Grave Visions(18)

I cringed as her thanks caused a debt to open between us, but only said, “I hope that’s a metaphoric loan because I favor boots, and I can assure you that running is neither fun nor easy in them. Besides, they wouldn’t go with your dress.”

Now I got a more genuine-sounding laugh. Then she said she needed to go to meet Ethan and I promised not to be late for the rehearsal dinner before I said my good-byes and ended the call.

“Well, that was painful but hopefully not a complete disaster,” I said to PC as I dropped my phone back into my purse. The little dog just cocked an ear and tilted his head. He was waiting for one of his favorite words, like food or out. And he probably needed both of those after how late I’d slept.

Dragging myself off the bed, I trudged across the room again, gathering my things as I went. Then, with PC prancing around my feet, I left the main portion of the house and climbed the stairs to my room, expecting it to be empty.

It wasn’t.

Falin didn’t say anything when I opened the door, but I could feel his eyes on me, watching. He said nothing as I filled PC’s bowl, gathered clothes, and slunk off to my shower. He hadn’t moved by the time I emerged from the bathroom. If he would have headed to the station, I likely would have dismissed the day as a sick day and rested for the rehearsal tonight—I didn’t want to be sick for Tamara’s wedding—but he hadn’t left, and that huge weight of silence that had chased me out of my room last night still hung in the air between us. I had to get out of the house, and my office was as good a place as any.

By noon Rianna hadn’t shown, nor had Ms. B. I had no clients on my docket for the day, and I was seriously considering locking up and taking a nap on the love seat in the waiting room when the chime on the front door sounded.

I reached with my senses as I stood, my magic sensitivity scanning the unseen visitor for spells. Nothing. The lack of magic confirmed it definitely wasn’t Rianna, but didn’t tell me much else about my visitor. Stepping out of my office, I found a man in a dark suit standing just beyond the doorway. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place his face.

“Ms. Craft?”

I nodded, summoning my professional smile as I crossed the room. I made it only halfway before he spoke again.

“Governor Caine requests your presence at his estate.”

I ground to an abrupt halt. That was where I’d seen him—he was one of my father’s drivers. The smile fell from my face and I crossed my arms over my chest.

“You can tell him—” I started, but the man interrupted me.

“He was most insistent. You have been dodging his calls.”

My shoulders hitched, just a notch, because it was true. And as it was true, I couldn’t deny it. My father wanted me to come by for more glamour lessons, which I desperately needed to learn to control, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn from him.

My father was an enigma. He played the long game, and apparently had been doing so for quite some time. I wasn’t sure exactly how old he was, but I did know he was once Nekros’s first governor, and at that time he was openly fae. Fifty years later he was once again the governor, with a new name and face, only this time he was with the Humans First party, an antiwitch antifae organization. He’d disowned me when I was younger, distanced our known association as much as possible, and I would have said hated me for being a wyrd witch. Now I knew it played into his long game. I just didn’t know how.

Even scarier, I’d also recently learned he’d had me spelled most of my life, which was why I hadn’t known I was fae until the spell began breaking under the Blood Moon. I’d washed away the remaining effects of the spell at the Harvest Festival when Falin had tricked me into drinking Faerie wine. Which was when I’d started shimmering like a glowworm and I’d had my first glamour lesson with my father. I’d agreed to call him to schedule another lesson, but I never had.

The man opened the front door, motioning me to exit. Beyond him, I could see a black town car idling at the curb.

I hesitated and the driver turned toward me. “I’m to remind you of his promptness in responding to your recent calls.”

I wasn’t sure if that was meant to guilt me or was a threat that I might owe my father a favor, which he could call in at his discretion. Either way, it was a true enough statement. I’d called him several times when all other avenues had closed on me. With a sigh, I retrieved my purse.

It looked as if I was off to see daddy dearest.

• • •

It wasn’t until the driver showed me into the house and led me all the way to the second floor to stop in front of the suite that had, until recently, belonged to my sister but now contained an accidental pocket of Faerie, that the nagging suspicion at the back of my brain beat through my exhaustion and screamed that something was off. Cracking my shields, I studied the driver’s profile. Under the generically familiar face was another, stranger, more striking face. A face that hung in a place of honor at the statehouse.