Petra gave him a look. “Out with it, Rob.”
A held breath exploded past his lips. He went downright ruddy when he whispered, at speed, “It just doesn’t seem fair that he gets everything he wants when this isn’t evenhiscathedral. Your suite hasn’t been updated since the sixties! You should be the one getting new furniture, not the Protector.”
Petra took another bite of her sandwich and prayed for patience. They’d had this fight before. Twice, actually. “First, it’s not just for him. The guest suite is for any visiting member of the Gloriae. Second, I don’twantnew furniture or my suite to be taken over by construction. It’s fine.”
If she wasn’t certain that there were listening ears even in the columbarium, she might have told him that making sure the Protector had nicer sheets than her was theleastof her problems. Antonin was the source of most of them, but Shade was rapidly hurtling to the top of the list.
But even if everything was perfect, she wouldn’t have wanted to renovate her suite anyway. It didn’t matter that the bathroom was outdated, the water pressure abysmal, and the furniture not to her taste.
The suite had been Max’s. Sometimes, when she stared at the ceiling, struggling to sleep, she thought she could feel him in the air. A foolish, sentimental part of her worried that if she modernized the suite, his essence would disappear.
And then she’d really be alone.
Of course, besides her sentimentality, there was always the secret passage to worry about. It was just about the only reason she could sleep at night at all, knowing that she could escape if she truly wanted to. An illusion, perhaps, but one she needed to stay even a little bit sane.
But she couldn’t tell Robert that even if thereweren’tlistening devices in every nook and cranny of the cathedral, so Petra gave her assistant a quelling look.
Robert pursed his lips again. Grumbling, he conceded, “Fine.” He looked out over the balcony. “We found a new runner, by the way, to replace the burnt one. And I’ve ordered a couple sandbags to place on the bases of the votive holders.”
Petra hid her grimace in her sandwich.Fucking Shade.
He hadn’t admitted to being the reason not one buttwoworshippers needed to be hit with a fire extinguisher, nor why the very expensive, antique altar runner needed to be replaced, but she’d seen it in his smug grin.
It was the same smile he’d given her just before he climbed out her office window, saying, “By the way, I only jammed the surveillance devices. They’ll come back online as soon as I’m gone. Just thought I’d warn you, in case you wanted to say something really filthy while you have the chance.”
She recalled how she’d returned from the bar after their first meeting and shuddered. It turned out he hadn’t actually removed her glamour. He’d somehow managed to modify it so only her hair was revealed.
Fear crawled from the atavistic part of her brain at the display of raw magical skill. It was one thing to break a glamour, but never, in all her life and magical instruction, had she heard of someone so powerful they couldchangea spell with a simple swipe of a finger.
What have I gotten myself into?
After Antonin’s first visit, it hadn’t seemed like she could get into deeper shit than she already stood in, but Petra could practically feel it oozing up her legs.
Her only solace was in the fact that she could count on one man, at least, to do what he said he would.
“Good work, Rob.” Finishing off the last of her sandwich, she dusted the crumbs off her fingers over the railing and turned to head back down the stairs. Since she didn’t have a future tospeak of, she let herself ask about Robert’s. “How’s the search for a surrogate going?”
“We’ve got it down to two interviews,” he answered, sounding both scared out of his mind and breathtakingly happy. He followed her as she headed for the stairs. “We think we’ve settled on the right one already, but you have to have back-ups in case— Well, you just have to.”
Petra paused to look over her shoulder at him. Her heart was a clenched fist in her chest, drawing tighter every time she recalled that she would probably never get to meet the baby her assistant and his husband were trying so hard to bring into the world.
Her voice came out a little throatier than normal, a little more raw, when she said, “If I can do anything to help you, name it. Time off, recommendations, a good healer. Whatever you need.”
Robert’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Thank you, your grace. You’ll be the first to know, I promise. Hopefully we’ll know something before you go on sabbatical.”
There was a strange, uncanny weight to the wordsabbatical.She hadn’t discussed why she planned to take time off after Antonin’s visit, but it didn’t matter. Everyone had come to their own conclusion.
She could tell he wanted to say something about it, maybe offer a warning, but she cut him off. “Even if I’m away from the cathedral, I want to know everything. Promise you’ll send me a message.”
It was unlikely that she’d ever see it, but she needed to know he would. That someone would think about her in a moment of joy even when she was… wherever she’d end up.
The skin around Robert’s eyes tightened. Quietly, he replied, “I promise, your grace.”
Petra liked babies. She liked them a lot. It hurt like a motherfucker to know she wouldn’t get the chance to know Robert’s.
Forcing herself to smile, to keep walking, to keep moving lest she stall, crack, and shatter there in the columbarium, she playfully admonished, “It’s Petra, Rob.”
“Sorry, your grace. I’ll remember next time.”
