“Lydia was—”
“A pawn. I want to know who held her marionette strings.” Beatrice motioned to me. “And why something of mine was targeted.”
“I am not one of your feral pigs.”
This time she did laugh. “You must realize that there are those who are unhappy with my rise to power, Geneviève. I am a woman. Most draugr of any importance are centuries old, and you may not be surprised to hear that the transition was not bestowed on many women. We were food or playthings or servants. Not equals.”
“Okay but . . . what does that have to do with me? Why would being pissed at you mean I get injected?”
She shrugged. “I trust you know that answer.”
I steadfastly ignored that question. I had enough clues to have a theory but I wasn’t quite ready to address it. “What do you want from us?”
Beatrice straightened in a way that was less casual, more regal, and said, “I need a small favor from the bougie-man that makes draugr quake”
“No,” Eli said. “Miss Crowe is quite busy over the holidays.”
“I can pay for your work or I can be in your debt, Geneviève,” Beatrice said, as if Eli hadn’t spoken. “A substantial amount.”
I was busy, and I had just agreed to date Eli—but both Beatrice’s money and her help had been of use to me lately. Her payments for my investigation into the draugr venom murders added up to the equivalent of several years of work, and her assistance had been immeasurably helpful when I was injected with venom.
“Someone shot at me a few weeks ago,” I said. “Figure out who, and cut me a check for my help, and I’ll help you.”
Beatrice pressed her lips together tightly. “It may be connected, but either way I would investigate that without a favor owed. You are too important to me for that offense to go unanswered.”
I squirmed, and Eli gave me a searching look. Apparently my attempts to ignore this topic were about to be thwarted.
“Did she not mention our familial tie, young prince?” Beatrice said lightly. “I would cross even the boundary to your lands for my granddaughter’s safety.”
Eli didn’t reveal his feelings on that matter--or answer the implied threat--and I wasn’t about to follow that topic if it was possible to ignore it.
So, I tried to steer the conversation back to the job she had, “What do you need?”
“I’ll have a gathering.” Beatrice motioned, and a fire started blazing. The courtyard was medieval in style, giving the fire more of a pyre feeling than I liked. “You will come and see what you can glean from the minds of the guests. I simply need you to read their minds, find threats, determine loyalty. I can read humans, but not fae or draugr.”
“So, the guests are. . . all dead?” I prompted.
“Except you and your escort.”
Eli, my likeliest escort, looked at me. The flickering of flames made him look ominous; at least, I hoped it was the firelight that cast such shadows in his expression. I didn’t want to ask if it was the party, the risk, my continued exhaustion, or the relationship to the dead lady that had him looking so irritated.
“I find it fascinating that you can read one of the fae, granddaughter. I’d imagine it’s too intense to read him without fornicating,” Beatrice offered, possibly trying to be helpful. “That much magic must be difficult to engage with clothing impeding you.”
I swallowed. Energy was woven into Eli’s very fiber. As a witch, it called to me. Touching him was nearly addictive, and admittedly, sometimes I wanted to intrude on his mind as I could with the dead, but the few times I’d done so were sheer accident.
“Reading Eli gives me a blinding headache,” I confessed.
Then I looked at him and added, “The only time it didn’t was when you invited me. I don’t try to, I swear.”
“But can you read me if you want to do so now?” he prompted.
He’d invited me to do so, but this was not about that. What he wanted to know was if I could do so without his consent. I hadn’t tried. It felt wrong.
I shrugged. “Stray thoughts about me or us.”
“More often now?”
I nodded. “It’s like you left a door open.”
“I see,” Eli said, calmer than before.
I, however, did not see what he had realized. Something had been answered for him, possibly for Beatrice, too. Now was not the time or place to ask him, though.
I looked at Beatrice, who was smiling at us. “I have tried with my friends. They get headaches. I can read the dead as if they are speaking aloud, though.”
“Most draugr cannot do that. Nor can witches. Lauren would never have mated with Darius if she could have read him.” Beatrice frowned. “Had I known he was targeting my granddaughter, I—”
“Explain the granddaughter thing,” I interrupted.
“I had a child when I was a human. She mated with a human. That child grew to adulthood. She mated, as well.” Beatrice pressed her lips together and shook her head. “It’s blurry. Centuries pass. Humans age, mate, age more, die.” She turned to meet my gaze. “Eventually, there was Lauren. Darius found her, and he decided to procreate with her. Now, there is you.”
Eli took my hand, and I realized I was trembling. Both my witch and draugr genetics were standing before me. She was my ancestor, and I needed no necromancy to ask her questions.
“So, Darius knew about my mother because of you,” I clarified. “Because you were a witch.”
“I am still a witch, Geneviève.” Beatrice sighed. “Sometimes when you’re powerful, people want that power or simply want to end your life because of it, more so if you are a woman. More so when you are a Jew. Their hatred of us has changed over time, but only slowly.”
I didn’t ask if by “us” she meant hatred of witches, women, or Jews. Historically—and now--all three earned violence for the sheer act of living. We were scapegoated, murdered, and despised. Adding draugr to the list probably had changed very little for Beatrice—or for me.
“I don’t like you,” I pointed out. “But not because of any of those things.”
“You dislike me because I am a draugr.” Beatrice shrugged. “How is it different than hating me for the other things?”
“I don’t hate you,” I stressed. “I just don’t like anything that tries to bite me.”
“I shall remember that next time I am called to save your life.” Her voice held all the laughter she didn’t show in her expression. “But I do doubt that Lauren would agree that you ought to hate me for such a thing.”
Beatrice walked away, staring into the edge of her moat, and I was left with very few options. Did I apologize to my dead ancestor? Or did I simply acknowledge my bias?
I hated being an adult.
I released Eli’s hand and followed her.
“I may have . . . issues with draugr because of my father.” I stood beside her and stared at the alligator filled canal. There were a lot of gators there. “He wanted to, err, breed me to as many draugr as he could. Use me . . . whether or not I consented. ”
She nodded. “They attempted that with me several centuries ago. It was how I died.”