Hope that this might signal a return to normal for her tightened my chest. “You’re tired of cereal?”
“No, but cereal is tired of me.” An unhappy gurgle welled in her stomach. “You off to meet Linus?”
“Yes.” Cue my belly’s anticipatory growl. “Lessons wait for no woman. Or parakeet.”
“I’ll be here when you get back,” she joked, mostly, the words less bitter than in nights past.
When Amelie veered toward one of the downstairs bathrooms, she tapped each doorknob in the hall as she passed them, a new habit she’d developed that reminded me of a prisoner counting the bars on her cell. Tension ratcheted through my shoulders when her fingers brushed the glass knob leading down into the basement, but her stride didn’t so much as hitch as she marched on.
Thank Hecate it was still magically sealed, and no one had figured out how to access it.
At least, not yet.
Two
With Eileen, my eyeball-studded grimoire, tucked under one arm and what I considered Keet’s traveling cage dangling from my fingers, I exited Woolly through the kitchen and entered the rear garden. Following the winding flagstone path to the carriage house, I put an extra bounce in my step that probably had more to do with the smell of cinnamon and butter wafting through the window over the sink than the lessons awaiting me.
The front door no longer stood open, and I missed that implied welcome more than I ever expected.
All thanks to Julius, who had arrived from the Lawson aviary last week to assist Linus in the next phase of my education: the familiar bond. Now that the great horned butthole was in residence, Linus’s open-door policy had been nixed. Almost like he worried his owl might accidentally fly far, far away and never be seen or heard from again after I accidentally left the door open and accidentally chased him out with a broom.
Once certain I wasn’t about to get dive-bombed, I darted inside and slammed the door behind me. I didn’t have to search far to spot Linus bent over the stove while he flipped French toast for our breakfast. Well, my breakfast. The man ate like more of a bird than his fowl-tempered familiar. Ha.
Tonight, he wore dove-gray slacks that molded to his backside. Having pants tailor-made did that. His white button-down shirt was likewise fitted to highlight his lean musculature, the cuffs rolled up over his forearms. His dark auburn hair brushed his shoulders, the ends curling slightly thanks to the humidity. “How is Amelie today?”
Each dusk, he greeted me with the same question. I might have drawn the containment ward meant to keep the dybbuk from repossessing her, but he had been the one to tattoo it on her ankle. His interest in her was the same as his interest in me—clinical. “Any new symptoms?”
“No, Dr. Lawson.” A grin tugged at my lips. “The patient has not relapsed since dawn.”
Linus glanced at me over his shoulder, his dark eyes dancing, bluer than black at the moment. “I don’t have a medical doctorate.” A smile blossomed. “Yet.”
“Why does it not surprise me to learn you’re chasing another suffix?” I slumped into my usual chair at the kitchen table, settled Eileen an arm’s length away, then placed Keet’s cage at my feet. “You’re too ambitious for your own good. You make the rest of us look bad.”
“You have plenty of time to catch up.” He plated us each four toasty slices of heaven, cut them on the diagonal, and dusted them with confectioner’s sugar. He carried them to the table before returning for the maple syrup and butter, and I noticed he only brought one fork. Not that I had expected him to indulge. I had yet to see him do more than nibble. As far as I could tell, he just liked keeping up appearances. “You’re twenty-one.” Back at the counter, he poured us each a glass of milk then claimed the seat across from me. “You’ve got centuries to accomplish anything you set your mind to, Grier.”
“You’re not eating,” I mumbled around a mouthful of bliss. “Why bother cooking if you aren’t hungry?”
“You’re hungry.” He cracked open the binder containing the syllabus for his beginner’s guide to necromancy and flipped to where we left off last night. “That’s reason enough.”
“Do you ever eat?” Unrepentant, I stabbed the topmost piece of French toast on his plate and crammed it in my mouth before reaching for the milk. “Or drink?”
“Yes.”
I waited for him to expound on his dietary requirements, but he appeared absorbed in his lesson plans. “When?”
“Does it matter?” He kept skimming, writing notes in the margin.
“Yes.” I stole another wedge from him while he wasn’t looking and decimated it in two bites. Maple syrup stuck one corner to my cheek, but I didn’t let that slow the fork-to-mouth action. “Is this another side effect of bonding with a wraith?”
Call me paranoid, but I was starting to think that was his go-to excuse when he wanted a topic dropped.
“More or less.” His gaze lifted to mine, and his eyes sparkled, a rich navy blue in this light. “Do you need a wet cloth?”
“No.” Heat tingled in my cheeks, which were goopy with syrup. “I can get it.” I poked the corner of toast glued to my face into my mouth with my pinky—like a lady—then turned up my glass of milk to wash it all down. “My compliments to the chef.”
The chef in question stood, the blades of his sharp cheekbones ruddy beneath his freckles, and he padded to the sink where he wet a dish towel.
“Here.” He returned to me, bending low to dab my cheek and jaw. “Let me get that.”
“Have you ever considered teaching elementary school instead of college?”
“No.” The rag, and his focus, slipped over my bottom lip. “Why do you ask?”
“You’re a nurturer.” I took the cloth from him, the fabric warmer than his chilly fingers. “You’re good at taking care of people.”
The praise stunned him into silence for a beat. “Caring for someone because you want to is a different beast than caring for someone because it’s your job.”
“Ah,” I said eloquently while stinging heat crept across my chest like a spreading sunburn. The idea he might actually like having me around was…nice. “Can I ask you a question?”
A crinkle pleated his forehead into neat rows. “Yes.”
I steeled myself for his response while scrubbing the sticky residue off my hands. “Have you met any Marchands?”
“No.” He straightened at last and reclaimed his seat. “Mother and Evangeline weren’t close. Mother was the stereotypical annoying little sister. She idolized Maud, but she wasn’t allowed in her big sister’s inner circle.” He considered me. “She probably hadn’t thought about your mother in years until Evangeline returned to Savannah. She can be…”
“Self-centered?”
“I was going to say career-oriented.” He twisted his mouth like it might squeeze off the laugh twitching in his shoulders. “Why do you ask?”
“Eloise Marchand showed up on my doorstep tonight.”
“That’s…unexpected.”
Black devoured his eyes from corner to corner while he conferred with Cletus. The wraith didn’t update Linus in real time unless I was in danger. Clearly Linus wasn’t willing to wait for the full report at dawn.
“Yes and…no.” I fessed up before he put two and two together. “I might have asked Odette to call Dame Marchand.”
“You’re searching for your father.” The statement came out with the slightest edge.
“Yeah.” I ducked my head. “I thought it might help to know how he fits into all this.”
This being the goddess-touched freak of nature that was his daughter.
“There was a reason your mother kept him out of your lives.”
“What reason?” I braced my elbow on the table and rested my chin on my palm. “No one knows.”
Eloise’s arrival had sparked a new possibility, one I had never considered, and I couldn’t ditch the idea.
Linus was shaking his head. “Your mother—”
“What if she never told him about me?” I tapped my bottom lip with my pinky. “What if he doesn’t know he has a daughter?”