Page 38 of Bloodgrove

But he would be even more naïve than Mr. Arcos accused him of being, if he allowed himself to hope he might ever find out.

Will hesitated once more outside the door of the occult shop. In the grimy glass, he saw his pale reflection as a shadowy figure, every bit as mysterious as the city’s inhabitants imagined him. Once, he had allowed himself to become that person. He had sacrificed blood and bone for a little glory and a ballroom. How had he wandered so far that he stood on that threshold again? Had he truly learned nothing from his mistakes?

The bell above the door of the occult shop rang over his head. His eyes adjusted to the dim light as he glanced over the rows of shelves packed so tightly together that there was barely space to walk between them. Even the smell was murky—a blend of candle soot, entrails, dust, and beeswax. Apart from the occasional opening of the door, no one had aired the place in decades.

But his doubts faded the moment Will saw the treasures on the shelves, which until now he had only admired through the window. Golden instruments, jars in which hands floated, vials of bone dust, dried herbs and shrunken heads, vampire teeth and monster claws, ritual daggers and priestly robes, encyclopedias and grimoires, chalk, tarot cards, skeletons, scales, and organs—dried, preserved, or stuffed.

Will stopped in astonishment, his eyes dancing from one treasure to the next. But one question burned through him like acid: what would a place like this look like in the Capitol? What kind of wonderland might the city become if it permitted magic? If progress, technology, and the supernatural became one? Will swallowed. If he did not have to hide.

“Spark’s Ritual and Occult Shop. What can I do for you?” Saint greeted him in a bored voice, still half asleep. The moment his gaze fell on Will, his face came alive, and he quickly straightened.

“You came back! I knew you’d miss me.” Grinning, he pushed the unruly curls from his face and leaned one hip against the counter.

“Miss is a strong word for an insolent boy like you.” Mildly amused, Will wandered through the shelves with his hands clasped behind his back. Saint was far from being a familiar face, but knowing that a kindred spirit waited inside had made it easier for Will to cross the threshold. During their brief exchange, he had felt more like himself than he had with anyone else in Bloodgrove.

“My friends are talking about you,” Saint said, watching as Will examined a vampire skull.

Will tilted his head, his long, neatly combed braid sliding over his shoulder, and the young man’s gaze caught on it. “What are they saying about me?”

“That you are a powerful mage Duchess Ormonde has claimed for herself. Supposedly, she is searching for a husband.” He phrased the last sentence like a question, then leaned across the counter with a crooked grin. “Has she noticed yet that you anchor in a different harbor?”

Will laughed and returned the vampire skull to the shelf. Here it was so easy just to be and feel seen.

Will was neither a powerful mage nor had he given Elodie any reason to believe he had no interest in her. Quite the opposite. It unsettled him that the certainty he had felt ever since realizing the nude statues of male angels fascinated him more than those of women was wavering. That as a grown man who had long since embraced that truth about himself, he now dreamed of taking a duchess to bed.

“Have any of these rumors been confirmed?” Will asked, opening a spellbook.

“Not yet… but I would be happy to help with the last one.” Saint grinned.

On another day, perhaps he would have accepted the offer. Will had taken young men like Saint as lovers, bending their narrow hips over sinks in certain bars or enjoying how eagerly they took him in dark alleys, behind closed curtains at the theater, or in his own soft bed. But he could never entirely forget that he had once been one of them, and that his soul still carried scars from those years.

They had been wild times, full of misplaced trust, passionate longing, and dramatic highs and lows. Yet he had never imagined that thoughts of a woman would one day keep him awake.

He glanced toward Saint. Perhaps he should accept the offer. Perhaps loneliness and nightmares had driven him mad.

With sudden resolve, Will snapped the book shut without having read a single line and returned it to the shelf. “Help me with this list instead.” He pulled the shopping list from his notebook and slid it across the counter. The wood was so scarred with cuts and gouges that hardly any of its surface remained level.

Saint clicked his tongue, his blackened fingers closing around the page. “Your loss. You know where to find me if the old Ormonde house gets lonely.” Then he skimmed the list, and his eyebrows rose.

Will had expected to feel more nervous, but now that he was here, a strange calm settled over him. He patiently watched Saint’s sharp face and noticed the line of glittering earrings running along the curve of his ear. The redhead was beautiful in his own wild way, with freckle-kissed skin and an upturned nose.

Saint pulled a pencil from behind his other ear and marked down some notes beside the list.

“So at least we can confirm one rumor—you are a powerful mage,” he said without looking up from the paper. “How fresh do you need the bones?”

Saint did not so much as blink at the neat entry, human bones, beside harmless items such as shells, scales, pearls, and salt. Elodie had said she wanted magic, and although Will did not fully understand its rules, he knew it demanded sacrifices.

That he had not yet decided whether he would actually use magic was another matter.

“Fresh.” Will doubted there was any morally acceptable way to ask for fresh human bones in a shop like this. But the list had come to him in a dream, whispered by a god who rode upon the long beams of the moon.

“Vampire bones are the freshest I can offer.”

At once, memories of the full-moon night and the horrors of the cellar surged back. Will drew a sharp breath, trying to rid his tongue of the taste of decay and sweat. He would rather breathe in the mixture of soot and incense.

To his relief, Saint laughed. “Eric already told me you disapprove of how we treat vampires.”

“Eric?” For a moment, Will lost control of his expression.