She blinked at him like he was a hallucination. He blinked back, bone tired.
“You’re just in time,” she finally said.
“For what?”
And before he could so much as ask if she’d eaten today or tell her that her family plot had nearly been desecrated, she reached out, grabbed his coat lapel with those ridiculous ink-smudged fingers, and hauled him over the threshold.
The parlor looked like a séance had collided with a theatrical production ofMacbethand lost.
Candles everywhere. Wax puddles on the floor. A lace-draped table tilted slightly like someone had kicked a leg out. And at its head—gods preserve him—sat a woman in a velvet turban and too much rouge, whispering nonsense to the ether.
“The spirits are restless tonight,” she intoned, waving a feather fan that had no business being indoors.
Alaric stood there, water still trailing down his temple, staring at Thea like she’d grown another head. She mouthed,Don’t say a word,and slid into a chair.
He followed stiffly, lowering the trunk and case to the floor with the same delicacy he’d use placing a bomb.
A chair squeaked. The table creaked. The candles hissed like they knew he wasn’t welcome here.
The medium’s eyes rolled back. “There is someone new among us,” she hissed. “A man. With a soul knotted in duty. A heart… in chains.”
Alaric’s jaw tightened.
Thea cleared her throat and gestured toward him. “My fiancé.”
That did not help. The medium pointed a bejeweled finger at him. “You… you tread in grave places.”
“I’m a detective inspector.” He narrowed his eyes.
“She means that literally,” Thea whispered, grabbing his arm as the table gave an ominous groan beneath her teacup.
The lights flickered.
Alaric looked to the ceiling. “Is the gas line safe?”
A candelabrum shivered.
He turned his head and, very calmly, murmured, “Miss Blackwood, is this safe?”
“I’m not sure,” Thea whispered, eyes wide as the table gave another low knock from beneath. “But I think my mother’s about to arrive.”
Another knock. Then another. Thenthreehard raps on the underside of the table—and every candle in the room flared with a sudden, eerie blue flame.
Alaric didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just clenched his jaw and thought of Castlebury, who had warned him—warned him—that falling for a chaotic woman led to moments like this.
The room spun with cold. The lights dimmed again. The camera case at his feet gave a quietclick, as if the ghost in the machine had just taken a snapshot of this exact moment.
Thea reached for his hand beneath the table and squeezed. And Alaric, utterly soaked, still bleeding from his temple, and somehow more in love than ever with the maddening woman beside him… squeezed back.
Chapter Seven
The smell ofcheap incense was so thick it could’ve summoned a sinus infection. Or, presumably, the dead.
Thea sat primly at her grandmother’s parlor table, trying not to cough as Madame Morella, a woman draped in more velvet than a drawing room sofa, moaned softly and fluttered her hands over a bowl of murky water. The table was scattered with mismatched crystals, a single black candle, and several objects Thea was fairly certain had been stolen from Gran’s curio shelf.
Across from her, Alaric sat stiff-backed in a chair that creaked in protest every time he shifted. His waistcoat was damp from the drizzle outside, his collar askew, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack stone. He looked like he’d walked straight out of a gothic painting titledMan in the Wrong Room Entirely.
She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
