Page 75 of Villains Never Die

I snorted. “You’re blackmailing me? Do better than poking at my relationship.”

“Three years ago you were attacked behind your nightclub by an opponent. A witness said you died; your body was cold, heart stopped. You were dead, and then you weren’t.”

“Stroke of luck, and your witness is mistaken.”

No one but Rook had ever come so close to discovering my secret. Fucking hell.

I would have to kill a Council candidate. How messy.

“I would be careful whose word you accept over mine,” I warned, leaning toward him, conspiring in the same low tone. “The wrong information can get you killed in a city like this.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Dig a little deeper, Wesley. You’ll find I don’t make threats. Come to the gala, shine your face and bat your eyelashes at every simpering voter you can win over to your cause, but don’t depend on my loyalty. I’m the only one who has ever earned it.”

I stood and walked out without excusing myself.

***

A message waited in The Looking Glass, marked with a little envelope and the number one on the Midnight Chat.

veilknight

When will you summon Death?

j-aust13

Why do you want to know?

veilknight

Professional curiosity. Do you have the ritual? The knife?

j-aust13

I am close enough that you needn’t worry about it. My warehouse is secure in the meantime. No one will obtain it but me.

I had planned another session in the Prague collection on Thursday, when Rook wasn’t working. Despite his loud boredom, he seemed content to stay with me and search the books for the one I needed, occasionally interrupting my tense examination with some wit or innuendo.

Are you going to ignore the fact that you said ‘relationship’?

How could I when the dead hadn’t let it go since I left Wesley’s office?

It had slipped out so easily, with such confidence—a fact, even though Rook and I had never called it that. He said love was for losers with no ambition. Did he want a relationship? Thethought that he might not want to define us that way was a snake coiling and uncoiling in my stomach. The spirits did not aid in lessening my rumination about it.

Relationship! He said it—re-la-tion-ship.

Oh! This is exciting!I swore I heard the sound of spectral hands clapping.Austin, you have to say something to him!

A boyfriend will make your life so much better.

“Surely one of you had an absolutely dreadful love life when you were among the living. You can’t all be rooting for us.”

We’re all rooting for you.

“I’d say ‘get a life,’ but that’s a bit rude, I think.”

But despite my doubts, I still found myself staring at the side of Rook’s head as he paged through a book on Thursday.