Page 38

Billy Bob does a lap of the room, smells every corner, and lies down under the desk.

Lenart has already set a ledger out for me. Corinne arrives ten minutes later, with her tablet and a coffee, and she looks genuinely pleased to see me there.

“Tara. I’m so glad you’re settling in.” Her eyes go to the dog under the desk, and she smiles. “And who’s this?”

“Billy Bob.”

“Of course he is.” She sets her coffee down. “I wanted to make you an offer, and please say no if it’s not useful. Most of what Desmond did day to day is routine. Dues, roster changes, the renewal schedule. I’ve been handling it since he passed, and I’m happy to keep doing it until Lammas. You’d only need to worry about the midnight renewals. You’d have some time to enjoy Portland.” She smiles again. “You’ve had a hard few days.”

It’s a kind offer. It’s a reasonable one, too. She knows this office better than I do. Two days ago, I would have said yes before she finished the sentence.

“Thank you,” I say. “Really. But I’d rather learn it.”

“Of course.”

“Dez left me this. I’m not going to spend six weeks letting someone else do it for me. I want to know what he did.”

Her smile doesn’t change. She picks her coffee up again and holds it in both hands for a second before she nods.

“That’s what he’d have wanted,” she says. “If you get stuck, I’m right down the hall.”

When she’s gone, I open the ledger.

It’s an oath ledger. Each page is a member, with a name, a species, and the terms of the oath in Dez’s small, slanted handwriting, the same handwriting as the birthday cards rubber-banded together in my glove box. Some of them have a renewal date in the margin. I flip forward. Most of the renewals are years off. Some aren’t.

“These dates,” I say. “When an oath comes up for renewal, what happens? Do they just come in and say it again?”

“In front of the Oathkeeper,” Lenart says, from the chair by the window. “Yes. You witness it, and the wards record it.”

“And if I’m not there to witness it?”

He’s quiet for a second. “Then it lapses.”

I keep turning pages. I count. “There are eleven of these between now and August first.”

“There are.”

“Is there a schedule? A list of who’s coming when?”

“Corinne keeps it.”

“Okay.” I take out my phone and open the calendar with all four of their names in it. “Then those go on first. Before anybody’s dinner.”

When I look up, Lenart is watching me with an expression I can’t read.

It takes Corinne four minutes to send me the renewal schedule. It takes me twenty more to put all eleven on my calendar, one at a time, with each member’s name and species.

Lenart doesn’t help. He sits by the window with a ledger of his own and turns pages, and every time I glance over at him, he’s looking at his ledger. It’s very convincing. It would be more convincing if he’d turned a page in the last ten minutes.

“You’re very calm,” I say eventually.

He turns a page. “Am I?”

“Three hours ago, you had your hand in my hair and your fangs in my lip in Merek’s kitchen. Now you’re doing paperwork.”

“I’m doing paperwork,” he agrees, “and thinking about my hand in your hair.” He closes the ledger and sets it on his knee. “I’ve had a great deal of practice at being calm, Tara. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

“I meant what I said,” I tell him. “I’m going to take my time. With all of you.”