“Why not?”
“What do you mean, why not?”
I could feel her getting frustrated, so I backed off. Even to me, this was starting to sound a little crazy… obsessive even. Where the hell was all this coming from?
“Children, children. Let’s not fight about this.” Seth came to stand between us, and I had to resist the urge to shove the annoying but much-too-intelligent wizard aside. “Besides, Graham, it’s not just you against a dragon. What are we? Chopped liver? We’ll make sure she’s protected. Meera won’t have to do anything she doesn’t want.”
And therein lay the crux: What if shewantedto leave with the dragon and live the extravagant life he promised her?
“One more thing,” Meera said. “Let’s say we break this spell, but what about Karim and the people he worked with?”
“Whatabouthim?” Seth asked. “We already found him dead in Mumbai, so we know he’s not after you anymore. And the people he worked with blame him, not you.”
“What?!” Meera yelled the word.
Shit! Seth had sent me a message yesterday with all the details. I’d read it, but since we still had the ghoul problem, I’d decidednot to tell Meera yet. Partially because she was laughing, playing in the pool with Tansy and Lillian, and I didn’t want to mess up the mood, but also because I hadn’t wanted her to think about her ex. Hell, I’d delete every instance of him from her mind if I could.
“Oh. I sent Graham the information yesterday morning. I’d thought he’d—”
The cold look on Meera’s face was enough even to stop Seth from uttering another word.
“Welp, my job here is done,” Mateo declared. “Good luck, buddy.” He clapped me hard on the back on his way to the door.
“Yep, good luck.” Seth sent me an apologetic look, a new one for him, and followed Mateo out.
And I was left alone with an angry Meera.
Chapter 26
Meera
Thedoorclickedshutbehind Seth and Mateo, leaving me alone with Graham and the bomb he’d just dropped. The air between us was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was suffocating. My hands shook from the mix of anger, frustration, and disappointment I was feeling.
"You knew!" The words exploded from my mouth before I could stop them. "You knew about what happened to Karim, and you didn’t tell me."
Graham’s wings twitched restlessly behind him. “I was going to, I—”
“But you didn’t.” My voice rose despite my efforts to control it. “Seth said he sent it to you yesterday. You had plenty of time to tell me.” I stepped closer, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Why keep me in the dark? Was it to make sure I stayed dependent on you?
Graham’s jaw tightened. “What? No, that’s not it.”
“Then why?” I demanded.
My mind raced, trying to piece together his reasoning.I didn’t get it. This wasn’t just some trivial detail; this was important, this was mylife. I’d been with Karim for years. Sure, I’d found out that he was a real work of art and had been living some kind of double life, but if he’d died, I should be the first to know. Whether he was dead or just gone, I deserved to know.
Hell, even if he was still alive, the fact that he’d run off to Mumbai was huge. It meant he wasn’t lurking in the shadows waiting to drag me back and punish me for ruining his plans. It meant I could stop looking over my shoulder.
And Graham had kept that from me. Why had he done it?
“You were swimming with Tansy and Lillian and having so much fun, I didn’t want to ruin the mood, so I thought I’d tell you after.”
“And afterward?” I demanded.
“I—” His gaze darted away, fixing on some point over my shoulder rather than meeting my eyes. “We were enjoying ourselves, and I forgot.” But there was something about the way he said it that told me there was something he wasn’t quite telling me, and it had my stomach twisting in knots.
What wouldn’t he tell me? With every second that passed without an answer, my betrayal morphed into anger.
“Why?” I demanded again, my voice a little harsher. “So you’d let me continue believing that he was still after me and I needed you to protect me from him?”
