I'm about to argue when Crypt appears suddenly in the backseat between Baelfire and Silas, making them both swear in surprise. The incubus leans forward to peer between Maven and me, his piercings glinting in the dim light from the dash.
“I'm fucking bored.”
“Stakeouts aren’t known for being exciting,” I grumble.
“Yes, except for the fact that we have the sexiest woman alive with us.”
“Not alive,” Maven corrects without missing a beat, squinting through the windshield even though nothing is happening at the safehouse.
“Yet you have an aura, like all living things.”
“But no fucking heartbeat, like all dead things.”
He grins. “Very well, then—the sexiest revenant in the world.”
“I'm the only one, so that checks out,” she shrugs. “Silas, has anyone tripped the undetectable wards you set around the premises?”
“Not yet,sangfluir.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I check it to see another text from Ian and squint to read without my glasses.
Everything's in place.
I type a reply.
Even the transportation?
Yup. No eyes on any of it. Smooth AF from here on. You're welcome for being the best in the business. Sending you the invoice. Btw one of your polar bear dogs shit on my carpet so I'm billing you for that too.
I roll my eyes and pocket my phone, tuning in to realize that Baelfire is now arguing with Crypt about some past birthday.
“...and you were twelve, meaning you’re seven years older than me, which makes you twenty-eight. If what you said about other stewards of Limbo kicking the can at thirty is true, that gives you about two more yea?—”
“I lied about being twelve,” Crypt drawls.
“What the fuck? Why?”
“You were a dyslexic little five-year-old who confidently told me the legal drinking age was ‘one-two.’ You'd caught me drinking from your parents’ hidden liquor stash, so I playedalong and said I was that age. None of you ever bothered asking again, and I obviously didn't and still don't fucking care.”
Silas frowns. “You're not the oldest?”
“Everett is the oldest,” Maven offers.
Baelfire frowns. “How the hell did you know that before us?”
“Like I said, Kenzie stalked you four online. Apparently, her sleuthing is more solid than your ability to have a single conversation without arguing over the span of nearly two decades.”
“Damn,” Baelfire shakes his head. “I would’ve sworn on my family name that Crypt was seven years older than us.”
Our keeper makes a face. “Us? You're twenty-one.”
“Yeah, like you.”
She shakes her head.
He frowns. “Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-three as of two days ago,” she corrects.
