“All wounds will heal.” Esteban leaned down from his great height to press a kiss to the top of my head. “You will see her again one day. Though not too soon, I hope.” He gestured to his kitchen, a rectangle of canvas panels laced together. “Go do what you must.” He spared a second look at Linus. “Take care of her. She is a precious treasure to me.”
“I do my best,” Linus assured him. “She is precious to us all.”
Heat prickled in my cheeks that I rubbed away. “I can’t take all the flattery, guys.”
“Learn to take a compliment,” Esteban chided. “The older and more beautiful you become, the more men will toss them like flowers at your feet. You must become familiar with the varieties so that you may distinguish between the hothouse stock, the wild ones, and those that are garden-tended.”
Never would I have classified compliments in such a way, but he knew Maud, and he knew me. Our language was flowers. Or it used to be. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I scuttled into the small kitchen and pulled out my pen. Linus joined me, and we each drew on our own sigils but for a single line and then, by silent agreement, compared them. The root of the design was the same if you looked hard enough, but they shared few similarities in execution.
“The way your mind works never ceases to amaze me.” He tapped the cap of his pen against his bottom lip. “I wonder if it would work the same if I drew your sigil on me.”
“An experiment for another day.” I kept my voice level. “We should get out from under Esteban so he can work.” We completed our sigils then and disappeared from each other’s sight. “Coming through.” I skirted Esteban, who just smiled at empty air in the direction my voice originated. “Thanks for letting us borrow your kitchen.”
“Anything for you.” He straightened a display placard. “Next time, bring the other boy, the blond one. He spends his money.”
“I’ll do that.” I chuckled. “Night.”
The scuff of boots across cobbles told me Linus was near, but gauging distance was hard when you couldn’t see the other person, and they couldn’t see you.
“Was I rude?” His steps slowed. “Not to make a purchase in exchange for Esteban letting us use his kitchen?”
“Nah.” The thought never would have crossed his mind. “He was just teasing me for bringing two guys to see him in as many nights.”
We walked on while he digested this, and in minutes we stood before the Cora Ann.
“Stick close to me, and watch where you step,” I warned him. “There’s debris everywhere.”
Prickles marched up my nape when he fell in step behind me on our trek across the gangway.
“Grier…” he began. “Have you experimented with this sigil over water?”
“Yes.” Two or three times. “I tested it out while I was at work.”
“Check your sigil.”
A quick check of my forearm revealed the problem. The design was flaking. “Fiddlesticks.”
“Crossing from land to water must have broken the seal.” He pressed against me, skin a few degrees shy of normal through the layers of his clothing. “We need to hurry up and get onboard.”
Nothing prevented us from leaping the locked gate. It was only waist-high, and there were no obstructions on the other side. Mr. Voorhees must have been counting on the boat’s reputation to protect it. In hindsight, I was stunned that I hadn’t heard anyone mumbling about break-ins or fanatics attempting to commune with Timmy. Then again, the answer to both those problems might be found squatting in the bushes a dozen yards away. Voorhees might have hired the Elite to act as extra security. I could see them finessing that type of job to maintain their cover. And that meant they were in a prime position to keep the curious from climbing aboard for a look-see and ruining their dybbuk hunt.
I led Linus into the first deck parlor responsible for my moldy perfume, and we swiped on new sigils.
“I really hope there are no hidden cameras,” I mused. “I’m not sure if what we just did made it better or worse.”
“The Society has plenty of experience burying this type of thing if we do get caught.”
I was glad he couldn’t see the look I shot him. Had the Society, his mother in particular, been covering for him long? Or was this a recent development? I wanted to ask as much as I didn’t want to know the answer.
“The boy is upstairs you said?”
I heard him moving toward the doorway. “Yes.”
“I’ll go first,” he offered. “In case he starts throwing cutlery again.”
“That’s not necessary.” He might as well have knifed me in the gut offering to act as my shield. Of all people, I expected Linus to trust I knew my limits. Ironic, I know. “Timmy and I have an understanding.” Okay, so that wasn’t exactly true. “He’ll recognize me, so I don’t think he’ll hurt me. If he does, then that proves your point, and I deserve what’s coming.”
I’m not sure how he located me, but Linus closed his chilly fingers around my wrist. “You’ve been hurt enough, Grier. You don’t deserve to so much as stub your toe again in this life.”
“You’re kind to say so, but we both know life doesn’t work that way.” The sentiment was so bittersweet, I smiled, though he couldn’t see. “Come on.” I slid from his grasp. “Time for you to make a new friend.”
We entered the dining room together and stood close enough our clothes touched at the shoulders.
“Timmy,” I called. “I brought a friend for you to meet.”
Linus scuffed a piece of carpet foam from under his shoe. “Does he come when called?”
I never met a kid who did, let alone an undead one. “Is anything ever that simple?”
“I suppose not.” Footsteps paced away from me. “What do we try next?”
“I painted on a sigil for perception then amplified the crap out of it last time.”
“That’s as good a place to start as any.”
Pen in hand, I got to work marking up my forehead with the perception sigil. Maud told me once it was a nod to opening our third eye. But she followed that up by claiming it was a bunch of hooey. Considering we were necromancers who turned our own blood into ink capable of resurrecting dead humans, I wasn’t sure she had a leg to stand on. She was Maud, though. No one argued with her. No one ever dared. There was no point. She was always right. Or so it had seemed. Her brilliance had a way of blinding anyone around her. Only after her death had I acquired the ability to stand up to her, but glaring at a box on the mantle just wasn’t as satisfying as railing at her in person would have been.
Goddess, I missed her. I was mad at her. I was hurt. Crushed really. She had lied to me. All my life. And she was so very good at it no one had suspected the truth. The more I tugged on the strings of my memories, the more my past unraveled.
Maud Woolworth hadn’t spooked easy, but she must have been terrified to bury my identity so deep.
“I’m ready,” Linus informed me, snapping me back to attention. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“Hi, Timmy.” I started walking the length of the room. “I came back to visit you earlier, but you had company.”
No answer.
“Why are you here?” Linus spoke from the opposite corner. “Why haven’t you moved on?”
Still no response.
“I spoke to a friend about the devourer.” I wasn’t sure if sharing that news would terrorize him or spark a hope I had no right to claim, but I was running out of ideas fast. “I might have an idea how to protect you.”
Right now, that idea involved throwing myself on Boaz’s mercy, but Timmy didn’t have to know that yet.
The pale outline of a boy dressed in a sailor suit appeared before me. “You can’t.”
I checked the urge to tug one of his blond curls, uncertain if it was even possible. “Will you let me try?”
The tremor in his little voice slayed me. “How?”
“I brought someone to meet you. His name is Linus.” I waved him over until I remembered he couldn’t see me. “Linus, I think we better do this next part sans sigil.” He blinked into existence an instant after me. “There. Now we can all see each other.”
“He looks mean,” Timmy whispered. “Is he?”
“He’s a teacher,” I whispered back. “They all look that way.”
The ghost boy wobbled his head in eager agreement.