“Murmur …”
He smiled, but it faded quickly. “Can you return safely to your apartment from here or should I walk with you?”
She already recognized the neighborhood, and after living in New York, she would never worry about safety in Montreal. “I’m fine alone.”
“It’s probably for the best. There are certain demons in this city who I’d rather not run into.”
“Iris’s boyfriend?”
“And his so-called brothers, yes.”
“Why can’t they know you’re here?”
“Because we made a bargain. It’s a long story.”
She looked up at him. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
There was a pause.
“One more thing,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about a police investigation or your friends throwing you a funeral.” He reached into the pocket of his coat, pulled out her phone and keys, and held them out to her. “When I first took you, after I stung you the second time, I used your thumb to unlock your phone and then returned to Earth and sent messages to all your regular contacts.”
She snatched the items from his hand. “You what?”
“I told them you were going on a vacation.”
She opened and closed her mouth. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, I’m not—”
“For fuck’s sake, Murmur! You could have at least told me! I was stressing about it this whole time, so badly I could barely sleep! Why the hell would you keep that a secret?”
“It didn’t strike me as important—”
“Not important?” She threw up her hands. “I told you how worried I was about my friends and coven thinking I was dead. How could you think it wasn’t important? I asked you multipletimes to let me go back. You didn’t think telling me that would have been smart?”
He crossed his arms. “You barely asked. I didn’t think you cared.”
“That’s not—How could you—You frustrate the hell out of me, you know that?”
His lips pursed. “The feeling is mutual.”
“For fuck’s sake …” She shook her head.
“I fail to understand the importance you place on your earthly friendships. All humans die. The death of a human should never come as a surprise.”
She was exhausted at the thought of even trying to explain that to him, so she didn’t bother. “Whatever. Just … what did you tell them? They would never believe I’d just leave—”
“I told them you needed some time alone to practice your wards in a quiet place, away from the interference of so many other minds.”
She opened and closed her mouth. “Shit.” He was a genius. Because that was exactly something she would do.
Pocketing her keys, she looked at the device in her hand and hit the power button. The screen stayed dark.Duh.It had been weeks, surely. The battery was long dead.
She looked up.
“Remember our blood vow, witchling?”
