"Let's go home."
Chapter
Forty-Seven
Winter
The apartment felt wrong the moment we stepped inside.
Not wrong in the "cultists lurking in corners" way I'd grown accustomed to. Wrong in a way that made my prophetic markings itch beneath my skin, like they were trying to warn me about something just out of reach.
I held Horrace closer, his tentacles tightening around my neck in response to my tension. He still didn't remember me, not really, but he'd started humming softly during the car ride. Just a few bars of something I didn't recognize, but it was music, and that had to count for something.
Hope. I was holding onto hope like it was a life raft.
"Coffee," I announced to no one in particular, setting Horrace on the couch. "I need coffee before whatever fresh hell is waiting for us decides to make an appearance."
The guys dispersed with practiced efficiency. Rook immediately prowled the perimeter, nostrils flaring as he scanned for threats. Zane checked the windows, his fae-enhanced senses alert for magical disturbances. Fenric pulledout his tablet, already typing what was probably a seventeen-page report about our return trip.
Milo plopped beside Horrace, his skeleton crew emerging from his backpack like tiny undead party guests. Jeffrey immediately began setting up another tea service, because apparently that was just their thing now.
I was halfway to the kitchen when I heard it.
Clack. Clack. Clack clack clack.
Tiny bone sounds, rhythmic and deliberate. Growing louder.
"Milo?" I paused, frowning. "Are your skeletons doing something?"
"Jeffrey's right here," he pointed to the tiny skeleton arranging teacups with obsessive precision. "And the others are all accounted for."
The clacking intensified. Organized now. Purposeful. Like a miniature army marching in formation.
"That's not mine," Milo's expression shifted from curious to concerned.
The apartment door creaked open.
Six miniature skeletons marched inside in perfect formation, their bone feet clicking against the hardwood in unison. These weren't Milo's usual crew. They were dirtier, their bones showing signs of prolonged exposure to the elements. Each carried a tiny backpack cobbled together from what looked like stolen materials. One wore a Bureau security badge pinned to its ribcage like a medal.
I blinked, trying to process what I was seeing. "I feel like I'm about to be drafted into the world's smallest army."
Milo looked horrified. "Oh. Winter. Uhhh… don't scream."
"Why would I scream?" My voice rose an octave. "They're just tiny skeletons who apparently went on an unauthorized field trip and committed petty theft."
Jeffrey, moving to meet the skeletons, took something from the one in the front, and he stepped forward with the solemn bearing of someone delivering a state of the union address. He lifted something overhead with both hands, presenting it like Simba in the Lion King.
A small bone shard etched with glowing runes.
The runes looked disturbingly familiar. Too familiar. They matched the patterns crawling across my arm almost exactly but not quite.
The shard radiated faint blue light, humming at a frequency that resonated in my bones. I felt my markings respond, pulsing in time with whatever power the shard contained. The six mini-skeletons arranged themselves in a semicircle and bowed with dramatic flourish. Jeffrey followed suit.
"Oh no," I backed up a step. "Am I being knighted? Please don't knight me. I barely passed high school gym class."
"Not knighting," Milo's face had gone pale, his usual cheerfulness evaporating. "Offering.This is bad. Really, REALLY bad."
The shard pulsed brighter in Jeffrey's tiny hands, and I watched with growing dread as Milo's skeletons joined the bow, creating a synchronized display of skeletal reverence that would have been comical if Milo didn't look ready to pass out.
