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“No longer crouched in the shadows either?” he prompted.
Beatrice nodded once more.
“And the hexen?” He inclined his head toward me.
Beatrice’s eyes tightened, but all she said was, “Geneviève Crowe is under my protection.”
I’d been watching them, mildly fascinated, until that moment. I tensed at my great-times-great-grandmother’s evasion. Why wasn’t she admitting our connection? She’d been very public in her regard of me, so her careful wording was telling. Who was Ignatius that she felt the need to lie? Or was she just in a mood? I had only known her a short while, despite our shared ancestry, so I wasn’t able to read her.
“Oh, this is going to be a wake snakes experience, Miss Crowe. I can tell that already,” the dead man said.
“Wake snakes?”
“Fun,” Beatrice said flatly.
“Do not bind him to you,” Beatrice whispered into my mind.“Whatever you do. Come see me without him when you can.”
I made no overt motion to indicate I’d heard—but when I met her gaze, she smiled.
I asked, gesturing at one of the nearby above-ground tombs. “If you open a mausoleum, I can shove Dead Iggy Pops here into it. What do you say?”
Beatriceflowedover to the nearest tomb with a door. “That’s not the worst plan you’ve had, Geneviève.”
“Now, see here, Beatrice!” He jabbed his cane into the dirt, and my skin prickled with the zing of magic the dead man was pulling to him. “You know damn well that if the hexen had no need of me I’d be moldering again.”
I looked at Beatrice, who dipped her chin in a slight nod of assent. And it wasn’t as if I trusted mostdraugr—but she was also the only otherdraugr-witch in the world. Admittedly, I was genetically both witch anddraugr, whereas Beatrice was a witch who had become adraugrwhen she’d died. Still, in some matters, I trusted her. This felt like one of those times.
“Fine. Iggy can sleep in the corner at my place,” I grumbled.
“My name, Miss Crowe, is ‘Ignatius’ or ‘Master Blackwood’ if you prefer.” He straightened, hand tightening on his cane.
I waved away his words. “I don’t cook. I don’t like interruptions, and as soon as hecango, hedoesgo. . . or”—I pointed at the mausoleum—“we execute Plan B. Clear?”
I waited long enough for a nod of assent from Beatrice—and then Iflowedas quickly as I could to the gates. If Iggy was so sure I needed him, he could find me his damn self.
Chapter Four
Whatever had broughtBeatrice or her lackey to the cemetery remained a mystery that I would not be solving tonight. She hadn’t wanted to speak in front of Iggy, and I wasn’t sure I could shake him to go to her estate. Only one way to check if I could dodge the dead guy, though: I’d put it to the test.
After Iflowedaway, I hopped into Eli’s car and ordered, “Drive. Fast.”
And Eli, Goddess and G-d bless him, didn’t ask questions.
In as long as it took to turn on the engine and slip into gear, he had the car flinging through the city at a speed that defied words. My temper was simmering, and the lingering taint of magic—the lashback—that rode me after I’d summoned the dead wanted only two things: fight or fuck. Unfortunately, one would result in me becoming the queen ofElphame, so that left fighting as my only viable option.
“Too much energy,” I admitted.
Eli knew me in that way that didn’t require excess words, so in short order we were walking into my apartment building. My apartment spanned the ground floor of the building; no one else wanted to live in a ground floor unit where the dead could look into—or crawl into—the windows easily. I’d divided it into living space, work-out space, and one unit I’d kept as intact apartment—like a glorified guest room or mother-in-law suite.
The security door slammed closed behind us.
“Sharps?” Eli asked as I led us into my apartment. The open space just inside the door looked like a martial arts studio, but with the occasional shoe or coffee mug scattered between weapons and workout machines.
I tossed him a brass sword. “Blunts.”
I didn’t draw steel swords with Eli because of the whole fae-allergy thing. The stuff was toxic to him, but his uncle, the King ofElphame, had recently sent a collection of fae-made brass swords for us. They were obscenely expensive, but not as much as the silver coated brass swords Eli often had. Those could pass for ornamental steel if he needed to hide what he was.
“Come get me, cupcake,” Eli taunted, circling and trying to draw me out with feints.
