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“What do you think, Sassy?” Khol says softly. “What’s the play?”

She doesn’t answer, but the blue light at her palm flashes briefly. Fidget pokes his head out and chirps, either to reassure her or to remind her she’s not alone. “I don’t know, other than Revelin’s tour and getting the magical supplies.”

Revelin tilts his head. “We have about an hour before the school is ready. Being off-schedule left them not quite able to host yet, so I say we use the time to gather whatever the mosquito wants. We can kill two birds with one stone.”

“Okay,” I say with a nod. “That seems like an efficient way to get the lay of the land here and stock up before we go searching for the stag clue.”

Khol pops his door open and gets out, his boots hitting the stone with a sound like a gavel dropping. I follow suit, noting that the air outside is colder than I expect. My eyes catch the second black SUV idling across the street, and when we emerge, they cut the engine. Fi exits after Rev, and the moment her feet touch the ground, there’s a small ripple in the air. She doesn’t comment on it, but I see the way her eyes flick to the landscape ahead with a confused frown.

Looking up and down the street, Tiernan gestures for us to get moving. We walk as a group, just five people and a baby bat headed for whatever the necropolis offers. The lamps overhead burn a sickly green, casting shadows where shadows should not be, but it doesn’t bother me. If we run into trouble, I won’t need the shadows to make certain my new family is safe.

Ravenhold has nothing on an ancient vampire who has just bonded fully with his mate.

Forty-Eight

FIADH

The necropolis is colder than the car, even though we step straight from Tiernan’s rolling bunker into a wall of static energy. The streets are so narrow you have to walk single file unless you want to catch your elbow on the centuries-old drainpipes; there are cobbles the color of dried blood, and rain grooves slick with years of collective mourning. The lamps are taller than some of the houses themselves, each topped with a bulbous flame the color of absinthe. The light warps the shadows, making every edge look bruised.

It’s both creepy and oddly comforting simultaneously—I have no idea why, though.

We don’t talk at first. Our boots echo off the stone in slow, hollow beats, and somewhere a single drop of water plinks in sync with our steps. The only other movement is Fidget’s pointed snout poking out of my hair, his ears at full mast as he sniffs every waft of air like a cop at a donut expo. After a block, the silence becomes oppressive, so I gesture to Khol to cut the tension. He’s always been the one to break a mood with snark or a fistfight, but the way he’s scanning the shopfronts tells me he’s just as on edge as I am. Khol glances at me briefly and then at a funeral parlor sign across the street.

He reads it, trying not to smirk as he says, “Mourning Wood: The Only Place to Get Stiff in the Afterlife.” He gives me the side-eye as he smothers a laugh. “That’s… wow. Someone really earned their paycheck with that one. Maybe they can compete with Harvest.”

I snort so loudly it comes out of my nose. “Are you sure this isn’t a strip club? Maybe it’s for… vampires or something?”

Dezi gives me a look so withering that I’m surprised I don’t turn to ash on the spot, but it was funny, so I ignore him.

“Could be both. I don’t know their lives, Sassy,” Khol mutters, ducking his head as if he’s trying to look through the frosted windows. “The one next door’s even better. Behold, What In Carnation.” He mimes a chef’s kiss. “That is spectacularly terrible. Do you even have those here?”

Revelin makes a face. “They’re an invasive species here, brought over from the other side. It’s a double-meaning pun. Wretched, but accurate.”

“Necropolis humor is on a whole different tier, it seems,” Tier murmurs as he makes a face. “I suppose we’ll have to get used to it. It won’t get any better, that I am certain of.”

Dezi lets out a groan so deep it could open a sarcophagus. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs heavily. “The Fae have invented high culture, magic, and two hundred forms of bread, yet this is the best they can do for amusement?”

My prince snickers behind his sunglasses, but he keeps his head down as we continue on. He’s already drawing attention; I’ve noticed. Even when he’s incognito, he’s too pretty not to be recognized. The shades help, but I can see the tension in his jaw; he doesn’t want to play celebrity until we get to the school if he can help it.

I guess even a camera hound like my sparkling heir tires of the bad part of being famous once in a while.

Tiernan’s walk gets sharper every time we slow down to snicker at another storefront. His eyes flick up and down the street, marking every alley and open window, the muscle in his jaw pulsing as if he’s counting each second we linger in the open. I’m sure the necropolis is crawling with people who’d love to talk to Revelin, but right now, mostly it’s just empty.

The basilisk catches up to me and elbows my ribs, hard enough to make Fidget squeak and scurry to my other shoulder. “You missed one,” he stage-whispers, pointing at a warped placard nailed to the door of a squat cinder-block building. “It’s Not A Phase—Gothic Fits for Discerning Fae. I’m almost mad about how good that is.”

“Try to get through there without buying something,” I dare him. “You definitely could be lured by that kind of shop.”

“Joke’s on you, Sassy. I wanted to go in before you said that.” Khol grins proudly. The green lamp's glow makes his shedding scales look even creepier, as one flutters off his neck. “We should buy an entire group ensemble. It wouldn’t stick out here at all.”

Fidget chimes in with a disgusted pip, digging his claws into my skin like he’s doing the bat version of an eye roll. Apparently, the little bastard hates puns almost as much as he hates people who piss me off. Good to know, but not especially helpful, and a little funny.

We keep moving, shopfronts thickening as we head toward what passes for a market square. There’s no open plaza, just a convergence of alleys where the buildings lean in so close you could touch both sides at once. Most of the stalls are shuttered, but the ones that are open are worse than the first set. A mortuary bakery called Donut Disturb, a taxidermist advertising Pets Forever — Some Assembly Required, and a spell shop so covered in sticker graffiti I can’t even read the name. The best of the bunch is a pawnshop with a digital display stating, ‘We Buy Gold, Silver, and Souls — No Paperwork Needed’ going by over and over.

Okay, this fucking place is kind of growing on me.

Khol reads every one, his voice getting flatter as the material gets better. By the fifth shop, I’m doubled over laughing while the leopard and the vampire act like we’re embarrassing them in front of the entire underworld.

“Can we not,” Dezi mutters, “advertise to the entire city that we have a twelve-year-old sense of humor?”