Oddie set the tray on the stone table in the balcony’s corner. She added a glob of honey and cream to her tea. The pine needle-chaga mushroom tea was a little potent for her liking. Red liked his without sweets or milk.
She sat down and took her tea cup in both hands. The steam kissed her face.
Red finally came over.
Oddie realized he’d been folding a piece of paper into an intricate origami bird. He set it on the table between them. She looked up to try to read his expression but his eyes were hidden behind dark wayfarer sunglasses.
He kicked his boots up on the seat next to hers and leaned back in his chair. The positioning was so casual, so, well, millennial, that for a second Oddie could pretend that he was really the twenty-something man he appeared to be and not the millennium-old former-djinn he actually was.
Red Blackwell was the grandfather to the other four Blackwell djinn at the house, but he looked the youngest.
Though Oddie had grown up knowing about djinn and knowing they were immortal, Red still stood apart. He could shift between being a lackadaisical, handsome twenty-something to an I-will-gut-you-with-my-teeth scary immortal in the blink of an eye.
He both frightened her and fascinated her.
She wanted to be more like him and less like herself.
Oddie had never had the freedom to learn who she was other than a Beaumont who was born to serve.
“We have an issue,” Red said, but he didn’t seem to be looking at her. If she had to guess, she’d say he had his eyes closed and was dozing in the morning sunlight.
He was the best kind of predator in that regard.
The one you never saw coming.
“Okay,” she said. “Tell me what it is and I’ll add it to my to-do list.”
His head lolled her way. His black hair shone in the sunlight. “Not that kind of issue.”
She set her tea cup down. Her heart ka-thudded in her chest.
He knows.
He’s going to gut me with his teeth.
She wished he wasn’t wearing the sunglasses so she could see his eyes. At least she might have the very slim chance of gleaning something from his stare.
“Go on,” she said carefully.
“Your mother is on her way here.”
Oh shit.
It was so much worse.
“For what?” she asked nonchalantly, like the answer was no big thing.
“You tell me.”
If there was anything she’d learned in her five years here, it was that Red respected audacity and strength. Oddie was always trying to assert herself here in this soaring house among these immortal men.
But it was really fucking hard to pull off.
She took in a breath and then let it out in an exasperated sigh all while her heart was hammering in her ears and her hands were slick with sweat.
“Don’t make me play these games, Red. Just tell me.”
He kept his gaze trained on her (or so she thought) for another half minute and then said, “I don’t know.”
Her shoulders dropped an inch as some of the tension in her body slipped away.
So he was playing a game. Hoping she’d admit to something.
“I haven’t spoken to my mom in a few weeks.” She took the tea cup back in hand. “Maybe it’s just to visit.”
“Lydia Beaumont does not come to Blackwell House merely for a social call. She may be a fangirl, but she knows to respect the rules.”
Oddie nearly spit out her tea hearing Red use fangirl to refer to her mother. One, because it was sorta true, and two because Red adapted to modern language and modern ideals in order to blend in, but here at home, he shed it like an ill-fitting coat he couldn’t wait to be rid of.
But he was right—Oddie’s mother was a stalwart sacra familia who rigidly followed the rules and practically bowed down to the Blackwells.
Breaking rules or traditions was near blasphemy for her.
Plus, Oddie could just hear her mother say, And what of our reputation?
That was Lydia’s favorite saying when Oddie was growing up. When Oddie told her mother she wanted to go to college and maybe earn a degree in history or archeology, Lydia had looked aghast.
“But what will they think?” she’d said. “What of our reputation?”
“What do you mean?” Oddie was seriously confused. “It’s not against the rules to go to college, is it?”
“Well no, but what do you think it tells the Blackwells if we’re seen going to college?” She said college like it was synonymous with circus or fishmonger. “It tells them we’ve cast aside our loyalties for our own selfish pursuits.”
Then she added, because she’d already had too much wine and was really on a roll, “You don’t want to end up like Aunt Bess. We nearly lost the dynasty because of her. We’ve been trying to repair the damage she did for decades.”
Aunt Bess was Oddie’s great-great-aunt. She was an urban legend. A cautionary tale.
She’d been house manager for the Blackwells back in the 1920s. And then she disappeared. There were rumors she’d had an illicit affair with a Blackwell and when the rumors grew, she’d been swept under the rug, so to speak, in order to escape punishment from the Djinn Conclave.
It was expressly forbidden for a house manager to have a relationship with the djinn they served. Blurred lines was not something the Conclave, or the order of the sacra familia, tolerated.
Oddie had pushed her mother for more details about Aunt Bess many times. Had anyone heard or seen anything? Did the Blackwells exile her?
Lydia either didn’t know the secrets surrounding Bess or she was unwilling to share.
But Oddie refused to believe Aunt Bess had been murdered by the Blackwell men. That just seemed really far fetched considering what she knew of them.
Unless...
She looked across the table at Red. He was back in repose. The tea cup now rested on the flat plane of his stomach, his finger looped through the dainty handle.
Risking punishment by the Conclave and a permanent stain on the Blackwell name might be reason enough for Red to do something as horrible as murder an innocent woman. Red was not sentimental. He was a pragmatist and Oddie suspected he lacked a moral compass.
He and Lydia had more in common than he might want to admit.
It was all about the reputation. The power.
If Red ever found out what Oddie had done, would he take care of her too? Would she be a mess needing cleaning?
Whatever rapport they had now, she suspected it would mean little in the face of a scandal.
Here at Blackwell House, she was on her own.
She needed to keep her head down and her distance from…
Don’t think his name.
Don’t think his name.
Thinking his name always made her stomach rattle and her face flame.
She took a sip from her tea, trying to act as casually as she could and then said, “Whatever Mother is here for, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry over.”
Red sat up and drained his tea in one long swallow. If the hot liquid burned his throat, he didn’t portray it. He took the sunglasses off and hooked the arm over the collar of his t-shirt.
Oddie had been wrong.
Being directly beneath his gaze was worse. He was no longer djinn, but Oddie could have sworn his eyes flashed with a warning.
“Your mother is welcome to stay a few days,” he said. “But any more would be circumspect. Make sure she doesn’t linger.”