wampyr's dewy complexion and restored glow. "Lady Abigail Irene, do you require refreshment?"
She was about to demur, the undercurrent of tension in the room too much in her current state of exhaustion, afterglow, and blood loss, but Sebastien intervened. "Don't wake Consuela," he said. "But if we could find her cider and an egg on toast, perhaps a bit of black sausage?"
Mr. Priest nodded, turning silently with his candle, and led them down a long hallway to the kitchen, where he shaded the windows for Sebastien's safety before he lit the gas lights and the burners. "By the way, Jack,"
Sebastien said, as the young man was cooking, "have you just seen an orange cat?"
Mr. Priest, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, hooked a thumb in the pocket of a borrowed apron, and did not look away from the egg and sausage sizzling on the stove. "Bringing home strays again, are we?"
* * *
Garrett woke in a darkened room, and did not know the time. The shades were closed and the drapes were drawn, the door cracked open. There was no warm weight across Garrett's feet, where her terrier Mike should be, and she heard voices, thready and thin. An argument, if she could only pick out the words, but one carried out in low and level tones.
Her wand was on the nightstand, where Sebastien, who knew her, had left it. She reached gingerly; Sebastien's hearing was as good as his sense of smell. Warm ebony slipped into her fingers. A generic focus, not as powerful as a dedicated one might be, but it would halfway serve.
She sketched a quick sigil in the air, and mouthed the words. And faint, but distinct, the voices came to her.
—It's my house too, Sebastien.
—Do you think I brought her here idly?
—That woman? I don't know what to think. I know you've been dancing attendance on her since last year, and now I see she'd never even heard my name—
—Jack.
A pleading note, nothing Garrett had ever heard in Don Sebastien's voice. She stilled an icy spike of jealousy, and almost pulled the warm silver tip of her wand from her ear. But no, it was better to know.
Sebastien had never pretended to be faithful, as she had never pretended with him.
A long silence, and then:
—I'm being unreasonable.
—It is an unreasonable situation, mi cariño. But you will understand I hold the lady in some affection, yes?
—Yes, Mr. Priest said, unwillingly. —I suppose you would like it if I tried to make friends.
—I do not expect miracles outside church, Sebastien answered dryly, and Mr. Priest, still reluctant, laughed.
—Were you unwell last night? Or injured? he asked, in a different tone all together. —You had your due of me not so long ago, to find yourself in such straits.
—It is no matter.
—It does matter.
Despite herself, Garrett smiled to hear Sebastien bullied. Someone needed to undertake it.
—I grew tired at the murder house, Sebastien admitted. —But Abby Irene was well enough, and we were together the whole time. I think I am only overwrought.
And Garrett had not the faintest inkling why that might be. She frowned, and resolved to ferret it out—between murders. It wasn't, she assured herself, that it was intolerable that young Jack Priest knew something about Sebastien that she did not. Surely there were many such somethings. Sebastien was. . .
. . .she didn't know how old he was. Decades? Centuries? More?
—Here, he said to Mr. Priest. —Look at this. Can you find out from your Irish friends what it might be doing in a dead man's hand?
—What makes you think my Irish friends will know anything
about it?
—It's a rosary bead, said Sebastien. —A paddereen.
—That's also their word for bullet.
—I know, Sebastien said. —I know.
* * *
Garrett padded downstairs uncorseted, wrapped in Sebastien's dressing-gown, which he or Mr. Priest had left on the bedpost. The interior of the house was bright enough for comfort unless one meant to read, shades and drapes in the front room and parlor thrown wide, the den behind them lit by reflection through the open door. Sebastien was in that den, working the ciphers in the Sunday paper. She envied him his freedom from sleep, a need that often affronted her. Her envy wasn't quite strong enough to tempt her with the cure, however.
"So," she said, when he glanced up and smiled, "Have I slept the day away?"
"Just the morning. Are you well?"
She settled in the chair beside his. "Nothing a little beefsteak and brandy won't cure. What do we