Page 13

“Four types, apparently.”

I've met attractive men before. I've never wanted four of them in one room before lunch.

“This is a very weird job,” I tell him.

He licks my wrist and lies back down. I settle him on his blanket and go back inside.

When I walk back into the office, Merek looks at my empty hands.

“No purse?”

“It was the wrong purse.”

He grins and doesn’t push it. Lenart doesn’t say anything at all, but I can feel him watching me as I sit down.

“Desmond,” I say, and click my pen.

“Your uncle was a partner here,” Lenart says. “But he wasn’t just a partner. He ran the records, the membership agreements, the contracts. Every member who walks through that red door downstairs has sworn an oath. Desmond kept them.”

“Kept them how?”

“He was an Oathkeeper.” Lenart nods at my right hand. “So are you.”

I look down at my palm. The silver lines have faded to nothing, but I can still feel where they were.

“The Club operates under a treaty,” he says. “It’s a hundred and fifty years old. This building is neutral ground. Everyone who comes here can be safe here, as long as they keep their oaths. When someone breaks one, the wards respond.”

“The silver light.”

“Yes. And the wards need an Oathkeeper to anchor them. When Desmond died, they went into what the treaty calls a grace. They kept running on what he’d left, until his heir arrived to take them up.” He pauses. “Last night, a member broke his oath on our floor, and the wards reached for the nearest Oathkeeper they could find.”

“Me. Even though I didn’t know any of this existed.”

“It doesn’t require your knowledge. Only your blood.” He glances at my hand. “The grace ended the moment you answered.”

“What does it do? This blood of mine?”

“It answers to oaths,” he says. “Sworn ones, and broken ones. You’ll learn the rest by doing it.”

He lets that sit for a second. “Now. The condition.”

I write CONDITION on my pad and wait.

“The treaty requires an Oathkeeper on the premises every night the Club is open. Your uncle’s will makes your inheritance dependent on it. You’ll serve as the provisional Oathkeeper every operating night from now until Lammas, when the wards can be formally bound to you and you can take the oath yourself.”

“What the hell is llamas? And when is it?”

“Lammas,” he corrects gently. “LAH-mus. An old harvest festival. August first. The original treaty established it as the date for binding a new Oathkeeper.”

“Of course it did.” I write August 1 on my legal pad. “And if I don’t?”

“If you miss a single operating night before then, you forfeit your share.” His voice doesn’t change. “It passes to whoever is named in a sealed codicil to the will.”

“Who’s that?”

“None of us know.”

I look at the others. Merek’s jaw is set. Tav is frowning. William’s eyes haven’t left me.