethe?” His footsteps grew near. “Have you seen Grier?”

While he ducked into the kitchen, I took the back way out and slinked up the stairs to my room. I had my bag packed and ready to go. All I had to do was slip into a pair of jeans and a tee. Goddess only knows where I left my sneakers, so I slid on a pair of flip-flops. The ceremony was performed barefoot, so it’s not like it mattered what I wore to the Lyceum.

After yanking my hair into a messy twist I would have to tame later, I jogged down the stairs with the bag over my shoulder and found Linus in the living room. He stood facing the window, a black leather duffle slung across his back.

When he turned, and his lips twitched as he took in my footwear, I didn’t know where to look.

We were engaged. Engaged. We had been for years.

As long as that contract existed in any form, he was my future husband.

Linus Andreas…Woolworth.