Sometimes I thought that every single time I believed things might go well, there ought to be a laugh track in my life to remind me that was never the case. I’d been shot at for being a witch, had my arm flayed open by a pissy draugr, discovered a need for blood, and accidentally entered a courtship that was supposed to result in marriage in a matter of weeks.
I might have managed to avoid the conversation, and loudly argued that we weren’t actually getting married, but fae customs were better understood as laws than traditions.
The only thing that had gone well was introducing Eli to my mother. Our trip to the Outs was good, and it drew me closer to him.
Okay and dating Eli as a whole. That was going really well.
And so was my resolve at the not-having-intercourse with Eli. Honestly I tried not to think about it, but Eli was as damnably perfect for me. I felt treasured, but also satisfied. It was enough to make a rational woman beg to marry him. A lifetime of that? Yes, please.
Unfortunately for both of us, I like Eli far too much to marry him.
I spent a few hours resisting the urge to see him, but I failed over and over—which is why I was sitting at the bar watching Christy free a tourist of the burden of his bank roll. Honestly, if he hadn’t been flashing it around, she would’ve gone easy on him, but flash a thick roll of twenties, and someone will have it by the end of the night. At least Christy’s method wouldn’t involve bloodshed.
When I received a festively-decorated package that was delivered to the bar on ice, I had the good sense to carry it into the back room. Maybe it was fine. Maybe it was edible. But it was delivered by a draugr.
When I saw that it was from Beatrice, I had my doubts that anything good would come of it.
“Butterdrop?” Eli asked.
“Draugr delivery.”
We closed the door and exchanged a look. I held up an envelope. That was easier to make sense of: cash. Beatrice paid me well for my services. I set it aside. I knew it was more than I’d charge, but I wasn’t too proud to accept it. No one else could do the things I did. Sometimes people who realized that paid extra—which meant that when they needed me again, I’d make time for them.
I plopped the silver foil-wrapped box on the counter and untied the bold blue ribbons. “Maybe it’s a toaster or pressure cooker? Rare liquor?”
Eli gave me a look. “And maybe you’ll take up macramé.”
“It could happen. I have hidden depths.” I loosened the lid, not quite ready to face the contents. Nothing involving Beatrice was ever simple.
“You’re stalling.” Eli pointed at the box on the wooden table beside us. It looked festive, and whatever it was, I doubted that it would explode or injure us.
Tentatively, I opened the box. To exactly no one’s surprise, there was no pressure cooker, salad bowls, or even macramé supplies. There, surrounded by ice packs, was the head of Weasel Nuts, the man who’d shot at me at the Cormier job. On top of his severed head, jabbed into the meat of his forehead, was Harold’s ornate broach.
“There’s a letter.” Eli unfolded the paper that had been in the envelope and read: “‘Hunters ought to be rewarded. Harold employed miscreants to discover your abilities. This human expired before sharing further knowledge.’”
“Is it me or are there a lot more brushes with death lately?”
“It is far more frequent than I’d like.” Eli tucked the cash and letter in a pocket.
We’d long ago realized that I’d misplaced far too many things for me to be the one handling deposits. Eli, along with being my partner in the field, had begun to handle my accounting. I trusted him more than myself on this.
“Do you know what to do with that?” I nodded at the garish jewels jabbed in Weasel Nuts’ forehead.
“Sell or store it.” Eli shrugged. “Antique, obviously.”
I wasn’t squeamish often, but unpinning the broach from the dead man’s head was not terribly appealing. I put the lid back on it for now.
“I have a woman who handles gems. I brought a cache with me when I moved here,” Eli said in that uniquely Eli way that was somehow downplaying his connections and wealth. “They covered the bills of a life here—until I established the tavern—and then I sell one now and again.”
He looked at me and stressed, “Bonbon, I would suspect the ruby alone will be between six and thirty thousand, simply due to size and clarity.”
I swallowed. Who in their right mind wore jewels like that? And who pinned them to the head of dead men?
Obviously, Beatrice was not wanting for funds, but her proclamation of familial ties was said so carelessly. I was starting to think my dear, dead, many-times-great-gran truly liked me. It was, in truth, a bit disconcerting.
I shuddered. “Do whatever you think best with it.”
“Shall I dispose of . . . the contents as well?”
“I have no use for the head of Weasel Nuts, and re-gifting that would probably lead to awkward questions.” I shoved the box slightly toward him.
“You never bore me, my dear plum pudding. For someone with eternity ahead, that is a treasure.”
I thought more than a little about Eternity as I prepared for the trip to Elphame. Unlike my visits to Beatrice or my mother, this trip was a multi-day affair. Oddly, perhaps, time between the worlds was uneven. My first stay there had been a month, but in New Orleans a mere three hours passed.
Going there did not mean I missed anything at home. My city was not left unpatrolled, and it wasn’t as if the police did nothing. New Orleans had reconfigured their entire force. They protected the city, watched for the draugr and aided the citizens.
Still I was, for reasons that I was not pleased to admit, anxious.
Witches from the Outs were not a good fit for royal courts. I mean, sure I coped with the draugr queen’s soiree but that was because I figured I’d get to threaten or stab someone. Eli repeatedly stressed that neither of those were advisable at the Yule celebration with his uncle, the king of the fae.
Tonight, though, Eli and I were having a “date-night.” A few hours locked away in my home, surrounded by fight dummies and weapons. It wasn’t as romantic as his place, but it was my home. It was important to both of us that we spend time here, too.
I wasn’t the world’s best date, though, much to my frustration. My nerves were frayed, and it was making me filter-free. “What if I glare at him? Is that—”
“A terrible idea?” Eli said. “Yes, it is.”
“Can I hex him?”
“No.”
“Make a bargain?”
“No!” Eli gave me a look that everyone in my life did from time to time. It usually meant I was a lousy patient, but . . .
“I’m hungry.” I was both pleased to realize why I felt surlier than usual and surlier because I had the distinct feeling that a good bottle of gin wasn’t going to fix this.
Alice wasn’t there, and the martini shaker was still empty. Draining her energy had me on restriction, and I still couldn’t bring myself to ask anyone else. I knew my friends would tap a vein for me, but I just . . . couldn’t.
“I swore I’d die before I become like a draugr,” I said, admitting the thing that had been plaguing me more and more. I’d survived an attempt on my life a few times, bad luck, pretending to be more human than I was, but the injection of venom a few months ago was life-changing.
Eli walked out of my apartment without a word.
When he returned, he had a bag with the top of a dusty bottle of whisky sticking out.
He pulled the bottle out and put it on my coffee table with more force than he would’ve if he were calm. Then, he looked at me.
“What?”
“If I didn’t know how hard this was for you, I’d accuse you of trying to avoid my home country,” he started. He opened a bag again and pulled out two glasses.
When I opened my mouth to object, he caught my hand. “You are impossible, Geneviève Crowe. Difficult to get to know. Fierce to the point of recklessness. But you are not a draugr. You are not monstrous, by any definition.”
I nodded because what could I say? I knew he believed it, but sometimes I felt monstrous. I had draugr eyes, and I could flow. I was the only one of my kind, and the dead came to me at my will. The faery king called me things like “death” or “dead witch,” and more than a few people thought I ought to be dead because of being a witch.
I didn’t exactly feel loveable.
He poured whisky into both glasses.
Then Eli reached in the bag again, and when I saw what he held I was standing on the other side of the room. A small, gleaming knife. Mother of pearl handle. Thin blade. Watching me the whole time, he pushed up his sleeve and slid the blade over his forearm.
He turned his arm so the cut was over a glass. Still holding my gaze, he said, “Given freely.”
“Eli . . .” My mind said no, but my teeth were there to remind me that I was less witch than I used to be.
I shook my head no even as I stepped closer, watching blood—his blood, fae blood—drip into my glass.
“My life is yours, Geneviève Crowe.” He took a bandage from the bag and pressed it to his arm. “I would shed every drop for your safety, your health, your happiness.”
“Eli . . .”
He held out the glass of blood and whisky. “The fae date with eternity in our minds, dearest. Everything I am is yours, including my body inside and out.”
I took the glass with a shaking hand, and he lifted his blood-free drink.
“To eternity,” he said.
I clinked my glass to his and echoed, “To eternity.”