Page 66 of Ghost
Knowing her, Maria already had an itinerary of her own. But if Bianca were to make a request, Maria would latch onto that like a lifeline.
And as much as I loathed to admit it, I couldn’t begrudge Maria. She wasn’t a threat to Bianca. In fact, she was far from it.
No, that wasn’t the problem. It was just… Maria, like Titus, had a fondness for small, cute things. And Bianca happened to fall into both those categories.
Bianca had already begun to reply, and the gratuitous usage of heart emoticons did nothing to dissolve the stone in my stomach.
I was happy Bianca was excited. But if Bianca became friends with Maria, we’d have to see her a lot more often.
But she was so happy. I couldn’t destroy that smile because Maria scared the shit out of me.
I sighed, forcing a smile—for her. Then handed the phone back to Bianca. “I’m glad for you,” and honestly, I was. If Bianca was to have a female friend, who would also take care of her, there was no one better suited than Maria.
Titus and Miles had quieted, and Julian frowned slightly.
In the last few moments, we all seemed to remember the same thing. Maria was a powerful ally, and not only because she was Titus’ er bashou. If Bianca won Maria’s loyalty, the difference in our ability to keep her safe would be profound.
And that would be important—if Bianca was as powerful as I feared. She’d be a threat to the current Wood hierarchy, and Xavier was not the type who’d shy away from hurting a woman.
As for the Dubois brothers? I wasn’t necessarily worried about themharmingBianca. I loathed Bryce Dubois, but he’d never hurt a female. Besides, their positions at the top were quite secure.
Even if Xavier didn’t target Bianca, even if he stepped aside gracefully, she was still in danger. Bianca didn’t strike me as an unseelie. If Bianca took position of tongjun, that would make three seelie members in the highest positions. Tensions had been tight between the two courts for the last few generations—with no established overlord to set them straight. Having such an unbalance of power could be the tipping point.
There was that, and now this ghost too. She’d been marked, which meant it would go after her again. It was using her for something, and I wasn’t sure what.
We could only deal with one thing at a time. We had to get to the bottom of this haunting, and then work on long-term arrangements to keep Bianca safe. Maria could help in both regards.
As I followed Bianca back into the living room, I wondered where Caleb had gone. It was unfortunate, because I had follow up questions for him. And right now Gregory, or the Dubois brothers, were the only ones that might get him to return.
I had known Caleb had done some research for us. In my initial questioning of him, he stated his notes were hidden in his safe. But I had found the safe, but no notes. At least, nothing on his research onthishouse.
Maria was already working to recreate what he might have discovered. And Miles had filled Titus and me in on the details of Caleb’s visit earlier. So we had a starting point. But what we needed was someone who knew how to research these sort of things.
Someone like Brayden Dubois.
Norman was tailing Michelle Nolan too. Something about her story didn’t sit right with me. Her background had been clean, with no indication that she even had abilities of note. But Caleb didn’t interact with people he considered to be weak.
And there was no indication of how she had even known Caleb. She hadn’t been a prior student of his, and she had no ties to the historical society.
Perhaps all of this was an innocent coincidence. I had no real reason to suspect her.
But my intuition—which was usually right—told me that it wasn’t.
Just like how there had to be a reason that Finn had befriended a potential Wood tongjun and kept her a secret from our world for a decade. Or that the four of us felt an unexplained pull toward her.
The stirrings of a bond that should not be possible.
It was happening anyway. And at this point, I couldn’t disregard reality. If the facts didn’t align, then perhaps we hadn’t had all the facts. But there was one thing that I had yet to be proven wrong about, and that was that nothing was ever a coincidence.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bianca
Fear
I finished my message to Maria, too excited to even glance at the boys. “What do you think we’ll do?”
“It’ll be nice to actually get someworkdone. But there’s really nothing we can do until a spirit either makes themselves available, or there’s a breakthrough elsewhere. Since we still have time, we can relax. If we force things with the spirits here, then we might only have time to react. And considering the delicate nature of our research, we don’t want to draw too much attention to this case until we know the whole story,” Damen mused. “But as for what we’ll actually do… Knowing Maria, probably the usual.”
