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M uch to my relief, Harrow was cool about the whole kidnapping/possession thing. He was so quick to be the bigger person and forgive me that I had no choice but to break my own rules and forgive him. I had a problem giving people who hurt my family second chances. I knew holding on to grudges wasn’t healthy, but aside from running, I didn’t have many healthy hobbies, so what was one more?

Alone with Harrow on the gallery overlooking the Quarter, I sipped sweet tea while he chomped through a shrimp po’boy fresh from the corner shop. Had we found ourselves here for any other reason, I would have called the evening peaceful. I might have even let myself enjoy the company. With his mouth full, it was too hard for us to argue.

“I want to call a truce.” I watched him for his reaction. “We’ve both made mistakes, and I doubt we’re at the end of them. Our paths keep crossing, so… Yeah. This would be easier if we were friends.”

“Okay.” He chewed thoughtfully. “Friends.”

“Just like that?” I stirred my drink with my straw. “You forgive me?”

“Frankie, I’m tired of blaming you for things outside of your control. I’m tired of getting blamed for them too.” His eyes smiled at me when he stole my cup and sucked down half of it. “We live in the same town and have people in common. Like Carter. And Aretha. Friendship would make bumping into one another a lot easier on everyone involved.” He stared into the glass, clinking the ice cubes. “I’m more worried about if you can forgive me.”

Tempted to ask if Aretha had bumped into him recently, I decided it wasn’t my place to pry.

“I’m not the same person I was, and I don’t mean to play the death card to death, but I’m literally a different person.” A smile twitched in my cheek. “This is the part where I should say that means I don’t want to waste my second chance on old grievances or petty blah, blah, blah, but I’m just tired of losing people I care about.” I shoved his shoulder. “That apparently includes you.”

“As much as I would love to hang around and help out, I didn’t exactly get the time off approved. Carter is covering for me, but I have to head home.” He finished off my drink. “I’ll have 514 resources at my disposal, so if you need anything, text me.”

“I’ll do that.” I watched him as he left to return his dishes, and a sense of contentment blanketed me. He was going to be a part of my life, peripherally, and wiping the slate clean felt good. It felt even better not to be brought up on charges because a goddess used his body like a Swyft. “Kierce.”

I wasn’t sure how long he had been standing there, watching me, or maybe watching over me. I couldn’t say how much of my interaction with Harrow he witnessed, but I didn’t think it had been much. As I sank into my new skin, opening my senses wider, I could feel him on the edge of my consciousness.

“Harrow is leaving?”

“He woke up in a strange city with an alligator in his bed and no memory of how he—or it—got there.”

A chuckle slid past his lips, and that was all the encouragement I required to invite myself to taste them. I rested my palms on his shoulders, lifted onto my toes, and pressed my mouth to his with a happy little hum. As he relaxed into the kiss, gripping my hips and holding me flush against him, I let my thoughts spin out and take my worries with them.

“Frankie.”

The voice at my back wasn’t one I could ignore, not with that somber quality, so I broke away from the stolen moment with Kierce to face Jean-Claude and the reason for his interruption. “What’s wrong?”

“Rollo is…” He dragged a heavy hand down his face. “I found him in his office.” His fingers trembled over his mouth. “Passed out on the floor.”

“What?” I rushed out into the hall. “He was fine a minute ago.”

More like thirty minutes ago. Maybe forty-five. Had it already been an hour?

How long had he lain there before Jean-Claude went to comfort him and discovered him instead?

A shiver tickled my spine as I entered his room, which had been forbidden to me all these years. But he was in no shape to scold me. His head rested on his pillow, and he lay on the mattress like a sleeping prince. With all the gilded accents on his duvet and the gold leaf on the corners of his four-poster bed, the theme was less Sleeping Prince than King Midas .

“No wonder you didn’t want me to see your room.” I retrieved a lancet from my pocket and pricked my finger. I daubed his forehead with blood then pressed my palm to his skin. “It’s the gaudiest thing I’ve seen in my life. Who has gold slippers? And is that…? No. That’s not a gold chalice.” I thrust my awareness into him, searching every corner. “Do you stir gold flakes in your bedside water pitcher too to make your poop sparkle?”

A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, a silent comfort, as Jean-Claude waited for me to accept what he already knew.

“His soul is gone,” I announced to the rest of the room. “Just like the others.”

* * *

More than anything, Rollo acted as a secretary for Vi. A savage one. For him to have been struck down in his office, when he had been fine earlier, there must be a clue within those four walls. But an hour later, I hadn’t found a single one.

Aside from his water pitcher, there was no food or drink in the room. The glass that matched the set was turned upside down on the same ostentatious serving platter as the pitcher, indicating he hadn’t drunk from it.

None of the tidy papers, calendars, or notes hinted at what happened to him while he no doubt paced and cursed my name. That was how I remembered him spending most of his time while I lived here anyway.

“Whether he registered it or not, he figured out how the others were afflicted.”

“Yeah.” I turned to find Harrow standing in the doorway wearing a severe expression. “Looks that way.”

Too bad we had no clue if what truly caused the affliction was in this office or, by process of elimination, if he encountered it elsewhere while he was out bartering for information from his network of magically inclined neighbors. Other than the tidbits he shared earlier, I couldn’t find a thing about those conversations or who he had them with.

“I can stay if you need help.” He soaked in the potential crime scene. “If I told Chief Leer?—”

“No.” I screwed my eyes shut. “Sorry about biting your head off, but I don’t want him in my business.”

“That’s probably for the best.” He wiped a hand over his mouth. “Okay. Well. I better head out.”

“Tell Carter I said hi.” I hadn’t texted her out of fear she had elected to give Josie the boot on my advice. If that happened, the next boot I saw coming would be the one Josie used to stomp my face in. “I’ll walk you out.”

“That’s fine.” He waved off my offer. “I know my way.”

Still, for the sake of manners, I trailed him out into the hall.

Just in time to spot a shadow wriggle toward his jacket where it hung over the arm of the couch.

“Nope.” I lunged for it, closing my hands over leathery hide. “You’re not sneaking off with him.”

“I would not abandon you, Frankie Talbot.” Anunit nosed his pocket. “I simply wished to give him a token of my regard.”

“I’m not ashamed to admit,” he said, leaning down to my ear, “I would have screamed like a clown jump scare at a horror house if I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out that…thing.”

“I like that body very much.” Her beady eyes bored into him. “I may wish to use it again.”

Harrow’s swallow was audible when I passed along her warning, and I chuckled when he took a healthy step back.

“I think she heard you.” I leaned in too. “I would get while the getting’s good if I were you.”

For his sake, I scooped up his jacket and handed it to him. I sat with Anunit, frowning at the glue ring around the crown of her head, while he called for the elevator. I waited until the doors closed behind him to eye her with curiosity. “You gave him your hat?”

“For him to remember me by,” she said slyly, her tail swishing with feline amusement.

“Oh, I don’t think that will be a problem. He’s never going to forget you.” I rubbed her tiny scalp, but the super glue didn’t budge. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed the company, but I have my hands full. Can we start guardian lessons after I figure out how to march the parade of souls back into their bodies?”

“Life will always be complicated for you. It is the way of things.” She climbed onto my thigh. “I will stay. I will help, if I can, but you must open your mind. You cannot view the world as you have, or you will be as a rabbit fleeing a hawk. To protect your family, Frankie Talbot, you must become the hawk.”

“The best defense is a good offense,” I murmured, turning over her advice.

Footsteps thumped behind me, and Josie leaned over the back of the couch, putting us cheek to cheek. “You and Rollo get along as well as oil and water, but this still has to hurt. Are you doing okay?”

“Okay is relative these days.” I was functioning, and I felt good about that. “How about you?”

“You’ll figure it out. You always do. I believe in you.”

“I don’t know where you get your faith in me, but I would like to buy some. Preferably in bulk.”

“Mine’s homemade, but I can spot you a jar.” She curled a lock of my hair around her finger. “Pascal and I have a ways to go, but there are no cases of the affliction outside of the Quarter aside from Matty’s and Leyna’s so far.”

“Excellent work.” I pinched her cheek. “I knew I kept you around for a reason.”

“Yeah. To feed you. Not for my secretarial skills.”

“Kierce and I need to head out.” I stood with a grunt, careful to set Anunit on a cushion first. “We have a couple of stops before we stake out Ursulines Avenue at midnight.” I had thought of a few more spirits worth quizzing, if I could find them. “Do you want to come, Anunit?”

With Harrow gone, she had no reason to skulk around the house but no reason to help us either.

“Yes,” she decided and shed her alligator skin, stepping into the room in her breathtaking spirit form.

Hard to believe such a majestic creature could be crammed into that cowgirl catastrophe, but such was the power of the divine.

“Nice.” I had used my last lancet, so I needed to restock. “Let me grab my bag, and then we can go.”

“I’ll start on Rollo’s notes,” Josie said, setting off down the hall. “Pascal can finish up our call list.”

“That would be a huge help.” I followed, turning right two doors before hers. “Thanks.”

Standing in my bedroom, I drew in a long breath, filling my lungs until they ached, reminding myself that even slow progress was progress. We knew more tonight than we had last night, and maybe among Rollo’s notes was a fresh lead we could follow.

A girl could dream.