“Hey,” she said when she saw Niamh. Glancing around the empty front entranceway, she added, “Where is everyone? Where’s Cedric?”
Jessie had the ability to feel everyone in the house, but she was clearly too exhausted to bother.
“In one of the sitting rooms. I didn’t pass any remarks about which they chose.” Niamh looked behind her at Edgar, wondering if he’d paid any more attention to the strangers.
He shrugged. “They’re intimidating. I figured I’d make myself scarce.”
“Excellent protection of the house, Edgar, yes,” Niamh said, nodding as she turned back. “It’s well sorted with you around.”
“What did you guys do with the body?” Jessie asked quietly. Austin Steele stood at her back, looking with hard eyes deeper into the house. “Alek’s body?”
“Oh, that.” She glanced back at Edgar again. Grounds burials were his department.
“I thought it best to drop him in the incinerator,” Edgar replied, entwining his fingers. “If someday someone digs up the grounds of Ivy House, we don’t want them to find a supernatural body. It would raise questions.”
A crease formed in Jessie’s brow. “How would they even know? The wings? Because, I mean…we buried a ton of supernatural bodies a couple months ago after that battle…”
Edgar leaned forward a little bit, his eyebrows crawling up toward his hairline. “Oh yes. I forgot about those. Well…” He hesitated, clearly searching his pea-sized intellect for another, more believable, excuse.
Niamh saved him the trouble. “He got lazy and was too afraid to ask the gargoyles to dig a grave.” She waved it away.
“Yes. That’s the way of it. But don’t worry, Jessie, no one will miss him.” Edgar crossed the room to stand just beside Niamh. “He wasn’t all that bright and he wasn’t a great flier. Why your magic called someone with training wheels, we’ll never know, huh?” He smiled, his teeth still stained red.
Jessie’s mouth fell open and she pointed at him. “Oh my God, Edgar, did you drink from him before you disposed of him?”
Edgar’s mouth snapped shut.
“Waste not, want not,” Niamh said. “Don’t worry about Cedric, Jessie—he and Alek weren’t close. They were both summoned, sure, probably because you were just thinking about flying and not someone useful in other things, but they were more associates than friends. They both came here knowing the risks. Besides, he’s found…new friends.”
Austin Steele’s cobalt gaze slid to Niamh, wild and vicious and sending chills down her spine.
She’d be damned if she took a step back—
Her back bumped into Edgar, who’d retreated quickly, neither fighting his fear nor attempting to hide it.
Bollocks!
Jessie nodded, looking left. “What’s the story with Mr. Tom? Is he—”
The sound of boulders rolling drifted to Niamh. Porcelain crashed to the ground.
She couldn’t help a smile.
“That insufferable woman. She did this, I know it,” Mr. Tom muttered.
The chuckles were unavoidable.
“Yes, miss. Coming! Coming, miss.”
Niamh cleared out of the way as Earl emerged from the room, stiff, wincing, a doily on his head, and one wing still nearly torn in two.
“Oh no, Mr. Tom, are you okay?” Jessie reached out to him, compassion soaking through her eyes and a pout pushing out her lips. “You should be stone, right? Doesn’t that help you heal?”
“I am completely fine.” He jolted forward, a lot of effort for one step. “It’s perfectly all right. You need something to take the edge off, and I need to prepare for company. Don’t worry, I will see to it directly. I just need a bottle or so of painkillers, and I’ll be at your service.”
A man with a compact frame and short, spiky, pink-and-blue-dyed hair stepped out of the room across the way.
“Oh. Hi.” Jessie stepped forward with her hand outstretched. “I’m Jessie. Welcome. Thank you for helping earlier. You guys came just in the nick of time.”
“Thank us?” he said with a huge grin. “No, thank you! We’re honored you called us.” He motioned back at the room. “We’ve been waiting for you.” He looked at Austin Steele, his eyes not losing their sparkle. “Hey, bro.” He bowed, the movement casual but poignant. He was registering Austin’s superior status as the dominant male.
Austin Steele nodded at the pink-haired man, his posture large and imposing, but then turned slightly toward Jessie and grazed his hand across the small of her back. “Would you mind if I used your restroom?”
Niamh barely stopped herself from grinning and nodding in approval. Austin Steele had accepted the gargoyle’s acknowledgment of his status and rank, and then passed it on to the holder of the establishment. By asking about “her” bathroom, he’d made it clear that this house was Jessie’s, they were there with her permission, and he was just a player in her game.
They’d been incredibly lucky that Austin Steele had been tricked into coming on board, no matter his bellyaching about getting the magic. So few truly powerful people were willing to share their status and prestige.