Everyone dutifully raises their mugs of blood, murmuring ‘To Hester’, and we all clink and drink. I swallow my mouthful with difficulty as there’s a guilty lump in my throat.
‘Right. Moving on,’ Sadie says briskly. ‘We need to discuss Alexander and his unfortunate thralls and come up with a plan of action. We’re all going to London obviously.’
Everyone nods, and Damian squeezes Floss’s hand. She looks anxious, so she must’ve said something to him mentally to convey her fear. I don’t eavesdrop on their conversation, though. It’s private.
Sadie turns to me. ‘When do your rehearsals start, Hester?’
‘Next week.’
‘Right. So before anything else is decided, we need to find somewhere to stay,’ Sadie says, looking around at us. ‘We don’t know how long it’s going to take to find the wriggly bastard.’
‘At least we know his brothel is in Covent Garden. That narrows it down,’ supplies Elliott.
‘Yes, thanks to your special long-range telepathy, we do.’ She smiles at him fondly. ‘But it’s an expensive area of London, and there’s a group of us. I don’t particularly want to waste our precious money on accommodation.’
‘We could stay with Charlie,’ suggests Floss. ‘Belgravia is quite close to Covent Garden. He might even help us since he despises Alexander.’
Sadie wrinkles her nose. ‘We can’t just turn up on his doorstep. And is he even functioning anymore? He was looking decrepit in 1921, so I imagine the state of him a century on isn’t pretty. But I guess it’s an option.’
Ugh, not if I have anything to say about it. I don’t particularly want to meet Charlie again since he’s my ex. He’s the reason I moved to Edinburgh in 1905 after all. But as I haven’t told the others I’m staying elsewhere, I keepquiet.
Elliott is tapping away on his phone, I assume searching for hotels. ‘There are plenty of options that don’t cost a lot,’ he says.
‘Yeah. Look, what about this Travelodge in Cricklewood?’ Damian jabs a finger at Elliott’s screen. ‘It’s got a discount for group stays.’
‘Let me see.’ Sadie wiggles her fingers, and Elliott hands over his phone. She reads the information about the hotel impassively, not looking too thrilled. ‘It’s a good price. But it’s two-star with a 3.7 rating. That means fleas and thin pillows.’
Damian huffs a laugh. ‘So you want a five-star hotel, but you only want to pay two-star prices—in London.’
Sadie looks at him stonily as if it’s a given. ‘Yes.’ She hands Elliott back his phone. ‘So I veto it.’
‘You only have to stay there until we find Alexander,’ I counter, knowing that fulfilling Sadie’s desire for a nice, but cheap, hotel could take a while. ‘Plus the bed use will be minimal, and the fleas won’t bite you.’
‘That sounds like you’re not planning on staying there with us,’ Sadie says, whipping her head round. She fixes her eyes on me. ‘So whereareyou staying?’
Whoops.
‘Ah, the theatre management is organising accommodation for all the actors,’ I say reluctantly. ‘In anapartment in Southwark not far from the Globe. For the season.’
‘Cool location!’ says Elliott approvingly.
‘So do you have to pay for it?’ Floss asks.
I shake my head. ‘No, it’s part of the contract.’
‘Right, that settles it,’ says Sadie decisively. ‘We’re staying there too. There’s no point paying for a crappy hotel if Hester’s got free accommodation.’
I groan inwardly. ‘It’s a one-bedroom studio, hardly enough room for—’
‘There might be a pull-out couch,’ Sadie interrupts. ‘Studios often have them for extra guests.’ I can tell by the set of her lips that she’s made up her mind. Because why should Hester get the nice one-bedroom studio in Southwark while she has to stay in Cricklewood?
‘If there’s no pull-out couch, we could buy an air mattress and take turns in Hester’s bed,’ says Floss with a grin. There’s a slight flutter of her eyebrows, and Damian smirks.
‘It will be tiny,’ I say weakly. ‘And I’ll be tired and need to relax after rehearsals.’
‘Rubbish,’ insists Sadie, waving away my protests. ‘You’ll be all fired up and raring to go 24/7. You’ll hardly notice we’re there. And we can figure out what to do about Alexander while you’re rehearsing.’
I gulp at that. I’ve been trying not to think about rehearsals. I seriously need to hit Damian up for some hypnosis sessions to help with this stage fright. And goddammit, I was looking forward to having some me-time in my own apartment, especially since Will is going to be staying in the building too. I was hoping I might be able to muster up the courage to ask him back to mine for a few one-to-one practice sessions.
