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“If I don’t go now, I don’t know if I can,” I confessed. “It’s morning there.”
His smug grin wasn’t helping my resolve, nor was the sight of his naked body. “Wouldn’t want to distract you . . .”
I stared at him as he stood and took a step toward me. “Tease.”
“Tease . . . but with promises to deliver.”
I flowed out of the house, his joyous chuckle following me.
When I stepped through the veil into Eli’s—intoour—yard, I saw Ally in her car. She was sitting there, singing as if it was any other day. If not for her blackened eye, I might be able to pretend it was.
“Boss!” She was out of the car and running. Her hug was more tackle than embrace, and I stumbled at the force of it.
“Ally.” I squeezed her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault.” She pulled back and studied me. “They said you were okay but. . .”
“I needed a nap.”
“Makes sense.” Ally shrugged and walked over to her car. “Beatrice is waiting.”
I didn’t ask how she knew that, but Ally had no ability to keep secrets from me. She grinned when I got into the car. “I told her I’d check in with her today. She did some sort of calculations between Eli’s world and here.”
When we parked, Ally held out dark shades and an umbrella.
“It’s not raining.” I slipped the dark glasses on. The sun still wasn’t my friend, even with Eli’s blood mixing with mine. I sighed. “I don’t need an umbrella, Allie.”
She looked at me with a familiar frustration and patience. “It’s aparasolfor sun.”
I took it, noting that what I thought were flowers were little blood droplets with thin legs and feet. Ally had given me a dancing blood parasol, but at glance, it looked almost feminine if you thought the cheery blood drops were flowers. I stared at it.
“Don’t forget your beet juice!” she called, shaking another travel mug. This one, fortunately, was black.
And then she was gone, snapping open her own parasol covered in some designer’s insignia and walking into a small group of people who were headed to the pre-dawn coffee vendors. Ally wasn’t quitethismuch of a morning person, and she wasn’t entirely sure of her feelings about Tres or Beatrice today.
I sat at the bench in Jackson Square. This early, the city was either recently to their beds or not yet awake. The dawn light was creeping out of the night, and objectively it was lovely.
My grandmother arrived a few moments later. She was put together in the way of regents of old, a high Elizabethan collar topped a fur-trimmed cloak. Under it was a fitted gown that looked like it required corset and other layers.
“How do you breathe?” I asked as she stood beside the bench.
“Dead.” She gave me a small smile. “As you may recall. . .”
I motioned for her to sit. “Can you fight in it?”
She quirked her lips. “In all these centuries no one else has dared ask.”
Beatrice reached under her cloak and in a moment, the constricting dress fell to her feet, revealing leggings and a corset top.
I laughed. “What fools anyone must be to underestimate you.”
“Indeed.” She sat beside me, silent for a moment. “No one of import lost to us, as I understand.”
“Iggy. . .”
Beatrice sighed. “That man has ever been trouble.”
“He’s alive now.”
