dad had been the only Hallowells living here?
The thought of Mr. Hallowell sent a jab through my gut. Even a few days after our phone conversation, his parting words amplified the other gnawing sensations inside me. I couldn’t totally shake the impression that his last remark had been a curse he was laying as much as a hope he was expressing.
I rubbed the back of my hand against my temple as if that would work the uneasy thoughts out of my head. No such luck. On my other arm, under the table, the demon’s mark itched at me with a faint burning sensation. I’d have been willing to bet my entire—if not huge—bank account that it was glowing again.
“The building we’re working on for our internship project is just getting to the final stages of construction,” Seth was saying. He glanced across the table at me. “They’re still taking bids on the electrical. You could mention it to Mr. Lewis. It’s a big job, but if he brought on a few assistants, the two of you could manage it.”
Was he ever going to let me forget that he’d been the one to set me up with the apprenticeship in the first place, shifting me away from my life as a small-time criminal? The flare of irritation leapt straight to my tongue, best behavior be damned. “I think we’ve got plenty of jobs to keep us busy already. You don’t need to heap more on.”
Seth shrugged. His expression turned a bit more serious, but he wasn’t the type to snap even under pressure. Solid and reliable—good old Seth. “I figured it was worth mentioning,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if I was more irritated at him for taking it so well or myself for being so sour about the whole thing. Rose was shooting me a curious and probably concerned glance from the head of the table.
Then Gabriel, naturally, swept in with a smooth redirection. “I got a call just before dinner. We might have a buyer for the Bentley.”
Rose had decided to finally sell off some of the Hallowell automobile collection, her dad’s pride and joy, seeing as they had four cars just here on the estate and she only really used one. Somehow that remark rankled me too. It wasn’t as if a Bentley was my style, but I could never in a million years have bought even a used one on my own.
“Rich fucks,” I muttered.
Jin tapped his foot against mine and grinned. “We’re all rich fucks too now, thanks to our consort. Enjoy it.”
“Some of us like to know we can still pay our own way when we need to,” I retorted.
Out of all of us, Jin was the real freeloader. He spent all day either in the back sunroom or at his rebuilt gallery in town, painting and sculpting and whatever else he got caught up in, and I didn’t know when he’d last sold any of that artwork. It wasn’t as if we still needed the pieces with the protective magical symbols he’d produced back in the day.
Gabriel ignored our barbed exchange. “The potential buyer is out of town right now, but he’ll come by to take a look in a couple of days,” he said to Rose.
She nodded. “I trust your judgment about whether he’s a good bet—and how much to charge for it. It just seems pointless letting them sit there unused any longer.”
“Give one of them to Jin and let him make a moving exhibition out of it,” Kyler suggested with a chuckle. “I’d like to see that Jaguar painted up Lyang-style.”
Jin laughed. “If you can put your research skills to finding someone who’d want to take the end product, I’d be all for it.”
“I’d keep one you worked your brilliance on if we weren’t trying to maintain a slightly low profile,” Rose said, looking amused.
Because not going out of our way to draw attention to the strangeness of Rose’s powers or our relationship had done so much to reduce the odd looks we got when were in town. I didn’t care if people stared at me, but we couldn’t pretend anyone thought what went on at Hallowell Manor was normal. No one had believed that even before Rose had taken the five of us as consorts, though the rest of the townspeople had no idea she and her society practiced actual magic.
Maybe the other guys weren’t as unaffected by all that as they liked to act. As Jin and Kyler bantered about