Chapter 1

" B ijou, Bijou, Bijou." Hidden in curling shadows, Armie clucked his tongue. "I'm disappointed in you."

Quick as a blink, he towered over me, his skeletal fingers wrapping my throat like a necklace. Or a noose.

"Did you think it was over?" He leaned down, his breath warm in my ear. "We're just getting started."

A sharp pinch jolted me awake as his soft lips brushed my cheek in a promise that left me trembling.

Jerking upright in bed, I slapped a hand over my mouth to hold in the scream clawing up my throat. With a shimmy of my hips, I scooted until my spine was flush against the headboard, craving a solid wall at my back. As my fingers drifted from my lips down past my jaw, I blamed any tenderness on my imagination.

Balanced on my left ankle, Badb lifted her head from my bloody toe, clicking her beak in staccato bursts.

"I'm okay." I ignored the tremor in my arm as I lowered it to my side. "Just a bad dream."

One word to Matty, and he would use his oneiros gifts to guard me from nightmares on the dream plane while I slept. But he had so little time awake and aware, I refused to waste a precious minute on myself.

A grumbled noise deep in her throat called me a liar as she hopped over my legs to nest in her cat bed.

Her stolen cat bed.

A fluffy donut of faux fur in blush pink with iridescent threads she kept full to its brim with other pilfered treasures of dubious origin and negligible value. Including the plastic bird mirror she enjoyed staring into for hours on end.

Vanity, thy name is crow.

Which is funny because c-r-o-w is also how you spell kleptomaniac .

Our neighbors would draw and quarter me if they figured out it was my bird robbing the block blind. She wasn't even mine. Kierce had tamed her and indulged her larcenous tendencies. Granted, she never took anything too valuable. Mostly trinkets. Shiny things. Food deliveries. Cat toys. Cat beds. Bags of cat food.

Either she identified as cat instead of corvid , or she stole to spite the pampered felines on our block.

Mr. Mittens on Laurel Oak Lane, in particular, ranked high on her naughty list.

The cat lived one street over, and his owners spoiled him rotten, making him a favorite target for her.

A knock on the door to my apartment brought me out of my head, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. "I'm coming." I hustled over before Matty let himself in and Badb out. "How are you up this early?"

One thing I could always count on when it came to Matty was he never woke up on time. His narcoleptic tendencies weren't his fault. The call to slumber was in his nature. But his ability to sleep through alarms blaring at full volume meant he had never beat me out the door on a workday morning. Unless he'd had a hot date and hadn't come home last night, this was a first.

So was finding one of Savannah Police Department's finest waiting on my doorstep at this hour.

Offering me one of the cups from a carrier in his hand, he rumbled, "I'm always up this early."

"Sam—" I swallowed his name. Much safer to think of him as Harrow. "Hi. Hello. Good morning."

"Hey, Frankie." His faded-denim eyes crinkled at my fumbled greeting, bringing my attention to the dark skin under them. "Is this a bad time?" His gaze slipped past my shoulder, sweeping the space behind me, but he didn't comment on my new décor. No. He was searching for something else. "I can come back?—"

Probably he heard me talking to Badb and thought one of the other Marys was visiting me.

"Stay." I grabbed for his hand on reflex. "Please."

Harrow let my fingers slide off the tips of his. Which didn't hurt. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

"You thought I was Matty." He nodded to himself. "You haven't been out to Bonaventure yet?"

"No." I recalled my pajama situation and folded my arms over my chest. "Do you mind waiting for me?"

"Not at all." He reeled his focus back in to my face. "Mind if I come with you?"

"To the cemetery?" I laughed until I noticed the hand flexing down at his side. "Kierce won't be there."

The name-dropping was a shot in the dark, but it hit its mark, bringing a grim smile to his mouth.

"Maybe not today." He swirled the contents of his cup. "But who knows what tomorrow will bring?"

Oily dread churned in my stomach at the edge in his voice, and one absolute truth solidified in my mind.

I had made a mistake. A huge one. I should never have asked him for help last night.

But a girl was missing, and a client had hired me to find her. I had no idea what I was doing, but Harrow was a professional. I shouldn't have let that fact, and the one case we worked together, convince me his skills were now at my disposal.

"What happened with Lyle wasn't your fault." I rallied my flagging courage. "It wasn't Kierce's either."

Lyle Harrow had made his own choices. He decided to become a dybbuk, and the shade he let bond with his soul had turned him into a killer. But it was easier for Harrow to blame Kierce than see faults in the uncle who had raised him.

The commotion drew my roommate's attention, and Badb came to stick her beak into my business.

"You kept her," Harrow breathed when she sailed onto my shoulder, the better to glare at him.

"She's tame." I bobbed the shoulder not burdened with a judgy crow. "She has nowhere else to go."

And I had promised Kierce I would care for his sticky-fingered—clawed?—friend.

Until he reappeared to claim her, she was my problem.

Oh.

Oh no.

No, no, no.

Second mistake: Allowing Harrow to glimpse what his hungry gaze proclaimed to be an insurance policy Kierce had left me to guarantee his return. Except Kierce had made no such vows.

"Good." He drank in the sight of her as if she had quenched some unnamed thirst within him. "I'm glad."

"We're talking about the same crow, right? Badb? Her moving in makes you happy?"

Badb had bitten him once and threatened him with a repeat performance several more times.

"Kierce will come back for her."

Damn it. I knew it. I knew it. As stubborn as he was, there would be no convincing him otherwise. Not while he had it stuck in his head that Kierce was at fault for his uncle's death.

"Oh." Matty stumbled on the lowest step before my apartment's landing. "Hey."

Had he not been tucking in his shirt, standing there in unlaced boots, I might have believed his surprise.

"Matty." Harrow tipped his head toward my brother. "I'll wait for you outside your office, Frankie."

"Until I get back from Bonaventure." I afforded him no wiggle room. "I won't be gone long."

Matty held his ground while Harrow took the stairs. He waited until Harrow reached the bench outside my office at The Body Shop, well out of hearing range, before shoving me back and following me inside my apartment. "What's he doing here?"

Leave it to Matty to sleep through anything except for the sound of Harrow's voice in my apartment.

"Not this again." I bundled clothes in my arms then hit the bathroom. "I thought you had moved on."

"I could say the same of you, Mary."

Right about now, I regretted having such a close relationship with my siblings.

"I need his help, okay?" I left the door cracked an inch so we could talk. "In a professional capacity."

I just hadn't realized that help was set to arrive before I brushed my hair or my teeth.

"You've stayed alive and out of prison this long by avoiding police in a professional capacity."

"I know."

"You're making an exception because it's Harrow."

"I know."

"It's dangerous to let him back into your life."

"I know, I know, I know." I finished yanking on my clothes and burst into the room. "Don't lecture me."

Lectures were Harrow's thing, not his. I didn't need Matty piling on me too.

"Frankie." He heaved a sigh up from the tips of his freakishly long toes. "I worry about you with him."

This was a prime opportunity to ease his fears by explaining what I learned the night Lyle died. The night Harrow killed him. It had been Lyle—not Harrow—who reported me to the authorities when I was twenty. Desperate to save his nephew from my evil clutches, Lyle called in a tip to the Society for Post-Life Management. The Society, based out of Savannah, Georgia, was the ruling body for necromancers.

Despite not being a member of their club, I managed to fall under their purview but not their auspices.

As a result of the anonymous report, a sentinel, one of their enforcers, caught me performing services for a deceased client red-handed. The sentinel would have locked me up and thrown away the key if the spirit hadn't helped me escape. The strike at me, which would have shattered us Marys, granted Lyle his wish.

I swore off Harrow to protect my family, and my freedom, after that near lethal brush with the Society.

Learning the truth all these years later left me sad for what we might have been but also bitter he made the decision to cover for Lyle, knowing it would end things between us, instead of explaining the situation to me.

Until I unraveled the confusing knot of feelings within me, I would stuff this tangle of emotion where the keen eyes of my siblings wouldn't find it and start pulling on strings. "I appreciate you looking out for me where he's concerned, Mary, I do." I wrestled my frizzy hair into a ponytail. "I promise I'll explain later."

"After you talk to Harrow."

"After I talk to Harrow."

"Come on." He tossed me my steel-toe boots, and I sat on the bed to lace them. "We're running late."

As far as temporary truces went, I was willing to take it. "Busy day on the schedule?"

"Janie Faulwetter is bringing in her 1961 Cadillac Series 62 convertible for an oil change."

"The metallic-rose one?"

"Pascal calls her the love of his life. I'm scared I'll wake up in a Vegas honeymoon suite one day."

"With Ms. Faulwetter or her Caddy?"

A snort blasted out his nose that made me smile.

"Get ready to run." I indicated Badb with a jerk of my chin. "We won't have but a second to escape."

Usually, I gave her free rein while I was working, but today I didn't want to risk Harrow catching her alone.

That required bribing her and some fancy footwork.

Counting out five ham slices from a pack in the fridge, I spread them across the counter. Badb wasted no time claiming her prize, giving us a slim window of opportunity to bolt. We slid out the door, and I threw the lock right as a steady tap, tap, tap started up on the other side of the wood.

"Forget running." He looped his arm through mine. "There's your daily cardio."

"Except running is peaceful." I fell in step with him on the stairs. "Evasive maneuvers are not."

We passed Harrow on the bench in the herb garden, but he was on his phone, so I waved bye to him.

As soon as Matty and I climbed in my 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Nomad station wagon, he stretched his arm across the back of the turquoise-and-ivory-striped bench seat. The casual move shouldn't have locked the muscles in my neck, but tension raised my shoulders up around my ears. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"There was a disturbance on the dream plane last night." He drummed his fingers. "Above the shop."

Cold sweat dotted my spine as I aimed the wagon toward Bonaventure Cemetery. "Oh?"

"Locations don't translate exactly from there to here, but I can always find my way home."

Home, I knew without him saying so, was Josie and me. Not our house or the garage. Us. His sisters.

"The sky looked bruised the way it does before a tornado touches down."

Palms slick on the wheel, I wished wiping them dry wouldn't give away my nerves. "Okay."

"Frankie." He gripped my shoulder. "It's a lot of things, but okay is not one of them."

Hard as I tried to rein in my temper, it got away from me. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He squeezed once then let go. "We need to talk to her."

Her. Not me. Her.

"To Josie." Sweet relief whispered through me as I let myself off the hook. "About nightmares."

"What's with you?" He squinted as if that might help him see into my brain. "You're not all here."

"Harrow blames Kierce for what happened to Lyle, and he views Badb as his ticket to revenge."

"Ah." He hummed low in his throat. "Harrow is in denial."

Angling my chin toward him, I kept my eyes on the road. "How do you figure?"

"Badb's milkshake isn't what will bring that particular boy back to the yard."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

"Kierce likes you, Mary. Demigods don't meddle in the affairs of mortals for no reason. He didn't have to introduce himself, but he couldn't resist approaching you." He resumed tapping his fingers behind me. "He also saved my life when he broke the sleep curse. Our lives. That earns him a pass for being, well, peculiar."

"Josie called him a psycho killer," I mused, "right up until she set eyes on him."

"That's because he looks like he fell out of that goblin K-drama we binged last week."

"Guardian: The Lonely and Great God."

An oldie but a goodie, which was on brand for me.

"Yes." He snapped his fingers. "That one."

As I pulled into a parking space near the restrooms, I couldn't stop my hungry gaze from wandering over the moss-shrouded tombs and sprawling live oaks beyond the wrought iron fence in search of a figure as pale as moonlight with eyes the color of fog blanketing a cemetery.

"Mary?" Matty cleared his throat. "The clock is ticking."

"Yeah." After killing the engine, I clenched the keys in my hand until the metal bit into my skin. "Right."

Per our usual routine, he ducked into the men's bathroom, ensuring it was empty before sticking out his hand in a thumbs-up gesture. Darting glances left to right, I hurried across the sidewalk and let myself in. Wedging a shoulder against the door from the inside, I turned the lock to give us a moment of privacy.

"Your boyfriend's not here."

Tipping my head back, I spotted Pascal Suarez lounging on the ceiling. "I didn't ask you to check."

"Your bottom lip has been dragging since he got himself killed, Francita."

"He's not dead." I fought down the memory of his battered face. "He's just…not here."

Anyone else would have died after what Kierce had endured, but he held on until he could go back to…

…wherever he came from originally. I hadn't even solved the mystery of where he vanished between the times when I found him in the cemetery, reminding me of why I reached out to Harrow in the first place.

A necromancer I might be. (Mostly.) But a detective, I was not.

Matty, who couldn't hear or see Pascal, grinned. "Are you guys talking about your birdfriend ?"

"Birdfriend." Pascal snickered and snorted like the brat I knew him to be. "That's priceless."

"I'm sure you'll catch each other up while you're at work." Rolling my eyes, I held out a hand for Pascal. I focused on the cool whisper of his energy to solidify his insubstantial fingers in my steady grasp. "It's not fair how you two gang up on me when you can't even see or hear each other properly."

"We spend a lot of time together." Matty slid his fingers into mine. "I don't need help to know what he's thinking. His brothers are trickier, but Pascal is all fast cars, hot women, and teasing Frankie mercilessly."

"No wonder you're such good friends."

Allowing my eyes to drift shut, I murmured a familiar chant to open Matty's body to possession and ease the transition for Pascal's soul as I brought my hands together, joining them as one. As Matty swayed on his feet, a new light entered his eyes. A teasing one. An old pro at the process, Pascal acclimated quickly.

"Frankie's got a birdfriend," he sing-songed, slinging an arm around me. "Frankie's got a birdfriend."

Aiming my elbow at his gut, I was rewarded with his gasp. "Do not let him hear you say that."

"Aww." He rubbed his side but didn't let go. "Does this mean you're not official yet?"

"No." I let him drag me out of the men's room, him without a care in the world. Must be nice. But that was death for you. The afterlife put the daily grind of living into perspective. "I knew Kierce all of five minutes."

We reached the wagon, and I slid behind the wheel, pausing with my key hovering beside the ignition.

"What's wrong?" Pascal glanced around before climbing in beside me. "Did you see something?"

"No." The sensation of being watched prickled along my nape until it stung like ant bites. I caught myself halfway to rubbing away the feeling then tapped the fuzzy purple dice hanging from my rearview mirror and set them swaying instead. "I just remembered something."

The quirk of his brows told me he didn't believe me, but he let it slide. For once in his afterlife.

A hard tap on my window rewarded my paranoia as my stalker glided down to perch on my side mirror.

Exhaling softly, allowing my muscles to uncoil, I rolled down the glass. "What are you doing here?"

I was afraid to ask how Badb got out. Not that she could tell me in so many words. Harrow might be struggling with his grief, but he wouldn't have let himself into my apartment. She must have escaped another way.

"She likes to feel the wind in her feathers." Pascal fed her one of the hard crackers Matty kept on him to bribe her into leaving his shiny tools and sparkly car parts alone. "Ain't that right, Badb?"

"She's a crow." I scratched under her beak. "She feels the wind in her feathers a thousand times a day."

"Not with a soundtrack she doesn't," he baby-talked her. "Badb likes to rock."

A loud caw confirmed she was ready to roll, comfy on her favorite motorized perch.

As I cranked up the radio, dialing in the local classic rock station, Pascal rolled down his window. The trip home was short, so I never built up any real speed. Badb was perfectly safe to close her eyes and cruise.

As we bumped into the parking lot, I spied Josie with a basket of veggies propped on her hip.

"Hey, Mary, did you run over a cat?" Josie greeted us in a tank and shorts. "I heard yowling."

" I have a beautiful singing voice." Pascal knocked on his chest. "It's Matty who's the problem."

"Oh, sure." She wiped sweat from her brow. "Blame your host when you can't hold a tune in a bucket."

"I challenge you to a sing off, chica ." He swaggered up to her. "Francita, you be the judge."

"Francita has somewhere else to be." I held up my hands, skirted them, and approached Harrow. "Hey."

"Hey back." He tracked Badb as she abandoned the wagon for the power line. "Are you ready to talk?"

Casually interrupting his line of sight, I began punching in the code to unlock the office door. "Yes."

I should have given him longer to grieve his uncle. I should have let him come to me when he was ready. I should have turned down the case if I couldn't solve it on my own. But I pushed it, I pushed him , and as gooseflesh pimpled my arms, I couldn't help worrying if the next push might shove him over the edge.