herself they wanted. She knows a lot about every faction of the supernatural world. She wasn’t just a witch, she was a historian. If they can find a way to unlock her memories, they’ll have access to more knowledge than you be having in that book of hers.” He tapped a finger on my hip bag. “Which I don’t think I have to tell you would be downright deadly in the wrong hands—not just for our world, but for the humans too.”
I worried at my bottom lip. “Eammon, what does your gut tell you?”
“A big fight is coming,” he said. “Until your gran died, everything here was quiet. Savannah had been the same for years and years. But I guess those undercurrents of darkness never really left our city. In that silence, I think they were growing, strengthening, and the rest of us did what Savannah always does. We pretended not to see them.”
“What do Louis and Tom think?” I asked after the other mentors. I really liked Tom. Louis was a posturing buffoon, but I still asked.
Eammon took a step away from me and leaned against a tombstone. Evangeline’s tombstone. While I’d never met her (she was apparently a friend of Robert’s), I knew her grave. I tried not to take notice of it, seeing as it was where I’d buried the fake fairy cross I’d initially stolen for Karissa. Yeah, it’s complicated. Bottom line: the cross is a powerful magical artifact, and I couldn’t let it end up in the wrong hands.
“Well,” he sighed, “Tom is hunkering down, stocking up on food and toilet paper, of all things, as if we’re about to breakout in a pandemic.” He waved his hands in front of himself. “Louis is . . .well, Louis gave me this.” He turned his hand over, and a ring flashed on his hand. Nothing fancy, just a silver band.
I stared at it. “He made a move on you?”
Eammon guffawed. “Nah, he said it would protect me if anything bad happened while he was away. Said he needed some time off and felt bad leaving the Hollows while things were so unstable here.”
I laughed. “Time off from what? He’s not even training anyone anymore.”
“That’s what I be saying!” Eammon barked and then rubbed a hand on his jaw. “But he be a good one, even if he is a stuck-up Frenchman.”
We were quiet a moment, and in the distance, I could hear the shush of water over the banks of the river. I could almost feel the pull of a siren, the magic a whisper of Corb’s. Like that first night I’d worked so hard to get into the Hollows, I knew this was where I belonged. Maybe not right here, but in this world.
“The dark is darker now,” Eammon said suddenly. “Those that hide their faces from the light, those be the ones to watch for.” He looked down at his hand. “Here, you take the ring. I don’t know that it’ll do much, to be honest—I think you and I both know just how ‘talented’ Louis is—but just in case . . .” He slid the ring off his middle finger and gave it to me.
“Are you sure?” I cupped the silver ring in my palm. “Louis doesn’t much like me.”
Eammon gave me a wink. “But I do. And you be going into danger. This is about all I can give you to help, other than my thoughts.”
I waited for him to say more, but he kept his mouth shut in a thin line as if he regretted saying as much as he had.
I pushed up to my feet, my knees locking about halfway up, making me grimace. Gawd in heaven, I could use some oil in that one knee. “Eammon, thank you. I should go. If anyone comes looking . . .”
“I’ll tell them I fired you and we don’t talk no more.” He took my hand again. “Good luck finding your gran.” He reached up and touched the amulet around my neck, the one from Gran. “She’s looking out for you even now, when you be looking for her.”
Part of me wanted to linger, feeling a pull to the Hollows like I hadn’t experienced in a long time. I hurried to the car and got in. “A little help,” I said before Corb could ask me what I’d gained. I slid the silver ring Eammon had given me onto the chain that held my gran’s amulet of protection. The two tinkled against