I nodded again. He left, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.
He didn’t — I noticed — kiss me goodnight.
∞
I couldn’t sleep. Not even after I texted Kandy and received an obscene emoticon in response. I was relieved the green-haired werewolf was well enough to be cracking jokes, but it didn’t settle me. The room was too hot even with the window open, and was too chilly with the air conditioning on. Though that might have just been my thing, not being a fan of air conditioning in general. This heat wasn’t an issue in Vancouver, which is exactly where I should be … making cupcakes … or trinkets.
Trinkets.
I had to keep my necklace on to mute the life debt bond between Desmond and me, but now I’d also inadvertently dragged Mory into a shitload of trouble. She had needed all the protection she could get from Sienna, and — if I wasn’t mistaken, because hell if I had any idea about how necromancy worked — from her dead brother, Rusty.
Maybe Rusty’s ghost, or shade, or spectral energy hadn’t known he was killing Mory in order to go after Sienna. But maybe he was beyond caring. Maybe he’d never cared about killing in the first place. The tribunal had found him equally as guilty as Sienna for the werewolf murders.
I could make Mory a necklace of her own if I could find the glimmers and bits I needed. A lot of the Adept came and went from this house. I should be able to cobble together something temporary at least.
I pulled on a crumpled Keep Calm and Eat a Cupcake T-shirt and short shorts — that rolling/packing trick never actually worked for me — and didn’t bother with shoes. The clock informed me it was just after 5:00 a.m. That seemed like a sane time to be up to me, but when I padded out into the hall, the house was very quiet.
I chose to explore further into the house rather than immediately backtrack to the rooms I’d already seen. Though I skipped Scarlett’s room, which was right next to mine. I gathered — after I came across three more empty bedrooms — that I was in the guest wing. The fact that Desmond needed a guest wing was mind-boggling. He didn’t come across as a big-Thanksgiving-or-Christmas-gathering sort of guy.
A glimmer in one of the bedrooms led me to three thin gold bangles that must have dropped behind and underneath a dresser.
In the next room, I found a Montblanc pen. I had no idea what I could do with a pen, but I took it anyway.
I hadn’t made a magical object without motivation yet. Kett had been coaxing me to do so, but it seemed that unless I was in danger, I stuck to making cupcakes, not trinkets. It helped that Scarlett was currently occupying my crafting space, because I was still sickened by how Sienna and Rusty had used my trinkets to fuel and aid their killing spree. I’d left all the trinkets hanging in the bakery, though I’d wanted to destroy them initially. I also kept a daily count — yeah, maybe that was overkill — but I hadn’t made anything new.
I backtracked through the hall until I arrived at Scarlett’s room. A knock gained me a sleepy permission to enter, and I found my mother curled up in bed looking perfectly mussed.
“Oh, good,” I said. “I was worried there’d be a vampire in your bed.”
“Why would there be a vampire in my bed?” my exhausted mother asked. “Vampires don’t sleep.”
“What? At all?”
“They do that fugue state thing that bothers you,” Scarlett said. “I believe that’s like sleep for them.”
“Wow, life must be insanely boring for them. How do you fill all those hours? Months? Years?”
“I think you will discover that most vampires prize their immortality above all else. They do not have the comfort of reproducing without great cost, so very few choose to attempt it.”
“Kett was turned, not born.”
“Yes,” Scarlett said. “Again, as far as I have gleaned, that is a painful process that is rarely successful. Are you waking me for a lesson in vampire reproduction?”
“God, no. I was wondering if you had any jewelry. I want to make Mory a necklace.”
Scarlett regarded me. Her normally sunny demeanor was dim and her expression more neutral than I usually saw it. Then she swung her legs off the bed and padded over to the bureau.
Speaking of vampires, Kett had taught me — inadvertently — to milk the silence in a conversation a little more. To pause when someone was obviously thinking and let them broach their own concerns instead of constantly drilling for conflict.
Scarlett lifted a padded, embroidered-silk roll out of the top drawer of the high bureau. Yeah, she’d unpacked. No, I hadn’t. My mother untied, then unfurled, the roll to reveal an impressive collection of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.
“You travel with this? I’ve never seen you wear half of it.”
Scarlett shrugged and crossed to climb back into bed. “When you travel as much as I do you learn how to pack.”
I hadn’t thought about my mother’s nomadic ways like that before. She didn’t actually have a home of her own. How odd was that?
I ran my hands over her neatly stored necklaces. The padded fabric roll had compartments and clips and pockets to keep the jewelry separate and the necklaces untangled. Scarlett’s magic was potent where it imbued many of the items.
I selected a heavy-linked silver chain that would drape just over my collarbone if I wore it. On Mory, it would practically hang to her waist. I also took a thinner flat-linked gold chain of a similar length. I’d never seen Scarlett wear either item.
I wandered back to the bed and held the necklaces out to Scarlett. She hadn’t fallen asleep.
“Can I take these? Permanently?”
“Yes. I’m not sure I’ve worn the silver in years.”
“It glistens with your magic.”
“Does it? The Adept world must look interesting for you, my Jade.”
“It’s normal for me, I guess.”
“Are you making the necklace right now? We could talk about Sienna, if you wish.”
I nodded, but I didn’t actually want to talk about the sudden reappearance of my sister. Back from the never-dead and all.
“I called Pearl,” Scarlett added.
“Will they … will the tribunal be reformed?”
“I imagine.”
“And Sienna hunted.”
“If that is the verdict.”
“Everyone is always one step ahead of me,” I said, changing the subject — though not completely.
“Everyone — of the Adept near you, at least — plays their cards close to the chest. The witches don’t want to share information with the shapeshifters. No one wants to collaborate with the vampires. And you are a new unknown. It took all of Gran’s influence and my vote to quash an investigation into you and your new abilities. We still kept as much hidden from the Convocation as we could without blocking their investigation into the death of the werewolves.”
“I meant with you all using me as bait. First with the skinwalkers, and now with Blackwell. I mean … I saw Sienna dissolve. How is she whole again?”
I sat down on the spot my mother had left beside her on the bed. Scarlett rubbed my back. Her magic soothed me, though maybe I gave too much weight to it. Maybe being babied by my mother was what soothed me.
“Kett …” Scarlett spit the name, but then regulated her tone. “The vampire will not be using you as a dowsing rod anymore. I weighed the value of having his protection at your side too lightly. It is in his nature to be secretive. I thought treasure hunting was simply an exercise, not a means to accumulate power.”
“He won’t hurt the skinwalkers.”
“No. But he views such knowledge as power in and of itself. As he views you. I’ve never met an Adept who can create magical objects. And as far as I can tell, neither has Kett.”
That was surprising. Scarlett and Kett could cover a lot of time and distance between them.
“We’re lucky, in one way, that vampires are so secretive. Kett was easily persuaded to leave you
off any official reports.”
“But?”
“But it is always best to know where you stand, ally or not. Right now, you’re caught between us all. At least two of us love you, Pearl and me. But the other two powerful players are … well, they’re tied to much larger things than a bakery in Vancouver.”
“They answer to someone.”
“Eventually.”
“I can’t control any of that.”
“No, you can’t.”
“But I can make this necklace.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we’ll talk about Sienna after that.”
“All right.”
I stood and walked to the door.
“It’s okay as well, Jade,” Scarlett whispered behind me. “To love her. Your sister.”
“I don’t even know her anymore.”
“That never stops love.” Scarlett smiled.
“She wants something from me.”
“She always did. And you her.”
I nodded, and let the painful subject drop. Scarlett snuggled back into bed.
I stepped into the hall and nearly ran into a sleepy-looking Jeremy. The tall blond werewolf blinked at me a few times, then grinned.
“I need wire cutters and a soldering gun,” I said.
The grin slipped off Jeremy’s face and was replaced by a frown of confusion. “I don’t even know what that is,” he said.
“Desmond will have them in the garage. Any man who sees himself as being as self-sufficient as Desmond does will have a large, probably mostly unused, tool collection neatly displayed in his garage. Check there. Please and thank you.”
“I was just doing rounds. I’ll look on my way back.”
“Perfect,” I said and continued up the hall. “Oh!” I called back over my shoulder. “And stay away from Mory. She’s too young for you.”
Jeremy squared his shoulders and jutted out his chin. “Wolves don’t run with necromancers,” he said.
I grinned back at him sunnily. “Good. Keep it that way.” By the end of the day, Mory was going to be thanking me. Forbidden fruit was always the most appealing, especially to teenagers.
∞
I searched the other wing of the house. I found a completely nonmagical tray in the kitchen to carry my bounty, then I snooped through the library, gym, and Desmond’s suite. I added an antique watch from the library and a ring that had rolled underneath an elliptical machine in the gym. But I hesitated to trespass in Desmond’s rooms, even though I could tell he wasn’t there.
Where I spied them from the doorway, those rooms were sparsely decorated like the rest of the house in wood and glass. His bed was gigantic — custom sized and custom made was my guess — and swathed in brown fabrics. The stone-tiled fireplace had a thick rug in front of it that looked like the perfect place for a large cat to nap. Not that Desmond seemed like the napping type. A large family tree — built from photographs and sketches — dominated an entire wall. The Llewelyn family was serious about their lineage.
I backed out of the bedroom and carried my tray to the final room at this end of the hall. The door stood slightly ajar, and I could feel Desmond’s magic from within. I hesitated and thought about turning back … but I needed permission to use some of these items in Mory’s necklace.
“Come in, dowser,” Desmond drawled. I sighed and pushed open the door.
Desmond was sprawled in a swing-back leather chair, his feet on a massive walnut desk. He was holding a phone to his ear but not speaking. He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “Not like you to hang around outside doors, dowser.” Then he spoke into the phone. “Yes? Wake him, then.”
The wall to my right boasted full-height windows with a seating area just in front. An abstract painting, its strokes thick and multicolored, hung behind Desmond’s desk. Like the rest of the house outside of his rooms, there were no personal pictures or items strewn around.
Rather, like my own apartment before my mother moved in, I got the sense that Desmond had either recently moved in or didn’t really consider this house his home.
“What have you got?” Desmond asked with the tone of a man hoping for food.
I placed the tray before McGrowly and he swung his legs off the desk to peer at the items arrayed there.
“I’m sorry to wake you, father,” Desmond said, speaking into the phone as he sorted through my collection. “Blackwell showed himself last night. No, no casualties. We believe he has a black witch” — I stiffened at this mention of Sienna — “working with him.” Desmond paused, listening. He took the pen from the tray and tried writing with it on a pad of blank paper. It didn’t work. Still listening, he swapped out the ink cartridge from a box in his desk drawer.
“I wasn’t seeking advice,” Desmond finally said. “Nor am I asking permission. I just wanted to inform an Assembly member that I will be hunting today, as I have no second —” Desmond paused again, cut off in midsentence. He toyed with the antique watch I’d found in the library.
I began to pace, restless but trying not to be rude. Jeremy poked his head around the open doorway and held a set of wire-cutters tools and a brand new soldering gun out to me. Brand new, as in still in its original packaging.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I appreciate your concern and your opinion, as always, father,” Desmond said into the phone. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your vacation. Love to mother.” Desmond hung up the phone, then studied it as if expecting it to ring. It didn’t.
“Are you making something?” he asked.
It took me a moment to register that he was talking to me. I approached the desk again and added the wire cutters and soldering gun to the tray. “Hopefully,” I answered.
“All these items are magically imbued?” He ran his fingers over the objects on the tray again.
“Glimmers. From being in contact with an Adept. Either a powerful one, or over a long period of time.”
“The pen is mine. Thank you for finding it. The watch is my grandfather’s.”
“I’ll put it back. And the bangles?” I really needed the bangles.
“I don’t know. Where did you find them?”
“Fifth guestroom.”
“Audrey’s, perhaps. Just use them if you need them, dowser. Same with everything else here.”
“Audrey won’t mind?” I asked, having no idea who this person was.
“Losers weepers,” Desmond said, then he showed me his teeth in that nonsmile that I thought Kandy had patented. It was a shapeshifter thing, maybe. Obviously, this wasn’t just about gold bangles.
“We’re still going to meet with Blackwell?”
“No. I’m going to meet with Blackwell. You, the necromancer, and your mother will stay here. Under guard, if necessary.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t set me up last night.”
“Not me, dowser,” Desmond said. His growl clearly outlined his feelings about last night. “I protect my assets. The vampire engineered that.”
“But Kandy —”
“Should verify the vampire’s directions through me much sooner. She’s been gone from the pack too long.”
“She is loyal —”
“I don’t need to be told so from an outsider perspective, dowser. I know my wolf.”
“I really didn’t want to get Kandy in trouble.”
“If it had just being you sneaking out, dowser, that would’ve been different.”
“Expected.”
“Yes. Can you deny it?”
No, I bloody well couldn’t. I picked up the tray.
“I stocked the kitchen,” Desmond said. “In case you wanted to bake.”
Something intimate was hidden in this request-formed-as-a-statement, but I didn’t want to delve into it. Desmond’s mention of not having a second on the phone had reminded me of Hudson. And where Hudson haunted my thoughts, my sister was sure to follow.
“Thank you,” I fina
lly said, then I moved toward the door. There were so many questions in my head, so many demands for information, I didn’t know where to start. I just wanted to channel it all, put it all in one place to be examined at a later date. Except thoughts didn’t work like that.
“Will you hunt her?” I finally asked. Forget Blackwell and his stupid magical artifacts. This was now all about Sienna. If Desmond was right and Sienna and Blackwell had somehow teamed up, then this entire trip had been orchestrated by my sister. To what end, I had no idea.
“It’s my right,” Desmond answered.
“So I’ll just go make you cupcakes while you hunt and kill my sister.”
Desmond’s jaw shifted like he was grinding his teeth, but when he spoke he was calm. “The tribunal found her guilty.”
“Without a defense.”
“No defense, even if Sienna had been alive to voice one, would have cleared her name, Jade.”
I shut my mouth, then my eyes. Everything he was saying was true. It just wasn’t true in my heart.
“People change,” Desmond said. His tone was almost tender. “The magic is too much sometimes. I’ve seen shapeshifters go berserk. We lose about a third of our teens to berserker rages.”
I nodded and tried to look him in the eye. I knew he was trying to share something, trying to speak to me. I tried to listen. He looked like he hadn’t slept. This diminished him somehow, which was okay. He could handle some diminishment.
“I keep getting pain, spasms, in my joints,” I said.
“The necklace dampens the connection. I feel no pain.”
“There goes sleeping together,” I said, trying to bring some levity into the conversation, into my beleaguered brain.
“That’s crazy talk, dowser,” Desmond answered. “I plan on bedding you, well and often. Just as soon as you invite me.”
“Oh, yeah? The ball is in my court?” I asked, seriously thinking of closing the door, tossing the tray, and testing out the strength of the desk. It looked sturdy.
Desmond grinned. “From the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“You thought I was childish, irresponsible, and naive.”
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