Please be safe, Fletcher, she thought, wrapping her talent around her like a shroud as she approached the Ossuary entrance. Passing through the doors behind another vampire, Genevieve descended into the dark and walked unseen through the corridors, half-listening to the snatches of conversation around her, half lost in her thoughts.
Too many things pressed in on her mind. Fletcher’s wellbeing as well as that of the other children, her friends’ safety and comfort, and Kendrick.
Her body flinched away from the idea of someone wanting her—but her mind kept turning over and over. A man who had seen so many things—so many places and people lost to time.
He said that he meant it, her traitorous mind reminded her.
Her father had teased her when she’d been in her early twenties and finding no man who had caught her eye, saying that she would not be satisfied with a modern man when she had cut her teeth on knights and heroes. She had huffed and declared it poppycock; she had been perfectly content keeping house and assisting with his work and had not been mooning after some fictional romantic hero.
But I lied, Genevieve confessed.I just didn’t know it until the object of all my secret longings stepped off a page and into reality.
She heard a voice say,“But what if Kendrick gets wind of?—”
“Keep quiet and he won’t,” another hissed. “Laurent wants it done. Tomorrow.”
Genevieve froze at the turn of the passage and listened hard.
“You are late tonight,” Sparrow commented, bent over her piecework.
“And I shall be later still,” Genevieve said, setting down her reticule in their bolt hole. “I must find Kendrick. I went by the furnished rooms, but he was not there. Where is Elspeth?”
“Robbie wanted her opinion on the state of some linens and curtains,” Sparrow said, knotting her thread. “Kendrick asked him to lead the cleanout of the late master’s townhouse—perhaps he is there as well.”
“Oh, thank you.” Genevieve breathed in relief.
“What do you want Kendrick for?” Sparrow asked curiously.
Good question, Genevieve thought. Aloud, she said, “I’ve heard more mutterings. I think he ought to know about them right away.”Especially because they’re from Laurent.
“All this in just one night?” Kendrick marveled at the marked improvement. Two men cleaned the main chandelier, while several other people scrubbed and waxed every other surface, carting away rugs to beat them in the small garden behind the house. Already, fixtures and floors gleamed.
“Amazing what folk will do when motivated properly.” Robbie leaned on his crutch and grinned proudly at the industry in the house’s main foyer.
“We found more curtains,” Miss Gibbins said triumphantly, descending the stairs with another woman carrying huge trunks.
Kendrick moved to the stairs and took the trunk from her. “Where do they go?”
“The main parlor for now. We’ll replace the curtains room by room for safety, but the ones now are so dingy and dusty…” She shuddered.
Etienne appeared at his elbow to take the other from her helper.
Kendrick, Dominic, and Etienne had been in Dominic’s townhome taking notes on all the old laws, dooms, and codices left behind from centuries of vampiric rule. Godfrey had finally made an appearance, looking wasted and sickly. But he’d spent the few minutes in Kendrick’s company lecturing them all that their society should be entirely separate from humans in order to stay safe.
“And how does he imagine that we will feed ourselves?” Etienne had murmured.
“Salem managed it,” Kendrick had pointed out.
Both Etienne’s eyebrows had flown up. “Can you picture Godfrey gnawing on a sheep,mon ami?”
Kendrick had had to hide laughter, but he had hoped that pulling Dominic from that atmosphere would restore some animation to his friend, who had become faded and distant with each word his maker issued. So, he had pulled the three of them out to go see the progress Robbie and Joseph had wrought on the house.
“It’s a marked difference already,” Kendrick said, letting his voice carry. “Thank you all.”
The women ducked their heads and smiled. The men grinned and pulled their forelocks.
An insistent knocking began tapping out a rhythm on the front door.
With a furtive glance about, one of the men eased towards the door and opened it. “Yes?”
