How to Break an Undead Heart (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 3)

by Hailey Edwards

  Linus cupped my elbow and pitched his voice low. “We’re drawing too much attention.”

  Nurses and visitors alike stood frozen in the hall, watching the fireworks, while a matched set of security guards approached us slowly, careful not to alarm the patients.

  “Tell Neely I stopped by,” I rasped as Linus guided me away. “That I hope he’s feeling better.”

  He didn’t agree to pass on the well-wishes, but he didn’t tell me to jump off a cliff either. So, progress?

  Linus escorted me past the security guards, who gave me the stink eye, to the bank of elevators, trading his grip on my elbow for an arm around my waist when my knees wobbled. “None of this is your fault.”

  “Yes, it is.” Leaning into him, I wiped tears from my cheeks. “Neely is in this hospital because of me.”

  “Neely is in this hospital because vampires knocked his car off an overpass with you both inside it.” Linus rested his cool cheek against my temple as we rode down. “Your quick thinking saved his life, and yours.”

  “This is just the beginning.” The wider the Master cast his net, the more factions learned about me. “It’s only going to get worse.” A shuddering exhale rounded my shoulders. “Cruz is right. I should stay away.”

  “Let Neely decide.” Linus ushered me through the quiet lobby out into the night air. “You’re his friend, it’s his choice.” The featherlight brush of his lips across my temple registered as he withdrew. “Neely is tougher than Cruz gives him credit for, and his husband is about to be reminded of that fact.”

  “I wish I had never come to Atlanta,” I said softly, and Linus flinched as if I had struck him.

  “Neely—”

  “It’s more than that.” I withdrew from him, unable to stomach hurting him again. “I’ve felt upside down since I arrived, like you brought me to an alternate universe instead of North Georgia.”

  Maybe this trip had been a mistake. Maybe I had needed more time to adjust to my freedom before trading the comforts of home for an adventure in the city. Or maybe I had grown too used to enclosed spaces and silence to appreciate the noise that came from wading into a sea of humanity. Inhumanity, in the case of the Faraday.

  Neither of us spoke after that, and I decided I was wrong about silence.

  I hated it, hated how unspoken words hung suspended between us, hated how he angled his body away from mine. Most of all, I hated the mask he wore to hide whatever he was thinking instead of sharing his concerns with me.

  The long, dull drive had me ready to comment on the weather to get him talking again.

  “Perhaps this will make the trip worthwhile,” he said as he opened the door on a world of possibilities built from brick and writhing with magic. “Welcome to Strophalos University.”

  Thirteen

  Towering red brick buildings, each laid out in a square and open to a central courtyard, cut an imposing figure on the manicured lawn. A clock tower rose from the centermost building, its face engraved with archaic sigils rather than numbers, and magic pulsed in subtle waves as the second hand chased its tail.

  Gardens so lush they might have inspired Maud when she designed the ones at Woolworth House had me gaping after them. Some of those flowers… I had never seen the like. I didn’t have species, let alone names, to call them. I took a step toward the enclosure, only to be halted by Linus’s hand on my elbow.

  “Reardon is waiting for us,” he reminded me. “I promise you the full tour tomorrow.”

  While I watched, he slid another mask into place, this one shades of the quiet academic I had come to know from my nightly lessons mixed with the rigidity of Scion Lawson. He was approachable, though you might think twice before you worked up the nerve. The flatness of his full lips implied you better have a darn good reason for talking to him, and an even better excuse for believing your time was worth a second of his.

  The posture was looser, more slouched, but not normal. Comfortable, but not himself. The clothes were nicer than what he wore in Savannah except when visiting the Lyceum, but not so ostentatious you marveled that a professor would dress so well. The glasses and the crossbody bag made him more relatable, but I saw them as camouflage. Props meant to help him blend in with the faculty. Accessories that screamed scholar and hid the predator lurking beneath his polished exterior.

  After Fredrick and Ernestine, there could be no doubt lethal magic prowled beneath his skin.

  With Linus as my escort, we strolled down one of the many winding paths landscaped within an inch of its life. Guys stood taller as we approached while girls tittered behind their hands after we passed. Linus appeared oblivious to it all, but I couldn’t read him with that mask on, and eventually I stopped trying.

  “Reardon’s office is this way.” Linus indicated a domed building on the outer fringes of the campus. “Are you sure you want to go through with this after last night?”

  “I’m a necromancer.” I exhaled through my parted lips. “I can’t avoid vampires forever.”

  “No,” he agreed softly, sounding more like himself. “But you can avoid this one.”

  “I need answers.” And I would face a vampire to get them. “Amelie can’t live bound to me forever.”

  Settling my concern on her made it easier to forget my own life hung in the balance.

  “We won’t know for certain if the effects are permanent until she’s free to leave your house.” He let me consider that before shaking his head. “She might be fine away from Woolly, out of the protective circle of the wards. Or she might remain susceptible to your magical influence. There are too many variables.”

  Leave it to Linus to force me to voice what I was already thinking. Dreading, more like it.

  “This affects my ability to practice—” to live, “—and I want that.”

  The Grande Dame might have plans for me, but I was starting to imagine a future for myself too.

  All I had to do was survive. So pretty much business as usual for me.

  “I understand.” Linus gentled his voice as he ushered me in the building.

  A frazzled man greeted us in the hallway with a chewed pencil tucked behind one ear, and the zing of otherness skated over my skin. His shaggy hair, a muddy brown color, hung in his green eyes. His tan corduroy pants were tailored, and so was his short-sleeved shirt. The white button-down was wrinkled beneath his chocolate and mocha striped sweater vest. When he spotted Linus, he grinned from ear to ear, but the tips of his fangs lent his expression an edge.

  The aggressive display had me bumping into Linus to put distance between Reardon and me.

  “The fangs?” Reardon mused, raising a lip to tap one. “It’s rude to flash them at visitors, I know, but I wasn’t made in a controlled setting. I have…” he gave it some consideration, “…quirks.”

  “I should have warned you.” Linus rested his hands on my shoulders, his cold a soothing presence at my back. “My apologies.”

  “A heads-up might have been nice,” I allowed then addressed Reardon. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “My young friend tells me he has a puzzle for us to solve.” He focused on where Linus touched me until the latter removed his hands. “Are you assisting him in this matter?”

  Relegated to the role of assistant once again. “Yes.”

  Reardon grinned at Linus, his smile no less alarming for his assurances. “Does Meiko know?”

  “Oh, yes.” I beat Linus to the punch. “She’s done everything short of scent marking him since I arrived.” I rolled a shoulder. “I also suspect she tried suffocating me in my sleep.”

  There was no other reason to wake with all fifteen or so pounds of her pressing down on my chest.

  “You’ve met her?” His shock conveyed a few things. That he knew Linus kept Meiko as a pet, and that if I had met her, then I had been to Linus’s loft too. On second thought, I should have kept my mouth shut. “Not many have had the pleasure.”

  “Yesss.” I drew out the word, hoping Linus would rescue m
e from myself. No such luck. He was too busy pinching his lips together to avoid laughing. “Hey, that woman has claws, and I’m not talking about an acrylic manicure. I’m afraid to close my eyes to sleep around her.”

  This tidbit succeeded in digging my hole deeper. Reardon now understood not only had I seen the apartment, but I was staying there.

  “She blushes,” Reardon mused. “How lovely.” He smirked at Linus, who was starting to look a bit pink himself, thanks to his pale complexion. “What a handsome pair you make.”

  “We aren’t a pair,” I informed him, then immediately regretted my decision when his smile revealed fangs.

  “The reason we’re here—” Linus casually nudged me behind him, “—is a delicate matter.” He reached in his bag and withdrew a white metal box with KEEP REFRIGERATED written down the side. “Here is the sample we discussed. I gave my word that it wouldn’t leave my sight and that we would destroy all traces after you conduct your tests.”

  “Interesting,” he said, his gaze fixed on me, almost like he could smell the magic in my blood. But that was silly. Paranoid. He hadn’t opened the container. There was no basis for comparison. It wasn’t even my blood. And yet…

  Clearly, he scented something on me. Perhaps he was old enough to have known one of my kind, or clever enough to grasp I wasn’t what I appeared to be. Either way, I didn’t want him drawing any connections between me and what he might discover.

  “I need to use the ladies’.” I clutched the strap on my bag. “Can you point me in the right direction?”

  Reardon indicated the hall adjacent to this one, and I kept my stride casual until I rounded the corner. Maybe this wasn’t such a great plan. I had a theory about how to conceal my scent, but it might not work, and it might still land me in hot water later.

  Once inside the restroom, I turned the lock and reached in my bag for the modified pen. I had no reason to hope it would work, but I closed my eyes and focused on the idea of a sigil that might do the trick, letting my hand follow the path mapped by instinct.

  With that done, I lifted my wrist to my nose and inhaled. I smelled nothing. Perfume wasn’t my thing, so it might be best if I tried the one spot where artificial fragrance clung. Yes, my armpits. I sniffed them. Not one single whiff of the aerosol I’d sprayed on earlier lingered. The sigil had masked my scent entirely.

  Triumph welled in me, and I allowed myself a short happy dance before capping the pen and returning to Reardon’s office. The man himself greeted me at the door, and I caught him leaning in to sniff me as I walked past him to join Linus.

  The frown tipping his welcoming expression toward annoyance made the gamble all the better.

  So maybe I would never have moves like Taz or encyclopedic knowledge like Linus, but I had one thing in common with Maud I never expected to claim. I was an innovator. An accidental innovator, sure, but an innovator nonetheless.

  A pang of sadness pierced my heart that Maud wasn’t here to see what I had done, what I had the potential to do, but she must have suspected. It was thanks to her I was in this position in the first place.

  “Forgive us,” Reardon said. “We got started without you.”

  The box lay open on the counter, and a vial of bright blood had been slotted into a sleek machine that whirred happily at having been fed.

  “Linus failed to introduce us.” He pulled out a stool and nudged it closer to me. “I’m Reardon McAllister.”

  “I’m Grier Woolworth.” I offered him my hand, which he flipped over in an elegant move, exposing my wrist to the ceiling. He bowed low and pressed his lips against the network of veins, and I saw his chest expand as he inhaled. “Linus and I grew up together.”

  There was no harm in telling him that since my last name would ring all kinds of bells for him.

  Chair legs scraped behind us as Linus rose. “Reardon.”

  “Fascinating,” he murmured. “May I continue to blame my poor manners on being shoddily made?”

  “You’re old enough to know better,” I answered, “and smart enough to know how dangerous it is to provoke a necromancer.”

  “An assistant.” He fed my title back to me, and it took every ounce of strength I had to keep from flinching. “You’re not quite so deadly as my friend here.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Linus extracted me from Reardon’s grasp and urged me onto my stool, drawing his beside mine. “I wouldn’t provoke Grier if I were you.”

  “Oh?” Interest sparkled in the vampire’s eyes. “Why is that?”

  Squirming on my seat, I pretended I was getting comfortable, but what I was really doing was wondering why the heck Linus would dangle that kind of carrot in front of a vampire.

  “She’s got a temper.” He traced the perfect line of his nose. “She broke this once.”

  Laughter exploded out of Reardon, and the tension in the room shattered around us.

  “I confess, I’ve wanted to do that a time or two myself.” At Linus’s arched brow, he explained, “Linus is so very good at everything. He makes for an annoying friend.” His smile turned wicked. “Especially when I’m trying to impress a pretty girl.”

  A flush brightened my cheeks. I would have scrubbed them to cease the tingling, but it would have made things worse. Nothing like blushing to draw a vampire’s attention to the fact you’re a walking, talking blood bag.

  “Ah, there she goes again,” Reardon murmured. “You have stumbled across my greatest weakness.”

  Referring to my earlier thoughts, I blurted, “Food?”

  Laughter pelted the air once again, and he couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face. “Humility.”

  “Reardon,” Linus warned. “Perhaps we should return to the matter at hand.”

  Tearing his gaze from my glowing face, Reardon resumed his position at the counter across from Linus. Using a dropper, he began several tests on Amelie’s blood that left me puzzled as to their purpose.

  Heads bent over their workstation, the pair discussed what Linus hoped to learn and the sample’s origin.

  Past that point, they might as well have been speaking a foreign language. I had no clue what they were discussing, only picking up one familiar word in ten. Chromosome. Platelets. Antibodies. Thankfully, science appeared to be Reardon’s true love, and he forgot all about me once she took center stage.

  I didn’t mean to doze, but that didn’t stop me from jerking awake seconds before the dream took me.

  One minute, I was resting my forehead on my stacked arms. The next, I was catapulting backwards from my stool, tripping over its legs, and falling on the tile hard enough to bruise my tailbone.

  Not even the fear twisting cold knots in my gut over what they might find had kept me from dozing.

  Fed a steady diet of terror, I was too full to make room for more.

  I sprawled there, panting and mortified, while I caught my breath.

  Reardon knelt at my side as the scream died in my throat. “Are you hurt?”

  “Only my pride, and there wasn’t much of that left.” I winced up at Linus, whose eyes had bled full black, and only a fool would have refused the hand he offered me. “I’m good, really.” I flashed them a weak smile that lingered on Linus, on where he still held my hand. “Serves me right for falling asleep in class.”

  Linus smiled at the joke, faintly, but puckers gathered across Reardon’s forehead.

  “There’s a coffee shop on campus. No hot chocolate, but their mocha lattes are popular. Cletus can show you the way.” Linus released my fingers after a beat too long. “Why don’t you go get a drink and stretch your legs?”

  “I’ll take you up on that.” I resisted the urge to massage my aching tailbone. “You guys want anything?”

  “My usual,” Linus said with a straight face.

  “I’ll take a tall black coffee.” Grinning, Reardon reached for his wallet. “I like the smell.”

  “My treat,” I assured him. “You guys enjoy your science while I’m gone.”

>   Outside, I chose a direction and started walking. At a fork in the path, I stopped to read a sign that might have been helpful had I known Lindbergh Hall from Heinemann Hall. Just as I was wondering where my promised guide had gone, Cletus joined me with a moaned apology for his lateness. Or so I imagined.

  “Take me to your coffee shop,” I beseeched the wraith.

  With a clack of his nails, Cletus billowed in the opposite direction from the one I had been heading.

  Busy admiring a stone amphitheater sunk into the earth, I wandered off the path. A small gathering sat on the curved seats that functioned as steps to reach the floor, and each took turns reading from a book of poetry they passed around and around.

  Distracted by their laughter, I almost missed the long shadow prowling across the quad in my direction.

  Not everyone is out to get you. Not every shadow is nefarious.

  Just to be on the safe side, I let Cletus usher me back on track with a gnarled hand on my shoulder.

  Ignoring the twitching skin beneath my tattoo, I hit the coffee shop, where a flirty barista who knew how to earn a tip filled my order. Still smiling at her outrageousness and the stack of phone numbers jotted on receipts peeking from her skirt pocket, I experienced a pang on my way past the campus bookstore.

  “Really, Cletus? You couldn’t have told me that was there?” I glared into the whirling darkness where his face ought to be. “I could have picked up a shirt or a keychain, a souvenir. Now it’s too late to browse.”

  A low moan I interpreted as an apology had me sighing. I could always come back tomorrow.

  “Cheese and crackers,” a high voice squeaked. “What is that thing doing loose?”

  Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted a young man wearing the designer equivalent of my usual duds. Jeans, shirt, sneakers. His blond hair curled around his face in a mass of artful twists. His pink cheeks made him downright cherubic, and I wondered if many people asked to pinch them.

  Clearly mothering a six-year-old ghost was having an effect on me.

  “He’s tame,” I teased. “Don’t worry. He won’t bother you as long as you don’t bother us.”