“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Linus nodded toward the phone in my hand. “I wanted to show you something, but it can wait.”

“I’m all done.” I pocketed my cell. “I called Cricket to formally resign.”

A shadow passed over his face. “I can imagine how much that cost you.”

“I had a shelf life as a Haint. I couldn’t have worked there forever. Eventually, one of the girls would have noticed I wasn’t aging and started asking questions about my skin care regimen.” I considered how that would go. “I’m not sure what would horrify them more—learning I was a necromancer or that I still use a bar of dollar soap to wash my face.”

“I pour my own soap.”

“You do what now?” I fell neatly into the trap he set to cheer me. “That’s a thing guys do?”

“Doctors scrub in before surgery.” The tips of his ears pinkened. “I thought soap made with a blend of white sage and lavender might improve a practitioner’s success rate by cleansing the skin the way we smudge a space prior to performing a ritual.”

Jack of all trades. Master of…them all, apparently. “And did it?”

“Fractionally, yes.”

“Even with a low success rate, you kept going?” That didn’t sound like him.

“Not exactly,” he admitted. “I have a box full of unused bars under the kitchen sink in my loft.”

The urge to snicker almost overwhelmed me. “You got overly ambitious, huh?”

“It is a failing of mine,” he agreed with a tiny smile.

“You could have passed them out to students to unload your stock.” I mimed tossing them into a crowd. “They would have eaten up hand-poured soap from the dreamy Professor Lawson with a spoon then begged for more.”

A stillness swept through him. “You think I’m dreamy?”

Whoever was in control of my mouth was not doing their job monitoring that whole filter thing.

Oh, wait.

That would be me.

“I implied your students think you’re dreamy,” I countered, patting myself on the back for the save.

“You’re one of my students,” he pointed out, his grin widening.

Dang it.

I cleared my throat. “You wanted to show me something?”

“I printed off a map of the graveyard.” He spun the sketchbook on his palm and lifted the cover. “I’ve marked all the sites where samples were taken.” Small icons adorned the onion-skin paper he layered over the blueprint. “Do you see a pattern?”

“Hecate’s wheel.” I traced a circle around the affected area then connected the inner dots to form the three-prong symbol in the middle that represented her triple aspect: Mother, Maiden and Crone. The phallic angel mausoleum acted as the centermost point, and I tapped it once. “Or, as it’s more commonly known, a strophalos.”

The university where Linus worked took its name from the spoke design.

“This was intentional,” he said in absent agreement with our earlier assumptions. “I’m not sure what it signifies except whoever dug the holes meant to invoke the goddess.”

“Invoke her, not necessarily her blessing.” I studied the design, noticing how the practitioner had blended the old cemetery plots with the new to create the pattern. “We found no sacrifices, no tithes, no offerings. Who expects a goddess to give if she hasn’t first received?” Pride glinted in his eyes that caused my stupid heart to swell. “You don’t have to look so shocked. I do read my homework assignments. I’m not a total block of wood.”

“Of all the poor choices Maud embraced, I resent she made you doubt yourself the most.”

“I was an easy mark.”

Pleasing her had meant everything to me. Living up to her expectations had been my life goal. Proving to her that I was worthy of her time, her attention, her love.

A chilling thought blasted gooseflesh up my arms.

The Grande Dame and I actually had one thing in common.

Both of us had bent over backwards to earn Maud’s approval, and neither of us would ever get it.

“That only makes it worse.” His exhale rustled the paper. “I’ve contacted Mother. Sentinels are combing the cemetery to search for clues to the practitioner’s identity.”

His frustration thrummed in the twitch of his fingers. No wonder he had cracked the pattern so quickly. Jitters kept him thrumming, a high I would blame on coffee but must be adrenaline. His gaze slid toward the door, and his divided attention felt like I was holding him back.

I smoothed my thumb over the screen on my phone. “You want to be out there with them, don’t you?”

“It’s my job.” His hand touched his shirt above the city seal inked into his skin. “My duty.”

“In Atlanta, not here.” Here he was free to shed one mask from his arsenal. “You’re on sabbatical.”

“From teaching.” He closed the book and tucked it under his arm. “The hunt… I need it.”

A flash of memory swirled through me.

A wraithlike cloak flickered in my vision, overlaying his usual slacks-and-dress-shirt combo, to ripple in a wave of black mist that lapped at my ankles, a frigid pond I had waded into without taking the first step.

Though he had been busily blending since I arrived, his back to me, he was now in my personal space. His nose was an inch from mine. Less. And his icy fingers trapped the wrist of the hand that had touched him.

Ink spilled across his eyes until I was staring into a fathomless pool of still waters that lapped against the shores of my mind, eroding the memories I kept caged until I gasped and stumbled back.

“Linus?” I massaged my wrist, not because he had been rough, but because his glacial touch stung.

Midnight eyes dropped to my hand, and his lips tipped downward. “I hurt you.”

Linus hadn’t hurt me that night, and he hadn’t harmed me since then.

Itching for the spill of blood through his fingers or not, I had no reason to think he would start now.

“Have you been hunting since you came to Savannah?” I rolled a hand. “Besides the dybbuk?”

“Yes.”

My arm fell to my side. “How often?”

“Every night.”

Silence wrapped us in a cocoon of uncertainty. This was new ground, dangerous territory, and answering my questions freely meant he was as good as inviting me to walk alongside him.

The screen flashed on my cell, but I ignored the text. It might be Marit, and I had to work up my nerve to read her response. “That’s what you do while I’m at work?”

“Yes.”

Digesting, I was digesting. “Your mother knows?”

“I required her permission to operate in a city under her protection.”

That left a lot of room for what she might and might not know about her son’s activities.

While he was feeling chatty, I pressed my luck. “Are all potentates like you?”

“No.”

“For an overeducated guy, you sure toss out monosyllabic answers.”

“What you saw in Atlanta spooked you. I saw fear in your eyes when you looked at me.” He lowered his lashes as if the memory pained him. “I don’t want to put that expression on your face again. I don’t want to be that person around you.”

“That person is part of who you are, Linus.” I touched his shoulder. “You don’t have to pack away pieces of yourself to be my friend.” He deserved to hear the rest, so I gave it to him straight. “You murdered two vampires in front of me. Beheaded them. I’ve never witnessed that type of violence. It shocked me. You shocked me.” I wandered toward the couch and dropped on the cushions. “I didn’t see my friend in you that night, and it scared me.”

He made no move to follow. “I understand.”

“How can you?” I snatched up a pillow and wrapped my arms around it. “I’m just figuring it out myself.”

“I don’t regret what I did.” The way he said it made it clear he didn’t expect understanding or forgiveness, and he wasn’t going to beg for either one. “I would do it again to protect you.”

“I shouldn’t have been afraid of you.” I twisted to face him. “You deserve better.”

The sketchbook tucked under his arm slipped, and he had to stoop to catch it. “You’re entitled to your feelings.”

“See, I think I finally have a bead on the problem.” I mulled over Midas and his iceberg comment. “You keep so much of yourself hidden. Each time you share a new face with me, I wonder how many more I’ve yet to meet.” There was a Linus for every occasion. “The you who fixes me breakfast isn’t the same you who instructs me, and he’s not the same you who teaches at Strophalos or the you who killed those vampires.”

“They’re all me.” He thumbed through the pages at his side. “Each one of them.”

“Wear the masks,” I said, throwing the pillow at him, “but don’t let the masks wear you.”

“Grier.” He caught the overstuffed projectile. “It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is. Take them off. All of them. Trash them, burn them, stash them in a drawer— I don’t care. I want them gone.” I would pry them off his face with my fingers if I had to help him come up for air. “Be who you need to when you’re out there, but be who you are when you’re with me. Let me get to know you. The real you. All of you.”

“I’m not sure I can.” A frown knitted his brow. “But for you, I’ll try.”

“That’s all I’m asking.” I shifted gears while he stood there adorably muddled in the hope I might tip him into carelessness. “You’re being mighty forthcoming. You’re not usually so eager to let me get involved.”

Sharing his findings with me, like my opinion mattered to him, was a heady experience for me.

“Call it an experiment,” he said, recovering. “I kept you in the dark about Ambrose, and he almost killed you. I warned you about talking to Hood, and you ended up bringing him home with you. I’m sensing a theme.”

“Ah. You think if you keep me updated on this case we stumbled into that I won’t go wandering off in the middle of the day to investigate on my own.”

“I had hoped that might work, yes.”

“Hmm.” I toyed with the piping on the cushion under me. “I am currently unemployed. Why not bring me on as your assistant?”

“You’re more than that.” The answer shot out on reflex. “I wouldn’t ask that of you.”

“Okay.” A tiny weight lifted at his defense of my potential. “Partners.”

“Partners,” he echoed, flabbergasted into silence.

“We’re not equals. I get that.” He far outclassed me in the talent department. What I could do thanks to my weird blood and genetic memory, he had learned or taught himself. “I wouldn’t mind seeing what it is you do on a normal evening. Think of it as handing out warnings to perps instead of writing tickets.”

“You’re putting yourself at risk.”

Unsure of his tone, I didn’t detect a no. “I’m at risk every time I leave the property these days.”

A wraith for a shadow was the reason I got to leave the house, that and Cletus’s direct line to Linus.

“Hood will demand to accompany us.”

Guilt coated the back of my throat, but he was right. “Can we keep tabs on his whereabouts?”

Too bad it would probably get me eaten to suggest microchipping him with a tracker.

“I can trace the van.” He held up his phone. “Hardwired GPS.”

“Protecting your investment. I can respect that.”

“The van can be replaced.” Spoken like a man able to drop six figures on a tricked-out ride without blinking. “What might be in it should it ever disappear is my concern.”

“People are bound to get tired of kidnapping me,” I teased, hating his thoughts had gone there and dragged mine along for the trip. “Kidnapping me in my own ride would be an all-new low. That’s just tacky.”

“Who said I was talking about you?” Amusement lightened his eyes. “I meant the under-seat cooling trays.”

“Hey, we all have our priorities. I enjoy an ice-cold bottle of water as much as the next girl. I’m not going to knock you for appreciating a cool drink after a long night of hunting, grave digging, and whatever else it is you crazy potentates get up to in your spare time.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Get to know you or play Robin to your Batman?” Dang it. Again with the comic book references.

“Both.”

Thankfully, he gave no indication he was aware of me casting him in the role of the dark knight. “Yes.”

Savannah was my home, my past and my future, and it was time I learned every dark corner of her.

And I couldn’t have chosen a better guide.

Four hours after leaving Woolly, our patrol ended at 432 Abercorn Street. The house was a favorite stop on ghost tours, and its controversial history thrilled. But Linus had grown up in Savannah, and he knew the real story as well as I did, so I didn’t attempt to spook him. Though I was tempted. He looked so serious.

If this was an average evening in the life of a small-town potentate, I was grateful not to be one.

“Well?” I kept strolling past the old house. “Have we done our civic duty for the night?”

A slight hitch in his stride told me I had startled him with the sound of my voice. Since he wasn’t the inattentive type, I wondered if he was splitting his focus with Cletus. “The streets are quiet.”

Using my best ominous voice, I intoned, “Too quiet?”

The flat look he turned on me earned him a laugh, and the edges of his lips curled before he flattened them. “Just for that, we’re making one last stop before we head home.”

Ten minutes later, he paused outside a familiar shop with faded gold lettering etched on the glass front door. Mountains of grimoires—new, used and refurbished—filled the gloomy interior like the best kind of bookstore. But that wasn’t the reason we had come to Third Eye Paperie.

Realizing that, I withered on the spot. “I had no idea you were such a cruel man.”

That ridiculous little non-smile flashed again. “You told me to be myself.”

Faking annoyance, I squinted up at him. “You’re saying I did this to myself?”

“You must get preparations underway. You can’t have a ball without invitations.”

He opened the door and guided me into the rundown shop Maud had used for all her stationery needs. For the briefest moment, especially with Linus by my side, I imagined she might step out from behind a leaning bookcase to chide me for hovering in the doorway. But she didn’t. And she never would again.

The place looked empty as Linus located a bell mounted to the wall with a long cord dangling from its clacker and rang it twice.

“A wedding?” a shrill voice blew through the shop. “Oh, la. What a momentous occasion.”

Linus angled his body between Matron Abigale Orestes and me. “Not a wedding.”

“Linus?” As always, she dressed as though a swath of fabric had caught her metaphysical eye, and she had proceeded to wrap the entire bolt around herself. The effect was toga-ish and raised uncomfortable questions about what she wore under there since every step and gesture revealed skin spotted by age and wrinkled by time. “I haven’t seen you since your voice changed.”

We both laughed at the weak joke, and the matron jerked her head toward me. Facing her head on never got any easier.

When she was younger, she fell in love with a High Society dame’s husband. He was handsome, charismatic, and married to a woman who grew so jealous of his beauty she rarely allowed him to leave their home. Orestes met him when she delivered invitations for one of the dame’s parties. Both lonely, the two struck up a friendship that led to more. The dame discovered her husband’s faithlessness, and she burned the eyes from Orestes’s head in punishment so she would ever again behold the beauty that had first ensnared her.

Theories abounded on how Orestes continued her art while blind, but I had long suspected Maud was responsible for the gift of “sight” that allowed the matron to flourish.

Paper was her passion, in all its myriad forms and usages. She made small batches for special customers, but the rest she ordered from a hedge witch family in Shreveport. Any paper that entered or exited her shop was made by hands, not machines.

A gifted artist in her own right, Orestes sketched, painted and printed templates for any and all social events. For an extra fee, she would even use her masterful calligraphy skills to address each one by hand. Thanks to Maud’s longstanding patronage, I knew her handwriting almost as well as my own.

With an indrawn breath, the matron swiveled her head toward me. “Who’s this then?”

“You remember Grier.” Linus didn’t tack on my last name. There was no point. What other Grier would be tagging along on his rounds? “She’s throwing a ball. She needs invitations. The event will be exclusive. Three hundred or thereabouts. The guest list is at your discretion.”

Orestes used her inside track to keep a running tally of the most popular names by event for exactly this reason, and she would share it for the right customers. And an additional charge, of course.

“Three hundred?” I clutched his arm.

“Any smaller, and you risk alienating potential allies by not inviting them to your first official function.”

Hating he was right, that the Society was so petty, I rested my forehead between his shoulder blades. “Ugh.”

“You haven’t changed a bit, my dear,” Orestes tittered. “Maud always had to drag you in to pick your birthday invitations. Most girls your age lived for any excuse to party, but not you. You were a quirky little thing. Always walking arm in arm with Amelie Pritchard or chasing after her brother. Are you all still friends?”

“No.” A dagger of regret wedged itself between my ribs. “We’ve gone our separate ways.”

“Ah, well.” She navigated her shop with sure footing and motioned us over to an alcove stacked with books filled with sample invitations. “These things happen with mixed friendships.” She winked at me, a crinkling of the skin at the corner of one eye. “The High Society doesn’t like us playing in their sandboxes.”

The observation left me fidgety beside Linus. She wasn’t wrong. Knowing that, I kept my mouth shut.

“That’s not to say they’re not without their redeeming qualities.” She tapped her bottom lip with an ink-stained finger while gazing at Linus. “Once in a rare generation, they produce someone worth admiring that almost justifies the rest of them.”

Admiration had gotten her into plenty of trouble once, but it didn’t seem to bother her anymore.

“Tell your mother I said hello,” she added as an afterthought to Linus. “I’ll give her twenty-five percent off her first order as congratulations on her promotion to overlord—I mean, Grande Dame.”

“I’ll do that,” Linus said politely. “I’ll pass along your congratulations as well.”

Ever the diplomat. I’m glad he salvaged the situation. It was all I could do not to sputter a laugh.

Overlord.

Ha!

“You do that,” she said, sweet venom lacing her words before turning her attention back to me. “Maud stuck to a garden theme when having guests at Woolworth House. She preferred the roses, naturally, but they were her favorites. You’re Dame Woolworth now. What are yours?”

“The ball will be held at the Lawson manor.” I slid a look toward Linus. “Are there any symbols your mother prefers?”

“Pick for yourself,” Orestes urged. “The house might be hers, but the guests will be yours.”

“She’s right.” Linus accepted a book from her gnarled fingers and began flipping through the designs. “What you select is a direct reflection on you. Make it something personal.”

“Make a statement.” Orestes dumped an even chunkier book in my hands. “Coffee? Tea? Soda?”

“Tea,” Linus said, “with honey if you have any.”

“I buy local. Helps with my allergies.” She turned her head toward me. “What about you?”

“I’m fine, but thank you.”

“I’ll be right back.” She flicked a hand at the samples. “You two skim for inspiration.”

Pretending interest until she bustled out of sight, I turned on Linus. “You owe me for this.”

“You’re the one who wants to parlay with the master.” He thumped the cracked spine. “This is part of that.”

“Oh, no, the ball was your idea.” The credit belonged one hundred percent to him. “I was thinking more along the lines of writing him a note with instructions to meet me at one of those chain coffee houses near dawn. All I would have to do is leave it for one of his skulking lackeys to find. We could meet one-on-one and discuss his not kidnapping me again over scones like civilized people.”

“He doesn’t strike me as the scones-at-dawn type.”

A pleased laugh forced its way free of me. Linus was playing with me. “We’ll never know now, will we?”

“Not unless he proves his claim is true and you two reconcile.” Linus’s fingers clenched on the page, wrinkling the delicate paper and killing his light mood. “Even then, I doubt you’ll convince him to sip from a paper cup.”

“The ball is a good idea.” I covered his hand with mine, smoothing the creases beneath his palm. “A controlled setting for this conversation means we go into this meeting with the advantage. We can hear him out, tell him thanks but no thanks, and then get on with our lives.”

“Our lives,” he murmured, twisting his wrist so that our fingers almost, almost meshed together. The ice of his skin was a cold burn against mine that invited me to close the distance, to warm him with my touch.

“Yes,” I answered thickly, heart in my throat, pulse in my ears. “This will be one less thing for you to worry about after you leave.” The reminder that Atlanta owned him stung. “One less monster under my bed.”

“Grier…”

“The Undead Coalition would benefit from our insight as well.” I kept going, piling on more words, more distance, from the ones that hurt. “Maybe the Grande Dame can work her magic on the master. How great would that look on her resume if she facilitated peace talks between him and the Undead Coalition?”

Mouth a tight line, Linus withdrew his hand and passed over the book, taking the other volume from me. “You might like that design.” He set down his burden. “It suits you.” He turned his back on me. “I’m stepping out for some air.”

I had taken a step after him when Orestes reemerged holding a silver tray laden with cups and cookies.

“I have tea,” she trilled. “Grier, are you sure I can’t interest you in…?” Her question for me trailed into nothing as she grasped I stood alone. “Where did the Lawson boy go?”

“He needed air,” I snapped, regretting my temper. “Sorry for biting your head off.”

“Oh, sweet girl. You don’t have to apologize to me of all people.” Her brows pinched in sympathy, the skin around her scar tissue tightening. “Men, no matter how handsome, elegant, or wealthy, are nothing but trouble.”

“That’s been my experience too.” Though none of those attributes were required for a broken heart. Boaz had proven that.

“The younger you learn, the easier the rest of your life will be.” She set about fixing herself a cup. “Want my advice?”

A woman with her history might be the last person I ought to take pointers from but “Sure.”

“Marry for love.” She passed me a vanilla wafer cookie like the ones I’d loved when I was a kid. “Half the Society’s problems are brought on by unhappy people looking to make everyone else miserable too.” She turned her head toward a photo of a couple locked in a torrid embrace, their faces hidden by the woman’s curtain of wavy hair. “Choose a life partner. Make a smart decision. Take your time to be certain of the match. Marriages are forever. That’s another reason why the Society dames live for gossip about who’s doing who. They’ve forgotten what sex ought to be, a joyous celebration of mutual attraction if not affection. Not a punishment, not a crime.”

Instead of sucker, I must have single stamped on my forehead. “Maud never married.”

In the same way that well-meaning people asked young couples when they would have their first (or second or third…) child, they often assumed a woman without a man must be shopping for one. As if your life couldn’t be full without a ring on your finger or a warm body in your bed.

“Maud loved herself more than she could ever love anyone else.” A swift denial sprang to my lips that she was quick to shush. “She was a good woman. She was kind. She was caring. She gave of herself. But she enjoyed the company of her old house, the peace of her books, the solitude of her laboratory. Another person would have disrupted that, another person would have demanded some of that time be spent with them, and Maud was not a fan of obligations unless she chose them.”

“Maud told me when she was younger, she let potential suitors down by confessing she was married to her career and reminding them the Society frowned upon affairs.”

Orestes laughed softly. “That sounds about right.”

While she sipped her tea, pausing to add three heaping spoonfuls of sugar, I examined Linus’s selection.

The picture showed a bird that might have been any number of things, but it was bright yellow with red dots for eyes.

Keet.

“You softened her,” Orestes confided after the drink was to her liking. “None of us expected her to adopt you when Evie passed. Until the funeral, I would have sworn on the goddess’s light she didn’t possess a maternal bone in her body. But she held you on her lap that day during the service while you cried against her neck, your fingers curled in her hair, and I witnessed the shift in her perspective.”

This was a story I hadn’t heard. “What kind of shift?”

“She hired off-duty Elite to screen the mourners so no Marchands could attend, for one. None tried to my knowledge, but the Elite are paid to make sure events flow smoothly. Only Maud would have known, and I can tell you right now she would have fought your family tooth and nail for you. Evie was her best friend, and she refused to lose you too.”

Any hope my blood relatives might have come for me, might have wanted me, was short-lived. They had turned their backs on Mom, and on me. Kin or not, I knew what they would do if they got their hands on me.

Bleed me dry.

The same as all the rest.

“Have you made a selection?” Orestes interrupted my rambling thoughts as they spun toward Linus, whose presence I almost felt through the brick wall separating us. “You would be the first to show interest in that fellow.”

“Can I purchase the rights to this design?” The parakeet spoke to me, but this ball was meant to be a statement, and I couldn’t bear to adopt the symbol of Maud’s disappointment as my own. “Not for the invitations, but for later.”

“Sure.” A chipper note spiked her tone at having made a sale. “What about the ball?”

“I want to use this.” I borrowed a piece of paper and pen from her then started drawing, careful to avoid any of my usual flourishes. Sweat beaded across my forehead as I battled against my natural perception to keep the details as precise as the original. “Will that work?”

“I don’t see why not.” She held the scrap to the light and tipped her head to one side the way a normal person might, but her gaze ran deeper. “You’ll make a statement with this, all right. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Feeling better about my choice, I paid my bill and left the shop to join a solemn Linus on the sidewalk.

To earn a moment while I felt out his mood, I read the text from Marit.

I’m here if you need me.

I wavered on sending an emoticon in response, but I wasn’t sure what happened to our friendship next. Until I did, I was better off leaving well enough alone, even if it made my heart ache to put her on the backburner. Then I turned my attention back to Linus and our visit to Orestes.

What I expected to be a waste of my time had given me a shot of the purpose I was lacking.

Orestes reminded me of something important. The Society loved gossip. Reveled in it. There was no expiration date on shame. They recalled past scandals just to savor them, and I was about to give them a reason to remember the one attributed to me. Several of the dames and matrons in attendance would be walking down memory lane, sniping at me behind my back as they shoved their sons in my face.

All I had to do was keep my eyes and ears open. If anyone knew where Maud had gone, who she had gone with, and what she had been doing prior to her death, it would be the women in that ballroom.

Linus had been right in his thinking.

A ball was the perfect solution.

“You could have left Cletus with me.” I set off in the direction of Mallow on autopilot. “You didn’t have to stay.”

The wraith descended as Linus fell in step beside me. “Do you want me to leave?”

“You’re the one with his boxers in a twist. All I did was point out the fact you’re going back to Atlanta. Your whole life is there.”

“Not my whole life.”

“Okay, fine, so your mother lives in Savannah.”

“You do too.”

The sidewalk dipped, and I stumbled over my feet. “Will we really keep in touch when you leave?”

He steadied me with a hand on my elbow until I regained my balance. “What do you want me to say?”

“You’re all I’ve got left.” I withdrew from him, unable to think while he was touching me. “You feel like a friend, that’s how I think of you, but I can’t forget why you’re here.”

“I’m here to give you the education to survive your gift.”

A pang rocked me back on my feet. “Can you honestly say you’re not spying on me for your mother?”

“I report on your progress.” He stopped walking, and that’s when I realized I had stopped too. “I answer any questions she asks in her official capacity, and in mine. That’s it. That’s all.” He lowered his voice, his hurt evident. “Where is this coming from?”

“I don’t want to lose you too.” A filmy haze covered my eyes. “But I don’t know how much of this is real.”

“I’m not Boaz.” His cool fingers traced the path of the tears leaking down my cheeks. “I won’t lie to you, and I won’t betray you.”

“You stole my parakeet.” I sounded like a broken record, and I knew it, but facts were facts. “Why?”

“Mother led me to believe your faculties were…diminished.” He dropped his hand, and it clenched at his side. “She expressed concerns for Woolly, for Maud’s private things, and she convinced me that luring you to the Lyceum for an intervention was prudent if I wanted to preserve Maud’s legacy.”

Disgust soured my stomach over how she had played us both. “That manipulative—”

“I had no idea what to expect after what they did to you in Atramentous. I could understand Mother’s worries, and I shared them.” He raked his hands through his hair. “She preyed on my bond with Maud, and when that wasn’t enough, she let your condition slip.”

“The last time we had this conversation, you left out the part where you thought I was a raving lunatic.”

“I know Mother well, better than anyone. All it took was one look at her face after I arrived to know I had been played.” He started walking again, and I let him lead me. “My suspicions were confirmed when I saw you. You were…not the Grier I remembered, but you were whole.”

“I get that a lot.”

“The Grier I knew as a child was open, kind and beautiful.”

I swallowed once and then again when it didn’t work the first time. “And now?”

“You’re harder, stronger and more beautiful than ever.”

“I’m a bag of bones with gaps in her memory and a price on her head.”

“You’re a survivor. You underestimate your appeal.”

“You told me that night in the Lyceum you wanted to be my guest as much as I wanted to host you. You promised the harder I worked, the sooner you could return to your home and your life, and the sooner I could transition into the next phase of my mine.”

Quoting him hurt. Until I purged his words, I had all but forgotten them. Or so I thought. They must have stuck in my craw worse than I realized if I could pull them to the forefront of my mind so easily.

“I was pissed,” he growled softly, an inhuman sound that raised chills. “I had been lied to and manipulated. Again. Maneuvered into a corner from which there was no escape.”

“You must be used to that by now,” I said before I could censor myself.

Bitter laughter hitched in his chest. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you, but I meant them. At the time.” The rumble never left his voice. “Boaz stood at your shoulder like he had every right to be there, and his entitlement pissed me off. He fled Savannah after you were incarcerated. He used you as an excuse to distance himself from his family and the army as a reason not to return. But the second you were released—there he was. Ready to act as your anchor when the truth is you’ve always been his.”

The version of this story Boaz had told me was more romantic, more flattering. When I envisioned him leaving Savannah burdened by heartache and misery, I had all but swooned. Viewing his actions through the lens of Linus’s perspective, as Boaz seizing an opportunity to escape his own future while mine crumbled, picked at the scabs over my heart.

“Two pissed in one conversation,” I teased, voice cracking. “That’s twice the pissed I thought you were capable of.”

“The real me, it seems, has unresolved anger issues where Boaz is concerned.”

“Me too.”

Only he hadn’t absconded with my sketchbook, he had stolen my heart. A corner of it at least. But even now, when a poker to the eye would have been kinder than seeing him again, I wasn’t sure what hurt worse. Losing one of my oldest friends or the potential we had to be more. I worried the wound might not heal right if I didn’t know what type of weapon had inflicted it in the first place.

Which kind of love cut this deep? That was the question. A lifetime spent doubting Boaz, the tiny pieces he gave away to all the other girls, never the whole, even to me, was answer enough. When I tested the ache, I bled from the same tender injury, the one hidden behind my ribs, that Amelie had dealt me.

Maybe I had never believed in happily ever afters. Or maybe I had never believed in one with him.

Acknowledging the source didn’t make me hurt any less, but maybe it would help with that whole healing thing.

“I just…need one thing to be real.” I drifted closer until our elbows brushed as we walked. “I would like that thing to be you.”

Head lowering, like he didn’t want to watch if I rejected the arm he wrapped around my shoulders, he tucked me against his side. “You’re the only one who sees me, who’s ever wanted to see all of me.” His hand was a cool weight that reassured, and when he brushed his lips over my hair, I leaned into him. “I’m never realer than when I’m with you.”

Content with that answer, I hooked an arm around his waist and took him for hot chocolate he wouldn’t drink, which doubled my serving. That meant, for tonight at least, he qualified as the perfect guy.