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With a little push of power, I turned the bill into a razor.
“Oy.” He dropped the blade before it could do more than scratch him.
“You’ll wait your turn,” I said, taking out another dollar. I gave one to each child but told Jim he’d have to hold onto the razor till the magic faded and it turned back into a bill. They took off running, leaving Rafe and I in the dusty, twilight room.
“At least I can’t feel the Ferox Cor watching us down here,” I said, shrugging deeper into my coat. “And we’re not in the rain.”
“Excellent points, both of them.” Rafe drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Vincent, but we need to go back.”
“Not without Margaret.” I answered just as firmly. “I cannot imagine a circumstance under which I’d leave her to Oliver Stevenson’s will.”
“We won’t leave her.”
“So there’s no point in going back to the lighthouse, then.”
He paused before answering. “There’s too many ghosts down here. Let’s go someplace else where we can talk.”
“Maybe we can get ourselves a proper lunch upstairs.”
“Assuming they actually serve food.”
I shared Rafe’s skepticism, but led the way to the stairs, anyway. We’d reach a compromise. We had to.
Chapter Twenty
There was a tavern, and though the barman looked askance when we came in through the rear instead of the front like everybody else, he didn’t question us. Rather than the bar, I asked if we could have a table. We didn’t need curious ears overhearing our conversation.
They had oyster stew on the menu, which was fine by me, and soon we had two steaming bowls, two mugs of beer, and slices of bread and butter to occupy us. Rafe’s cane leaned against our table and a handful of businessmen worked on their own bowls of stew. None gave us more than a passing glance.
Rafe moved his hands carefully over the silverware, gently tracing the distance between the spoon and the edge of the bowl. For an awful moment, I flushed with embarrassment, imagining how those fingertips would feel tracing lines on my body.
“Um,” I cleared my throat, desperate to shift my mind onto another subject. “I’m pondering our next steps.”
Rafe paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. “We go back to the lighthouse, where Mother can read the cards again.”
I watched him take a bite, the way his shoulders relaxed and the muscles in his throat worked. My body warmed, my prick swelled. I clenched my fists to keep control of my baser impulses.
“Ifwe return to the lighthouse...” He wouldn’t leave again. He’d already said so. Rafe might hold Margaret in some regard but finding the amulet was his highest priority.
And if he wouldn’t leave, I couldn’t leave. “That’s one possibility.”
“What?”
I made a show of pulling out my pocket watch. “It’s after two pm. I don’t think we have time to paddle back before it gets dark.” I tucked my watch away. “If we stay till morning, we’ll have a few more hours to search.”
“We should leave right now.” Despite his words, Rafe stirred his stew, making no other move.
“Are you worried about your mother?”
His hesitation hinted that the answer was yes. Perhaps he should have stayed behind. The demon spirit had already proved its desire to possess one of us. What would stop it while Della was there alone?
As if reading my mind, Rafe said, “I set another spell. As long as Mother keeps to the house and the tower, no one, corporeal or not, will be able to touch her.”
“In that case,” I said, barely able to stifle my lecherous grin. “That leaves us with finding a place to spend the night.”
Rafe must have caught my change in tone because one eyebrow raised. “There are a few other places we could look. There’s Stevenson’s fishing boat. They could have moved her there. Or if they were feeling more generous, they could have brought her to those sisters.”
“The Franklins?”
