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I gazed at my arms, then back at them, feeling a whole lot less alone. "It's true--we have shifted. Shadow Wing saw to that. I wish we could find Stacia.
The longer she's out there, the more worried I get."
The Bonecrusher had eluded us for far too long now. But every lead we traced came up empty. We knew there had to be a leak somewhere--someone feeding her information--but we couldn't figure out who was ratting us out. And Stacia was doing a good job of playing her cards close to the table.
"I'm worried that by the time she makes her move, she'l be right on top of us, and we won't have a chance to react."
"We can't do anything about it tonight. Tomorrow's another day." Menol y stood up, pul ing me to my feet. "You should get some sleep for now. You've had a long day. Camil e, too."
"What's on the agenda for tomorrow?" Iris led the way to the kitchen. We'd developed the habit of gathering around the kitchen table--al of us--and having tea before bedtime. It gave us a close to the day, a moment to breathe.
Camil e grabbed the steno pad from the table beneath the wal phone. She hadn't changed out of her priestess robes yet, and they left nothing to the imagination under the glare of the overhead light. Rozurial was checking her out, but the moment Smoky entered the room, his eyes were right back on the tea he was helping Iris fix. Roz had become Iris's unofficial souschef in the kitchen and had a surprising knack for cooking.
Menol y was the only one of us stil bright-eyed. She hovered up by the ceiling, her favorite place to hang out. The guys sprawled out on the various benches and chairs we'd managed to accumulate around the huge oak table.
Smoky had bought us a new one when it was apparent that the old table wasn't going to do the trick for the number of people living on our land. The new table was gigantic, and there was barely room to squeeze past it in order to get to the stove and counters. The kitchen itself was huge, but the dining area had shrunk in relation to the size of the furniture, and the guys were talking about building an addition--expanding the kitchen and dining area.
Surprisingly, al of the men were handy with a hammer, and over the past month, they had taken care of al the little odd jobs the house needed, including storm windows being instal ed in place of single-pane.
Camil e dropped the steno pad on the table and glanced through the page. "How did everyone do today with what we'd planned out? Not much on the agenda but the wedding."
"Shouldn't we just have our tea and cal it a night?" Tril ian asked, flashing Camil e a suggestive look. Tonight she was al his, and we al knew it. He'd made sure everyone knew it.
Tril ian had also proven to be a surprise. Ever since he returned from the war, he'd stil been his arrogant self but more wil ing to help and less combative. He was a strong proponent of Iris's nightly tea parties, and was now addicted to Earl Grey tea with lemon and honey, which he preferred drinking from a bone china cup. Definitely a side of the Svartan that nobody outside of the kitchen would ever guess.
Camil e shook her head. "Have to do the agenda stuff. We've gotten to the point where we need to keep track of things. But yeah, not much on here for today. What about tomorrow?"
"I want to start checking into the disappearance of Luke's sister," I said. "I could use some help. What's going on down at the shop?"
She frowned, and a pale light passed through those gorgeous violet eyes of hers. "They're almost done with the remodeling. We can open back up in three weeks. I'm not sure how I feel about it, though. Every time I go in there, I'm going to be thinking about how Henry died."
"That wil ease. And you know he'd want you to use that money he left you to expand the shop like he'd planned." Iris patted her shoulder. "Everything wil be fine."
Henry had left Camil e a considerable sum of money, surprising us al .
"I thought everything would be fine when I hired him to work for me. But look what happened. Now he's dead and . . ." Camil e let out long sigh. "Never mind. At least I've found somebody skil ed in martial arts to take over managing it for me. I miss being there every day, but with the constant threat from Shadow Wing . . ." Again, her words drifted off.
Vanzir leaned back in his chair. "You won't be sorry you hired Gisel e. She knows her stuff. You wait and see--I promise."
I glanced over at him, and he gave me a quick wink. Once in a while Vanzir let down his guard, and a little bit of humanity showed through that demon heart of his. He'd found Gisel e for Camil e without being asked. The she-demon was part of the Demon Underground and had been living Earthside for thirty years. Carter, our main contact to the Earthside demonic forces, had also vouched for her. Gisel e was anti- Shadow Wing, and she hated snakes.
And anything to do with snakes. Including Stacia Bonecrusher.
"I'm holding you to that promise," Camil e muttered. "My customers expect someone who understands the nature of books."
I cleared my throat. "Let's get this wrapped up." I popped a couple Oreos as Iris and Roz passed around teacups and a plate of cookies. "So, wil you have time to help me tomorrow? To look for Amber, I mean?"
Camil e nodded. "Yeah, but the guys are busy, I think."
Smoky leaned over her and swiped a couple of the cookies. "Morio is coming with me out to my barrow to do some autumn cleaning, and I need to check on Georgio."
"What about you?" I looked up at Tril ian.
He shrugged. "Sorry. I'm taking care of some work around the house for Iris that needs to be done before winter hits."
With a sigh, I turned to Rozurial. "I suppose you're busy, too?"
The incubus shook his head. "Vanzir and I are scouting out another lead on the Bonecrusher. Probably another false alarm, but we have to make certain. We can't let anything go by that might give us a clue to her whereabouts."
