“You sort out the djinn jar with Lawrence?” he asked.
“Yeah, but don’t be expecting a Christmas card from him. He tried to double-cross us.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all.” Arthur pulled his shirt back on. “You weren’t tempted to peel off the seal and make a wish?”
“The real world doesn’t work on wishes and dreams.”
“You’re rather young to be that cynical. Indulge me. If you could make a wish, no strings attached.”
What else was there? It was just the two of them now, had been for years, but once there had been three. It was hard to remember her mum clearly now, Billi had only been six when her mum had died, died protecting her from a host of ghuls and a fallen angel. Jamila was a feeling, an impression made of warm hugs and laughter. Such things had been missing from their home since then. “The same as yours, Dad.”
Arthur cleared his throat and started the washing up. He wasn’t good at expressing himself but Billi knew he missed his wife as much now as ever. Arthur had not moved on, he’d refused to. At first it had been raw anger; it had almost destroyed him until he took on the mantle of the Master of the Templars. That responsibility, perhaps more than having Billi, had tempered him, or at least channelled his rage. “There’s some business come up in Dublin. Me and a few of the lads are heading over there tomorrow to sort it out.”
Dublin? What was in… “You mean with the Red Branch?” Billi joined him at the sink. “What business? Can I come?”
“The Red Branch boys and I go back some years, and Gareth is from that neck of the woods,” said Arthur. “They’re a prickly lot, Billi. You know how it is.”
“Gareth? But that means… no, Dad. You’re not leaving Gwaine in charge?”
“And why shouldn’t I? He is Seneschal.”
“Come on, Dad! He hates me! Always has and always will. Look, why not take me? Leave Gareth here. I’ll behave.”
“And how would your boyfriend feel about you rushing off like that?”
“Bloody Ivan Romanov is a bloody pain in the arse.”
“Ah. Is this going to be one of those ‘father to daughter’ talks I’ve been dreading?” He scratched his beard. “I really wish I’d taken time to read that ‘Parenting for Dummies’ book.”
“Don’t worry. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
“Probably not, but want to try?”
Things had changed. Not in ways she’d ever imagined. Dad listened to her now. When she sat with the other Templars, she got a chance to speak, and be heard. The others, even Gwaine, didn’t scoff or talk over her anymore. The older Templars looked to her to represent the younger ones, and the younger ones looked to her to speak for them. It wasn’t a responsibility she’d wanted, but she’d got it now and there was no one else to hand it to.
Arthur twisted his wedding ring. “So… do you want me to go over and beat him up or something? I could, but it’ll have to be on Tuesday. Busy until then.”
Was he joking? You could never be sure. “We are meant to be talking about my boyfriend troubles. You’re meant to say I’m too good for him, and that I’ll find someone else, but the bar’s been set pretty high given he’s an actual blueblood with actual palaces and Faberge eggs decorating his apartment.”
“Wealth’s not everything, Billi.”
“Said like a true Templar.”
“Does he make you happy? Sometimes?”
“Sometimes?” she asked. “Am I meant to settle with merely ‘sometimes’?”
“You don’t remember your mum. But Jamila was a tough, tough woman. More stubborn than anyone I’ve ever met and harder than my old drill sergeant in the Royal Marines. We had very different lives, different upbringings. And she worked all those shifts at the hospital. Living with a doctor’s not easy.” He looked out the window but Billi guessed he was looking backwards in time. “She made me happy, sometimes. But those times were a fair bit more precious than any Faberge egg. I suppose that’s what you get left with. Those ‘sometimes’ moments. But your heart soars. You’re carried up to the mountain top and to places no one else has ever been.”
Billi sat there, silently looking at her dad. She’d not heard him talk like that about her mum, not ever. At first, he’d never mentioned her, the memory of her had been too painful. By the time he’d been willing to share stories her mum had become a stranger to her. What made him talk about her like that now? Had he been waiting till Billi was old enough to understand his true, deepest feelings towards Jamila? Things you couldn’t explain to a child?
She loved Ivan. Didn’t she? What was there not to love? He was a fairy-tale prince after all. Every little girl’s dream of romance. More than that, they were the golden couple. At first it had been painful, how the crowd responded to him, the unbridled awe. Then the strange, bewildered looks at her and she knew what they’d been thinking.
What’s he doing with her? Is it a charity thing?
They’d thought it wouldn’t, couldn’t, last. That he’d settle back to supermodels like before. There were still plenty of eligible European princesses on the party scene. The invites to Monaco, to summers sailing around Santorini and winters skiing at St. Moritz.
But Ivan had picked cold nights in graveyards fighting undead. Of hunting werewolves in the highlands and battling demons in the sewers beneath the city. He’d shed his blood for her.
He wasn’t just her boyfriend, he was her boyfriend-in-arms. In blood.
Maybe it was time she visited the Firebird.
CHAPTER FOUR
Maybe I should have worn heels.
But maybe getting into London’s most exclusive nightclub at two am on a Friday night needed more than heels. The queue went down the street and around the corner. There was a crowd gathered around
