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Now, Eli wasn’t confronting the queen of thedraugr—or mentioning it to his wife just yet. He respected the subterfuge, if he were truly honest with himself. Beatrice had broken down Geneviève’s emotional walls in a fraction of the time it had taken him.
Of course,theywere blood family, and he had simply been a man in desperate love with a woman opposed to marriage. Eli wasn’t convinced Geneviève would’ve gracefully accept that crown, though. For a woman who oozed power, she seemed to want nothing to do with it.
He looked at the door again.
Silently, Christy took his place at the bar as the drunks approached to order again—or to cajole him to give them a drink. Eli refused to roll his eyes at the attempts at seductive looks they were sending him. Honestly, what the average person knew about faeries—even now that the fae was all over the media—was ludicrously little. He had no desire to seduce or entice or entrap them.
Only one woman would ever evoke that urge in him. Such was the nature of marriage for his kind. Yet, ignorance persists despite easy access to answers, and so it had been for centuries. Some humans simply preferred ignorance.
Softly, Christy murmured something about “public relations” and Eli’s “image,” and he wondered yet again if there was a way to convince his uncle that he simply wasn’t suited to royal living. Subterfuge and fae politics seemed as pointless as human politics and fame.
Unfortunately, every conversation Eli had begun on the matter resulted in Marcus, king ofElphame, arguing that if Eli would simply stop being a tavern-keep this would be easily resolved.
There was no middle ground.
Eli glanced at the door yet again. There had been no attempts to kidnap or kill Geneviève these last twelve or so weeks. Much like the lack ofdraugrbiting in the city, the relative quiet on that front had created an illusion of safety. But it was just that: an illusion.
Monsters would come for her as long as she was both a monster-killer and his bride.
If the world were to ever learn that she was evenmorethan that . . . the monsters that would come would be armed with badges and governmental authority, instead of the usual magic and weapons.
“She’ll be here,” Christy said, catching his eye a few moments later. “Aren’t you able to feel that she’s alive?”
“Yes.” If Geneviève died, Eli would drop where he stood—but there was a vast gap between alive and uninjured, and with Chester out there still, Eli couldn’t relax.
4
GENEVIÈVE
The lull in conflict within New Orleans had stretched so long that the tourism was unprecedented, which was saying a lot for my home city. Laughter rang out, and for a flicker, I wondered if this was what it had been like here before thedraugrhad crept out of the proverbial grave. A city that still clung to a riotous joy, New Orleans left the worrywarts of the world to their funereal moods. Better to die laughing than cringing seemed to be our motto.
And I couldn’t argue.
“I appreciate the lessons, Iggy,” I said, breaking my silence finally. “I even understand why you want Eli to lock me away.”
Iggy was silent as we walked through the city to Bill’s Tavern. The bar was at the edge of the Marigny, which had more or less merged with the quarter sometime after thedraugrbecame a problem initially.
“But?” he finally asked.
“I’m like a lot of people here. I won’t stay hidden away, waiting for a monster to stumble on me. If death wants me, he’s going to have to come armed and ready.” I glanced over at him. “Maybe Chester moved on now that he sees I’m not gunning for some power or influence.”
“You don’t believe that.”
I sighed.
“And you gather power the way the moon gathers the sea,” Iggy pointed out.
Poetic though it was, I couldn’t argue efficiently, so I pointed out, “But I don’twantit.”
We crossed the darker area between the tourist heavy French Quarter and Frenchmen Street in silence. It used to be prime biting--or mugging—territory, so the city had offered the empty space at lower rent. Now, that space was filled with shops. They did the same at the area past Canal Street where there had been mostly businesses that were closed at night. That had meant too many shadowed doorways.
By about two years after the monster came to town—when many of the world’s cities tried to build walls and ban monsters—New Orleans had simply expanded the light. The safe area extended from beyond Canal, through the Quarter, and beyond the bars on Frenchmen Street. We were far fromdraugr-free, but the whole Quarter, the edge of the CBD, and the edge of the Marigny were all well-patrolled. Once a tourist was safely in the patrolled zone, they were relatively safe. And the city’s tourism shifted from tours of historic spots to haunts where our visitors could be titillated by a chance to see a real, unalive monster.
“I’m not saying I am hunting him down,” I assured Iggy. Again. “I’m just saying that if he comes, I won’t back down. It’s not who I am.”
I gestured at the city, crowds and shadows, laughter and hope. New Orleans was a con-woman and a survivor. We didn’t roll up the sidewalks at dusk. We adjusted—and we thrived. Magic and monsters, booze and biters, revelers and risks, we had it all.
And I had the privilege of protecting the city.
