as she scooted herself into the front seat. I shook my head. If “Flirt” qualified as a foreign language, my sister and Ambrose would both have PhDs in it.
“So where is everyone this morning?” I asked Ambrose as he put the car in gear and headed toward the river.
“Vincent and Jean-Baptiste have gone off to visit the revenants staying in Geneviève’s place. You know … to dig around to see who tipped the zomboids off to your leader-slaying extravaganza. How’s it feel to be Numa Enemy Number One, Katie-Lou?”
“Scary, actually,” I confessed. “I thought that your chauffeuring me around for the last week was pretty useless until yesterday.”
“Does that mean you’re happy to see me for once?” Ambrose said, his teeth gleaming white against the dark-chocolate brown of his skin.
“I’m always glad to see you, Ambrose,” I said, knowing that if the same line had come from Georgia it would have sounded as seductive as Mae West.
“How about your oh-so-tempting medieval friend?” Georgia said.
“I suppose you’re referring to Arthur and not Violette?” Ambrose replied with a chuckle. “They’re both training with Gaspard this morning, before going to visit some of the other kindred on their own. Jules is volant, so I’m going to drop you off at school and walk with him and Gaspard this afternoon before I come back to get you. Stay inside the school gates, will you? We don’t need any drive-by numa action while you wait for me on the street.”
Ambrose watched as we entered the school grounds, and once we were through the doors, he drove off. Georgia turned to me. “Well? I got the intel on what Arthur’s up to. What are we going to do with it?”
“This is our chance,” I said. “We know where he is right now. We can stake out the house and see where he goes when he leaves.”
“You heard Ambrose. Arthur’s supposed to be going somewhere with the Royal Pain.”
“Well, what will it hurt to spy on them for a couple of hours? Besides skipping school, that is. This is our only chance not to be followed by the revenants.”
“Or the numa, for that matter,” Georgia agreed. “Everyone thinks we’re in school. We’ll have to go now—we don’t know how long Gaspard’s kick-ass training lasts.” She glanced around the hallway, and her eyes landed on an athletic-looking guy carrying a pile of books. “Hey, Paul!” she yelled. “Remember that time you offered to loan me your scooter?”
THIRTY-FIVE
MY SISTER AND I HUDDLED AT THE END OF THE rue de Grenelle, looking ridiculously suspicious as we hid behind the corner, throwing glances every few minutes down the road toward Jean-Baptiste’s mansion.
“What time is it now?” I asked, my teeth chattering in the February cold.
“Five minutes after the last time you asked,” Georgia growled. “It’s eleven oh five and we have been here a total of an hour and thirty-five minutes. How long do your training sessions with Gaspard run?”
“An hour,” I said. “But I’m sure that Violette and Arthur can go for longer than me, and we have no idea when they started.” My heart dropped an inch as our mission began to seem much stupider than it had within the hallway of our warm and safe school.
“Wait!” Georgia hissed in a dramatic whisper. “The gate is opening. And here comes … it’s Arthur! He’s wearing a motorcycle helmet, but I know it’s him—he’s got on the same leather jacket he wore at the café yesterday.”
I struggled to look past her, but she pushed me backward. “Shh!” she insisted, even though we were yards out of his hearing range. “He’s driving the motorcycle slowly to the end of the block. He’s getting off and walking the bike backward onto the sidewalk. Holy cow—he looks like he’s hiding!”
Georgia’s commentary was beginning to sound hysterical. “What do you mean ‘hiding’?” I pushed her out of the way. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Okay. Far end of the street. Just behind the last building. He’s hiding down there.”
“Did he see us?”
“No! He didn’t even look our way when he came out of the driveway.”
“Then why is he—”
“Wait!” Georgia interrupted me. I poked my head above hers, looking around the corner of the building. A taxi had just turned past us to drive down the road and was now parked in front of the hôtel particulier. The gate swung open again, and Violette stepped out, peering both ways before jumping into the cab. We pulled back, waited a second, and then stuck our heads around the