I put my hand in his and gave it a shake. “Breena.”

He didn’t let go of me, but put his other hand on top of mine, holding me fast. “We can wipe your memory, but it only works with short-term memories. We’re reaching the point of no return.”

“No backsies, huh?” I patted the top of his hand and he let me go. “Look, Corb obviously isn’t happy I’m here, but I’ve got nothing else. So why the hell not? Carry forth, good man, and let the chips fall where they may. I’ve a feeling I was born for this.”

Tom smiled, a flash of white teeth. “Good. For the record, I think Eammon is right.”

“For the record, I am on the fence,” the Frenchman said, as snotty as ever. “But I am willing to give you a chance. I like sassy women with experience.”

I looked him in the eye, ignoring the double entendre. “Well, Louis, I’ll give you the same chance then.”

He gasped and his mouth dropped open, a hand going over his chest. “How did you know my name?”

“You look and sound like a snotty Frenchman, so I took a guess.” I gave him a wink. “Comes with age, the ability to read people, you know.” That and I had a good track record with guessing. Made me hard to surprise, which was yet another thing that had come to irritate Himself. I’d figured out that he was going to divorce me before he could pull the plug. Hence the high-speed car chase and other hijinks as I mentioned earlier.

Eammon chuckled. “Yup, I do like the lass. More and more.”

Corb growled, and the wolf, who I’d been deliberately ignoring, gave a woof. “Sassy. I like her too.”

Tom put his hand on the gate around the grave, pushed it open, and went to the marble stone. His hands moved quickly across the carved lilies, touching them here and there. And the places he touched? They freaking lit up, glowing like Christmas lights. The colors stretched across the spectrum, and I found myself smiling.

Gran had a word for this kind of magic. “Recognition magic, cool.”

The four men who had been leading me along all stopped where they were and looked straight at me. I smiled. “Might know a thing or two about the shadow world.” More than a thing or two if I could dredge through my memories.

Louis gave me the slightest of nods, and Tom just grinned wider. Eammon, though, had that look cats had perfected. As if he’d just swallowed the canary whole and gotten away with it.

Himself would have pooped his pants had he seen the stone light up. I really wished I could show it to him.

A grinding of stone on stone growled through the air, and slowly the entire standing tombstone rotated, angel and all, onto its side. That opened a hole in the ground that was pitch black, to my aged eyes. I snorted at the thought as I peered into the dark. Cool air rushed up and out, curling around us, smelling of old graves. I thought maybe I heard a voice come with the air, but I couldn’t be sure.

Corb brushed past me, going down first.

I smiled. “Agreed, Corb, ladies first.”

His back stiffened for just a split second, and then he continued down the stairs. Tom let out a low laugh. “Oh, girl, you are going to be so much fun.”

I shrugged and winked at him. “I don’t have time to be bothered with fools. I mean, especially at my age. Gawd in heaven, what have I got left? Ten years at best? I’ll be dead before you know it.”

Tom waved for me to precede him. “Oh, only five, girl. Assuming the consumption don’t take you, or you fall and break a hip.”

I laughed. “Or yellow fever?”

Old-school banter, I could do that all night. Only they didn’t laugh at that bit, none of them did. Crap. So much for my moment of levity. If anything, Tom’s eyes went deadly serious.

“Yellow fever wasn’t much what people thought it was. But you’ll find out nearer the end of your training.”

“Really?” I tipped my head to the side.

Louis went down the stairs next. He glanced over his shoulder. “Not yet, Tom. She doesn’t need to know that until she gets through the training.”

Intrigued, I leaned toward Tom. “I can keep a secret. And now I’m curious.”

Gran had never mentioned the history of yellow fever being anything but what it was—a devastating disease that had terrified people.

“Ah, don’t be getting me in trouble already.” Tom sighed. “Maybe you can get Eammon to talk to you about it.”

And that was that. All the men had gone down the stairs, leaving me at the top all by myself. Well, not quite. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a swaying body.

Robert tapped a finger bone on the wrought iron fence. “Friend.”

“Robert.” I gave him a little salute, somehow feeling better that he was there, watching over me. Silly, I know.

The space was so dark I couldn’t see a single stair, but there was a good railing on the one side. I gripped hard, took a deep breath, and followed it down in a long curve that led to the right in two big loops. I found myself counting the steps. Eighteen, that was an unusual number. Like a flight and a half.

A glowing light beckoned to me from the bottom of the stairs, and I followed it into a room sunk down another five feet, which made the ceiling quite high. I blinked a few times at the things hanging from said high ceiling. Thick ropes. Chains. And a . . . I’d say fireman’s pole, except that it didn’t lead anywhere.

My eyebrows shot up as the implications hit me. “Eammon, tell me you aren’t a stripper.”

He barked a laugh. “Not anymore.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “I want proof.”

Eammon and Tom laughed with me, and even Louis gave a soft guffaw. The sound acoustics were amazing in the big room and our laughter rebounded nicely. Of course, no one else laughed (certainly not Corb), and then I realized that everyone was staring at me. Everyone included four people huddled in the middle of the room, who shared the same shell-shocked look of someone who’d just seen a ghost and peed their pants at the same time, and two men on the outer edges of the room, watching them. Like guards and prisoners.

Shoot, that couldn’t be good.

Corb strode to the middle of the room, and I got to take him in. Yeah, he was nice to look at, probably lovely to hold, but strip it down, and he was a control freak, just like Himself. Bossy, trying to make me into someone or something I wasn’t, trying to make me into a mold of what he thought I should be.

That was a very large nope in my book of Breena. Or, at least, it was now.

Forty-one and rocking it. I wasn’t really sure what it was, but I’d figure it out. Maybe it would involve finally putting Gran’s training to use. Maybe I’d show the shadow world a thing or two. Ha, I could only imagine trying to explain hot flashes and divorces to a bunch of men. Easier for them to believe in magic than the mysteries of a woman’s body.

“You . . . five,” Corb threw a sidelong look at me, “have passed the interview. If anyone wants out, this is your final opportunity to leave with no memory of this place or the horrors you have faced.” He strode across in front of them, and I watched as the only other girl—God, was she even out of her teen years? —eyed him up like a prime piece of steak. I wanted to laugh but managed to choke it down by clearing my throat.

The three guys in the middle were shaken, not stirred, and I felt an immense amount of pity for them. They were young, early twenties at best, though they might have been even younger. I had a hard time telling now how old young people were. They all looked like babies to me with the lack of experience in their eyes, and the softness of their faces.

What I did notice was that they were all dressed in leathers, big boots, heavy jackets. I frowned when I saw that one of them had on what looked like a flak jacket. I did a slow turn to glance at Eammon. He grinned, winked, and shrugged. “I figured you wouldn’t need all that stuff. Those lads did. Fear makes you more of a target in our graveyard of horrors.”

That “stuff” he mentioned? Weapons of all sorts hung off their sides. Knives for the most part, but one of them had a gun! A gun?

A nose butted me in the middle of my back. I turned and looked at Sarge. “Yes?” He sat behind me. Was he . . . hiding? I tipped my head and frowned. “Really? Now you’re a scaredy cat?”

Except when I turned back to face the group of what I’d dubbed kids, one of those guns was pointed right at me.

My eyebrows shot up. What was this crap now?

Corb was talking low and calm, his hands spread wide while the boy with the weapon continued to stare at Sarge behind me. The kid had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, but maybe that was only because they were trying to bug out of his head. The gun was not really pointed at me, and I took note that his finger was resting on the guard, not the trigger. I could handle this.

“Hey!” I snapped my fingers while I snapped out the word, drawing his attention to me. The kid blinked hard a couple times as his eyes slid up to mine. I snapped my fingers in the air again. “You point that gun at me, and you are going to be very sorry, boy.”

His throat bobbed and he lowered the gun. “But the . . . wolf . . . he attacked us.”

“He’s harmless. It’s the skeletons you need to watch out for.” I grinned and the kid’s eyes impossibly widened farther.

“Skeletons?”

I shrugged. “Well, I can only vouch for Robert. He was pretty cool, but I’m guessing he was one of few good ones.”

The kid’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell backward, limp as a noodle. He hit the ground with a hard thud that made me grimace. “Ouch. That’s going to hurt tomorrow.”

Sarge leaned his head against my back, and I could tell from the shaking that he was laughing.

Tom stepped forward. “I was on the fence with this one. I don’t think he’ll make it through.”

I found my feet taking me forward, right into the middle of the kids. “Move.” I waved my hands at the remaining three and they parted around me. I crouched by the kid on the ground and patted his cheek. “You alive in there?”