How to Claim an Undead Soul Page 10

  Woolly’s happiness to find herself at the center of a project was infecting her magical signature.

  The notion made me smile as I strolled for the carriage house. The front door was open wide in welcome, which always caused me to hesitate. Certainly, it had never seemed welcoming before Linus moved in. I found the man himself at the kitchen table with his head bent over a stack of drawings he tweaked with sharp scratches of his pen.

  Since he didn’t jump up and yell aha at me, I assumed Amelie and my snooping had gone unnoticed.

  “Bagels and cream cheese are on the counter,” he murmured. “There’s fresh fruit and cream in the fridge. Help yourself.”

  “Self-serve.” I set about daubing strawberry cream cheese over a blueberry bagel. “I see how it is. Lure me in with home-cooked meals and then switch to processed once you’ve got me hooked.”

  “Are you?”

  I paused with a clean butter knife dipped in the herb spread I was planning on slathering over an onion bagel guaranteed to taste like regret. “Am I what?”

  “Hooked.”

  The knife wobbled in my fingers as I angled my head toward him. Dressed in a French blue button-down, he didn’t give the shirt a chance to make the color of his eyes pop. He kept doing what he was doing, giving no indication he had asked what he’d asked in the tone he’d used. Maybe I was imagining things. “Free food is hard to resist.”

  He spared a glance for me, his mind so obviously elsewhere that I relaxed. “You’re buying the groceries, remember?”

  “Hmm.” I hadn’t bought anything yet. There hadn’t been time. Grocery delivery should be a thing. Was it a thing? I would have to ask Amelie. “You’ll have to give me a list of things you like to eat.”

  When he didn’t answer, I wondered if that was because he had no favorites or because he didn’t eat.

  But he had to, right? No one could live on air and crumbs. Tonight he wasn’t even pretending hunger.

  “I’m enjoying our lessons,” I said, changing subjects. “Though mostly it’s been more like shop class.”

  “That changes tonight. I’ve outlined a rough ward that takes into consideration Woolly’s special needs. Your task is to break the design apart and analyze each component.” When he glanced up, a smudge of ink streaked his cheek. “Once you’ve finished, assuming you pass, we’ll do it again. And again. Until you grasp the intricacies of the ward enough you can duplicate the framing to create your own.”

  “Come on.” I dropped into the chair across from him with a put-upon sigh. “Can’t we go outside and play in the cement some more?”

  “No.” His lips twitched as I kicked my feet for emphasis. Maybe that’s what sustained him. His students’ tears. “I have a field trip planned for the end of the week if you’re a good girl and finish all your homework on time.”

  Delighted he was playing with me when I’d doubted he knew how, I slumped forward in a sprawl across the table. “Homework is dumb.”

  Linus swept a handful of hair off my face to better see me. “Would you rather leave Woolly dependent on the ink on her siding?”

  I popped out my bottom lip. “No.”

  “Then you better get started. The concrete requires forty-eight hours to set. We need to be ready to move in half that time so it will be soft enough to take the sigils more easily.”

  That sobered me. “I’ve got twenty-four hours to figure this out?”

  “More like twenty-three if you count breakfast and all the wallowing you just did.”

  “That was hardly wallowing. I didn’t roll across the floor or anything.” I held out my hand and accepted the stack of papers from him. The sigils were complex, some overlapping in ways that made my brain throb. “What if…?”

  What if Maud had been right all along? What if my magic was wonky and not miraculous? What if he was better off bleeding me and inking the sigils himself? What if I really was only ever meant to be an assistant?

  I definitely needed a new game to play. What if was getting a mite repetitive.

  “You can do this.” He rested his hand on my forearm, the weight of his cold fingers snapping me out of my spiral. “If you get stuck, ask for help. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Helping a student with a test is cheating.” I tried to recapture our earlier playfulness. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I hereby forfeit all future apples as penance for my crimes.” He bowed his head, and it was all I could do to keep from tugging the dark-auburn tips as they swung forward. We might be working toward an understanding, but I wasn’t certain it could ever be friendship without trust. “Will that suffice?”

  “That suffices.”

  “You have one hour.” He set a timer on his phone. “I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

  After that, he left me to my bumbling attempts at deciphering the intricacies of his masterpiece. His mother’s brags hadn’t been empty on that front. I recognized the configurations, the way his mind attacked problems. Maud’s had worked the same. Her guiding hand was present in each line of every sigil on the page. Having that link to her anchored me in a way that told me I hadn’t realized just how far I’d drifted from the kid she’d adopted.

  The hour lapsed in a blink, and I jumped when a hand landed on my shoulder.

  “Time’s up.” Linus leaned over me, his lips parted, and his exhale raised chills up my throat. “Let’s see how you’ve done.”

  “Linus?” Glancing up put us almost cheek to cheek. “Why is your skin so cold?” I covered the hand he’d left braced on my shoulder with mine, and he allowed me to trace the length of his graceful fingers. “Lots of people have cold hands, but touching you is always like plunging into an ice bath.”

  “It’s a side effect of bonding with a wraith.”

  There seemed to be a lot of those.

  He straightened, taking my pages with him, and the frown I’d caused smoothed as he studied my work. The edge of his mouth kept hitching higher, until he was smiling at the paper. Marveling at it, really.

  I ducked my head to hide how much his silent praise meant. I would never be the practitioner Maud had been, that Linus was, but I would be more than I’d ever dreamed thanks to the anomaly of my blood that made me worth educating. Linus wasn’t Maud, but his approval was the next best thing.

  “You’ve gotten a few of these additions wrong.” He pulled a mundane red marker from his pocket and corrected the lines until they flowed one into another. “All in all, I would say this is a solid C plus.”

  “I’ll take it.” I beamed up at him. “How does a girl get extra credit around here? I want Woolly to have A-plus wards.”

  “There are no shortcuts, Grier. Practice is how we strengthen your magic, how we hone your craft. Study is how you learn to protect yourself, how you secure Woolly and Maud’s legacy. You’ll pay for your education with blood and with pain, and you’ll hate me when we’re done. All my best students do.” He gave me the marked-up paper to study. “But when I finish with you, you’ll be able to decorate her foundation with gold stars.”

  A hand cramp forced me to put down my pen. Linus still wasn’t satisfied, and that made me dissatisfied too. None of the previous incarnations of this ward had earned his seal of approval, and I doubted this latest one would either, but I was beat. A bronze medal would have to be good enough for tonight.

  I tucked away the cheat sheet I’d made to help me decipher the more complex sigils. Those doodles would live to fight another day. Not that they had done me much good since I’d yet to earn higher than a B minus. Linus was not pleased when I used my notes as a crutch, but I didn’t see the difference in what I was doing and in memorizing formulae for math class.

  “Here.” I thunked my head onto the table and lifted the paper in the air for him to fetch. “Be kind.”

  “Kindness won’t protect Woolly,” he reminded me, all prim and proper. “Grier…”

  “Flunk me quick.” I rolled my head to one side, pressing
my cheek to the smooth wood. “I can take it.”

  “Your C plus wasn’t a flunking grade,” he said, amusement clear in his tone, “and neither is this.”

  “B plus?” I ventured. “That would be an all-new record for me.”

  “Maud schooled you well in protective wards, particularly those designed with Woolly in mind. She always meant for you to continue caring for her.” A sweep of his arm encompassed the stacks of papers, the notes, the quizzes, all of it. “You knew this. You were proficient in this. You were just out of practice.”

  “What I’m hearing is this was all remedial, and the hard work hasn’t yet begun.”

  Thinking back on those weekends cooped up in Maud’s study, he was right. Warding had been my best subject. One of the few Maud had taught me. Assistants could become proficient in this area. Even a few Low Society folks with talent could use them. I had been allowed this one thing, and Linus was right. It was only because the task of maintaining Woolly was always meant to be mine.

  “Baby steps.” He wrote on the paper and pushed it across the table with his fingertips. “This is your final grade.”

  Braced for the worst, I sat upright and pulled the grade closer. “An A minus?”

  Linus studied me as he capped his marker, like he couldn’t read me. “Are you disappointed?”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” I leapt to my feet with a whoop and tackled him with a hug. “This is the best grade I’ve ever made.”

  “Oomph.”

  “I’m not squeezing that hard.” I tipped my head back and laughed at his frozen expression. “You’ll live.”

  Faint color blossomed under his skin, pinking his neck all the way to his hairline. “You startled me.”

  “The whooping wasn’t your first clue? It’s like an early-warning system.” Neither I nor my excitement were subtle. “Next time you hear it, run if you don’t want to get tackled.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  A few curt raps on the window nearest us startled me into squishing the breath out of Linus for real.

  Boaz stood in the garden, a frown tugging on his lips, and raised his voice to be heard through the glass. “Am I interrupting?”

  Linus tensed beneath my hands, the muscles in his back pulling taunt. Through the fabric of his shirt, cold bled into my cheek where it mashed against his chest until one half of my face went numb. He rested ice-block hands on my shoulders and set me back, away from him.

  “Refine your design.” Mist poured over his lips. “We’ll start etching the foundation tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” I tried not to look like a barnacle chipped off the side of a ship and wondering where to cling next. “Okay.”

  Without a backward glance, he vanished behind the stacked trunks he had yet to relocate.

  “How can you stand being cooped up in here for hours with him?” Boaz had invited himself in and now leaned in the front doorway, his arms folded over his chest and his ankles crossed. “He’s as dull as dishwater.”

  An instinctive defense for Linus rose in me, but I didn’t want to start a fight when we had plans. I could always pry open that can of worms after I’d been wined and dined. And probably dump them over his head.

  “You’re early.” I linked my fingers and reached toward the ceiling, stretching out my sore back. “What about my session with Taz?”

  “I hate to break it to you, Squirt, but Taz left an hour ago. She saw you two working and figured it was more important.” He watched the show like he was wishing for popcorn. “Besides, she knew we had plans tonight.”

  “Fiddlesticks.”

  A scowl cut his mouth that he aimed in the direction Linus had gone, like it was his fault I’d let the hour get away from me. “That is not what a guy wants to hear when he comes to pick his girl up for a night out.”

  “You pout almost as much as I do, and you’ve got a fuller mouth, so you look better doing it.”

  “You’ve noticed that, huh?”

  The way a scar bisected his bottom lip, giving it an almost heart-shaped appearance? Or how that same pinkish line curved through his upper one, twisting the edge? Both injuries from a stunt gone wrong, one that had stopped my heart until he flashed a bloody smile at me and flipped up both his thumbs. Imperfections that made him uniquely Boaz. Had I noticed his lips? I would go to my grave with that answer. I had obsessed over them, what noises he might make if I bit down on that scar, what sounds I might make if he let me. But he didn’t need to know any of that. Ever.

  “As much as you love to run your mouth?” I mimed him jabbering away with my hands. “It’s hard to look away once your gums start bumping.”

  “Hmph.”

  “I’m sorry I’m not ready.” I tidied my stack of papers, stuffed what I needed in my grimoire, and joined him in the garden, pulling the door closed behind me. “I wanted to look nice for you, but now I’m tired, and you’re stuck with me as is. I hope that’s okay.”

  “He’s working you that hard?” Boaz threw a companionable arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the house. “I’m surprised he doesn’t keep a ruler handy for rapping you on the knuckles when you answer wrong.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I wedged my elbow between his ribs and dug in. “I like how you assume I answer wrong often enough he needs to keep it on him.”

  “Do you always celebrate the end of class with a round of hugs?” He clamped me tighter against him, trapping my arm to avoid another jab. “Isn’t that a little kumbaya for you?”

  “I’ll have you know,” I said haughtily, “I made an A minus on a warding test.”

  “And that merited a hug?”

  Jealousy was usually my thing, not his. I doubted he had envied anyone in his life. Until now. Until Linus. The green-eyed-monster look was new on Boaz. I wasn’t certain if I liked it reflected back at me.

  “You have no idea how hard this is.” In a move that would have made Taz proud, I hooked my leg through his and sent him stumbling. “I have brain cramps from what I did today.”

  “Goddess, Grier.” He managed to correct his balance before he ate dirt. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Well, it’s what I meant.” I refused to apologize. “I was excited. I don’t see the crime.”

  “You’re playing with fire letting him get on your good side. He’s ingratiating himself to you.”

  “Are you robbing me of my achievement by mansplaining that all the work I did today was a ploy? Are you insinuating that his plan was to undercut my confidence all evening then give me high marks to provoke a physical response?” I planted my feet and anchored my hands on my hips. “Do you think I’m being conditioned to equate higher marks with affection? That I would ever drop my panties for a passing grade?”

  “He has a lot of power over you at the moment, whether you see it or not.”

  “I see him clearly, Boaz.” I didn’t own a single pair of rose-colored glasses. “Stop acting like a jealous boyfriend. You don’t have that right.”

  “You’ve been through enough,” he growled. “If I can protect you from one more thing, I will. No matter how pissed off you get, as your friend, as someone who loves you, that is my right, and I have earned it.”

  The argument I intended to make spluttered in the face of his righteous fury.

  “The Grande Dame locked you away, tossed you in a black hole, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it except clang on the front gate and get beat to shit by the guards.” His face reddened as he stalked toward me. “I watched Volkov take you, saw you curled in his fucking lap like a drowsy kitten, and I couldn’t save you.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the carriage house. “Now I see that viper’s son coiling around you when he’s the last person on the face of the planet you ought to trust, and you expect me to sit on my hands for a third time? Hell no.”

  My cell in Atramentous was so small, so dark, I forgot sometimes that others had been in there with me. Not really there, not trapped like me. But Ameli
e and Boaz had been in my thoughts every single night, and I had been in theirs. We had all suffered together, though we had been apart, and those years had marked us in different ways. None of us would ever be the same again. We had each been broken into different patterns, the cracks deeper and sharper in some areas than in others, and expecting our jagged edges to fit the way they used to was the ultimate folly.

  One thing remained true, though. Boaz coped through violence, sarcasm and suffocating affection. As much as I wanted to kick him in the shin and stomp away, I had to remember he was trying. That might not be enough in the end. But it was a start. It was enough to earn him a chance to prove this might work.

  “I can handle Linus.” The moment I got in over my head, I would reach out. I would ask Amelie to sit in on our lessons or move them to Woolly. Surely she would allow Linus to trespass for a few hours as long as I was there to act as a buffer. “I know you mean well.” I walked into his arms and wrapped him up tight, his heart pounding furious and wild under my ear. “I know you’re protecting me.” I breathed him in, his scent so familiar I equated it with being home. “But I need him.”

  “I know, I know.” His arms came around me, crushing me, and he rested his chin on top of my head. “I’m sorry.” His sigh rustled my hair. “I worry about you, Squirt. That’s all. I hate that I’m not here to protect you.” He pressed a warm kiss to my temple. “I’m proud of you. So damn proud.” Another brush of his lips attempted to distract me. “I’m a shit friend for robbing you of your pride. I never should have implied your grades weren’t earned or that your accomplishments weren’t deserved. Forgive me?”

  “Consider yourself on probation.” I pinched his nipple and twisted until he shouted. He jumped back, releasing me, and I shook my head. “I don’t remember you being this possessive. You traded girlfriends like some boys traded baseball cards. I wasn’t expecting you to try and cram me into a plastic sleeve in your binder.”

  He rubbed his chest with the heel of his palm. “Would that work?”