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Camryn smiled. “You’re just jealous of his exquisite bone structure.”
Gun gave him an admiring glance. “You’re not wrong.” He rubbed his own narrow jawline. “If only there were a card for that.”
Someone in the crowd shushed them.
“The shusher is right. Focus on the service and not your dreamboat,” Gun advised in a quiet voice. “We’re honoring the dead now, no matter how dickish he was.”
We fell silent, but it didn’t last long. Camryn sneezed; the sound cut through the quiet like a morning alarm.
“You were thinking about Vaughn, weren’t you?” Gun asked in a sly voice.
Camryn kept her gaze on the proceedings. “What makes you say that?”
“Because you sneezed. You always sneeze when you’re experiencing an intense emotion.”
She looked at him askance. “I do not.”
“Have you pictured your wedding day yet? Named your kids? Dotted the ‘i’ in your name with a pink heart?”
“There’s no ‘i’ in my name.” She sneezed again.
Gun couldn’t resist a triumphant smile.
“You two are definitely related,” I remarked.
I tried to follow the rest of the service, but I was too far back to hear properly.
“I hate this part,” Gun said.
“Which part?” I stood on my tiptoes to no avail.
“The bonfire,” he replied.
“I thought this was a burial.”
“It is, but first they cleanse him with a magical fire,” Gun explained. “The ashes get buried.”
“Seems like a waste of a whole casket.”
“It’s tradition,” he said simply.
I watched flaming blue tendrils climb their way through the air, as though reaching for the heavens. They were pretty to look at, as long as you could disregard their purpose. I wasn’t particularly squeamish, unless you counted insects that randomly appeared in the shower when it was difficult to escape, but I didn’t want to think about what those pretty flames were doing to the body of Charles Diamond.
Afterward the crowd thinned out pretty quickly. I caught sight of Otto leaving with the blonde. He moved fast for a cantankerous recluse.
“Where is he?” a man shouted. “Where is Charles?”
“Dear gods. He’s drunk,” Camryn said.
Gun perked up. “Excellent. I didn’t realize there’d be free entertainment.”
There was no one else left in the cemetery.
“Charles is dead,” Camryn said. She didn’t sound the least bit sorry about it.
The man staggered forward. “Oh, look. If it isn’t the Lesser Arcana.”
Gun looked as though he wanted to smack the smirk off his face. “No one says Lesser.”
