Odette was the closest thing left I had to a mother, and hearing her voice unlocked a fresh wellspring of tears that flowed down my cheeks while I curled around my phone on the couch.
“I warned him he stood at a crossroads,” she said sadly. “Had he chosen well, he would have had his heart’s desire: freedom to live as his own man, power to enact change, love that transcends centuries. But he chose poorly, and he has lost that which matters most to him: himself.”
“It hurts,” I said thickly, voice catching. “It’s never… Him choosing someone over me never hurt this much before.”
I had plenty of experience in losing Boaz to other women. This latest ought to be yet another speed bump that jarred me to my senses. For a little while. Before I set my sights on him again. But not this time. The break felt…
“Marriage within the Society is forever.” Odette sounded pained to remind me. “That ache you feel is a true ending, bébé. He can no longer cast his net wide then drag home to you when his arms tire. He has tangled with a whale, and she will drag him out to sea.”
The mental picture of him hurtling toward the Atlantic like a water skier behind a speedboat almost made me laugh. But I was scared if I started that I wouldn’t stop until the tears came again. They would masquerade as happy tears and hide behind my smile, but I would know the truth.
Singing me to sleep was off the table. Odette was no songbird. So, I asked for a different favor instead.
“Tell me a story,” I murmured, eyes drifting shut, “about you and Maud and Mom.”
Warmed by the ray of sunlight slanted over my shoulder, I listened to her retell the story of the time she convinced them to go sailing in the middle of a hurricane. Curled on the couch, her voice in one ear and Linus’s breath in the other, I tumbled into fitful sleep.
Sixteen
Bacon woke me. Okay, the bacon didn’t physically reach out and shake me until my eyes opened, but the smell did set my stomach growling. Sometime during the day, I had found an empty corner and huddled there with an afghan tangled around my legs. Judging by the stacked trunks blurred through my puffy eyelids, I was still in the living room.
“Coffee?” a towering god asked while extending a cup of ambrosia toward me.
“Yes,” I rasped, voice ruined. “Thanks.”
The god, who also happened to smell like bacon and resemble Linus, sat beside me.
“You’re going to wrinkle your clothes.”
“That’s what irons are for,” he countered. “How are you feeling?”
“Like my heart has forgotten its rhythm.” After I gulped down a scalding mouthful, my eyes remembered how to open fully, and I raked my gaze over Linus. “How about you?”
“You saved my life,” he said simply.
“Just returning the favor.”
“Thanks all the same.” A faint curl of his lips betrayed his amusement. “We make a good team.”
“We do.” I rested my shoulder against his, and after a moment, he leaned back. “All good partnerships ought to require both people to take turns being the damsel, like a team-building exercise.” I tilted my head back and smiled. “I’ll take you dress shopping next week. Though, I don’t know where we’ll find one of those pointy hat and veil combos.”
“Hennin.”
“Are you an encyclopedia spelled into a human skin? You can tell me. I’ll keep your secret.”
A flush stained the high curves of his cheeks pink, and the daisy under his left eye turned downright rosy.
“Amelie’s called twelve times since I woke at dusk.” Somehow, he made it into a question.
“I don’t want to talk to her.” I sipped my coffee, letting its warmth seep into me. “I don’t want to see her, either.”
“That’s going to be difficult when you live together,” he pointed out, not unkindly.
“I have a proposal.” The reflexive closing of my throat warned tears were queued and ready to fly at a moment’s notice, but I swallowed through the tight knot. “Poor choice of words.”
After removing the fresh kitchen towel from his shoulder, he pressed it into my hands. “I’m listening.”
“Move in with me.”
Linus startled so hard, he banged his head against the wall. “What?”
“I can’t do this.” A strain entered my voice that hadn’t been there earlier. “I can’t look at her without seeing him, and I can’t see him right now if I want to pull myself back from this.” I peered up at Linus. “I’m a hot mess.” I pushed out a sigh. “I need to be around someone who doesn’t add to that.”
“Woolly won’t approve.”
That wasn’t a no. I could work with that.
“She didn’t want to accommodate Amelie in the first place. I twisted her arm. After this? Woolly will evict her. Forcibly if necessary. Amelie will be lucky if her great-great-grandkids can step foot inside my house without getting expelled.” I swirled the remains of my drink, careful not to slosh over the lip. “This is going to end one of two ways. Either I get a new roommate, or you do.”
“Woolly can be reasoned with,” he began. “You don’t have to invite me in. I’m content staying here.”
“She loved Boaz too,” I told Linus. “They were friends. She trusted him.” I set my cup down before the anger threatening the edge of my thoughts forced me to smash it on principle. “Boaz—” I choked on the name, “—is all the family Amelie’s got left. He’s going to want to visit her, and Woolly will not grant him entrance. Odds are high she’ll toss Amelie out on her keister as soon as she learns what happened.”
“These aren’t the terms you agreed to,” he said softly. “We’ll have to talk to my mother.”
“Can we not and say we did?” I left each of our encounters feeling like I had lost something.
“We have to do this the right way, or you’ll be penalized, and Amelie will become a ward of the Society.”
The temptation to wipe my hands clean of her glittered like a gem in my mind’s eye, but I wasn’t that cruel. I hadn’t offered her sanctuary only to pull the rug from under her. Despite all she had done to me, for me, I loved her enough to spare her that fate.
“I don’t want to go to the Lyceum.”
“The only alternative is bringing Mother here.”
“I’ll pull on some pants.”
“I’ll pack the bacon.”
I patted his arm. “Good man.”
City hall was as quiet as a tomb, for which I was thankful. While we took the elevator down to the hidden subfloor that housed the Lyceum, a transformation overcame Linus. His shoulders wound tighter, his chin jutted higher, and his expression flattened into a flawless mask of austerity. His ability to morph into this Linus, the version I considered Scion Lawson, fascinated me as much as it worried me.
Planting myself in front of him, I braced my hands on his chest and rolled up on my tiptoes. “Are you still in there?”
“I’m right here.” He didn’t break character, and the cut of his blue eyes—edging toward black—chilled me. “I’m still me.”
“You don’t look like you.” A shiver tripped down my spine. “I don’t like this side of you.”
“Are you implying you like others?” The teasing question didn’t belong on those lips.
“I like you,” I allowed. “The real you.”
“Thank you.” His cool fingers traced the bend of one knuckle. “I’m glad one of us knows who he is anymore.”
A perky ding signaled our arrival, and I followed him out into the hall tiled in blood-red marble.
The usual bustle was absent tonight, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We didn’t even have to knock on the Grande Dame’s door, though I wasn’t sure if that was because Linus had called ahead while I got dressed or if the Grande Dame didn’t stand on ceremony when she was alone.
Linus strolled right up to the threshold, the tips of his loafers toeing the invisible line. “Mother.”
“Darling.” Her head popped up, and joy suffused her features. “You’re home.”
“Atlanta is my home now,” he told her in no uncertain terms.
“An old habit.” All elegance, she rose and circled her desk until she could embrace him. “And you’ve brought Grier.” She enveloped me in a hug that smelled and felt so much like Maud, fresh tears welled then dripped on her shoulder. “Is everything all right?”