“Whom?”
“I went to school. You Hounded for Detective Stotts, who has logged more Hound deaths than any other law enforcer on record,
I know you’d do it again in a hot minute. Plus, for some reason, your father refused to bring you into the Authority back when you were young-”
“Watch it,” I growled.
He grinned. “-younger, to train you in the less standard and more useful ways of magic that you, of all people, should know. On top of all that, you tend to stroll into the middle of situations that can kill you, and you have no formal self-defense training.”
“Is that all you got?”
He put both elbows on the table and rested his mouth against his fingers, covering his smile. “Well, I’ve only known you a few months.”
“Might just stay that way.”
He watched me a moment while I sipped my water. “I don’t think so.”
I gave him a noncommittal nod. “Never know. You left out a few things, though.”
“Oh?”
“For one, I can read you like yesterday’s want ad.”
“Is that so?”
“Absolutely.”
He leaned back. “Well, then. Get on with it.”
“Reading you?” I rested one elbow on the table and folded my fingers under my chin. What did I really know about Zayvion Jones? Not a hell of a lot. He had the advantage of a complete memory, and time spent following me around for my father.
But I had instincts. Good instincts.
“You aren’t as patient and calm as you look. As a matter of fact, you have a short temper, which is why you put on the Zen Maseter bit all the time.”
He raised one eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
“You have a lot more money than you’d like people to know, but you don’t spend it because you don’t have a life outside your work. You don’t have any friends, and you never speak to your family anymore. You are a total loner, Mr. Jones.”
He gave me a blank look and took a sip of his wine.
“You can pour on the charm and get any woman in a room to go home with you, but it’s always a one-night stand, which suits you just fine. And even though you like to pretend you’re deeply moral and just, you’d willingly break the law, lie, and cheat if it’s for something you believe in.”
“Is that it?” he asked.
“Almost. Your favorite color is blue.”
“Green,” he said, looking straight into my pale green eyes.
Oh. Nice.
“Okay,” I said. “Green. Am I right?”
“You’re not all wrong.” He took another bite of his appetizer. “Not a big fan of one-night stands, though.”
Just what I needed-a rundown of his love life. “Really. So you’ve had multiple long-term relationships?”
“Want to see the scars?”
“Depends on where they are.”
He flashed me a smile. “On my. . heart, of course.”
“Of course,” I said.
The waiter interrupted our conversation, and we got busy ordering. We both chose the onion soup au gratin for our appetizer. Zayvion ordered lamb medallions with garlic for his main course, and I ordered the duck with apples and porto sauce.
“So tell me about Maeve Flynn,” I said once the waiter had left.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything. It would be nice to have a clue about what I’m getting into.”
“She’s a good teacher. A master in her chosen magic-blood magic. She will teach you how to access and control magic in the ancient ways. The hidden ways. She won’t be easy on you. Maybe much harder now. .” He shook his head and gazed out the window again. Nothing out there but darkness and stars fallen to earth.
“Harder now?” I prompted.
“She lost her husband a few years ago. It. . changed her.”
Oh. I took a drink of my water. “How did he die?”
“The death certificate says heart failure.” He looked away from the window. Waited. Waited for me to ask.
“Okay. Now tell me how he really died.”
“Your father killed him.”
“Shit.” I sat back and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Terrific. My teacher hates me.”
“I don’t know that she hates you. Maeve has always been fair-minded. Kind, in her way. She’s not. . or at least she hasn’t been. . the kind of person to punish someone for their blood relations. There’s a chance she’ll very much enjoy teaching you the things your father didn’t want you to know.”
“And there’s a chance she’ll want me to fail spectacularly.”
“Maybe. Will that stop you?”
“No. I want to learn. Holding all this magic isn’t easy, you know? Plus, I can be pretty stubborn when I put my mind to it.”
“Really? I did not know that.”
“Ha-ha. You can stop trying to look so surprised.”
The waiter swooped down upon our table and placed the soup in front of us, then refilled our wine before disappearing back into the swirl of color and light beyond our booth.
“Stubborn might help,” Zayvion conceded.
“At least I have one family trait going for me.” Speaking of family, I might need to talk to Zayvion about my dad.
Did I know how to do romantic dinner conversation or what? How did one casually bring up possession?
I thought about it while I ate the soup. Zayvion was right about the food. It was spectacular.
“Um, I had a weird thing happen today,” I said.
Okay, that was dumb. The day had been filled with weird things, starting with attending my father’s second funeral.
“Yes?” Zay asked.
“I thought I heard my father call my name. Twice.” Zayvion wiped his mouth with his napkin. “When? Where?”
“In my bathroom-well, in my head. After you left this afternoon.”
He frowned. “What did he say?”
“My name. Told me to find the disks. Find his killer. Aren’t you even a little freaked out by this?”
He took a drink and shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not thrilled by the idea, if that’s what you’re asking.”
And I guess if he could deal with that thing that jumped us on the street with relative calm, a dead magic user in my head probably didn’t seem like all that big a deal.
“He is dead, isn’t he?” I asked.
“Very.”
“Do you think he could be dead and in my head? When Maeve came to see me, right after I got out of the hospital, she was worried about that.” I took another drink of wine. My glass was almost empty. How had that happened? I was starting to feel it despite the heavy soup. It was probably time to slow down with the wine.
“Possession-full possession after death-is not well documented.” Zayvion refilled my glass. “Your father had enough mental strength after he was dead to step into you in spirit form and wield magic through you.” He lifted his
