To my right, closer to the thirteenth seat, sat Davin smirking at me, though his face was paler than usual. A glimmer in the air behind him materialized into the Silver Lady, who tipped her head toward me.

I couldn’t help giving her a wave. She dropped a hand onto his shoulder and his smirk faded as his skin color turned a sickly green, and then she sunk back into him. Interesting that she hadn’t been kicked out of him by those spells at the entrance. Or maybe she had been, and she’d gone back?

Alan left my side and hurried to stand beside Davin.

“Davin, you have to help me. I’ve been stuck with her all day. I think that last spell didn’t work so well.” Alan leaned in close to touch Davin on the shoulder.

One of the council members to my left shifted in his seat, his eyes going from Alan to Davin and then to me. I gave him a tight nod. So that had to be one of the necromancers.

I pointed a finger at the green-faced, baggy-eyed Davin. “You and I are going to have a chat after this, boy.”

Again, muttering and stiffening. Gawd save me from misogynistic men standing on empty formalities in an attempt to put me in my place. “Look, you all brought me here, made me walk between your magic desks so you could see that I am not the devil . . .” A series of gasps went up as if they were scandalized Victorians clutching at their fake pearls. “What exactly do you want from me?”

The man at the center desk slowly stood. His eyes flicked over me as if inspecting a newly discovered creature. “You have left the Hollows Group, correct?”

“Well, to be fair, they kicked me out.” I smiled as they muttered to each other. They clearly hadn’t known that little tidbit.

Oh, I was going to make the best of this. Maybe it was the residual whiskey in my veins, maybe it was the fact that these boys didn’t know who they were playing with, but I was almost having fun. What a bunch of grumpy old fuddy-duddies.

Alan shook his head. “I know that look. Don’t start a fight, Bree.”

“You shut your mouth.” I pointed at him, but it looked like I was pointing at Davin. Fine by me.

Davin growled and the necromancer to my left cleared his throat. “She has a ghost with her who is standing near Davin, that’s who she is speaking with.”

A chorus of grunts went through the room.

The old guy in the center raised his hand, and they all went silent. “You carry a ghost with you?”

“And an animated skeleton usually, but Robert is currently passed out under the oak tree. We were drinking together, and you know how it goes with whiskey.” I shrugged and made a glug-glug motion with my thumb to my mouth and pinky finger in the air.

Roderick looked as though he was fighting a smile. He was the only one. The necromancer watched me closely. “Why is it that you need to speak with Davin alone?”

All I could think was . . . game on. I did a slow turn toward the necromancer. “You can see my ex-husband?”

He nodded. “I can.”

“And could you make him tell the truth if he tried to lie?” Based on Gran’s book, that was the deal with necros. They could manipulate the dead fully, forcing them to speak. I’d never had such luck—just look at Gran’s silent treatment of late—which meant no necromancer abilities for me, despite my affinity with Robert and other ghosts. Despite whatever connection my father had with the dead. And I’d never seen Louis, the Hollows teacher, do more than say he could talk to the dead.

“You think the ghost would lie?” the necromancer asked.

I grinned. “Like a ducking snake.”

Alan spluttered. “I’m a lawyer. I uphold—”

The necromancer waved a hand at him. I turned in time to see Alan’s jaw snap shut. Oh, this was going to be fun.

If it was possible, Davin looked paler than before, and he swallowed hard before speaking. “I don’t think we should let her talk. How do we know she won’t lie? She fought Roderick when he tried to force her to tell us what she was doing in the Marshall House.”

All the members of the council looked to Roderick, and I took a deep breath in that moment of respite.

“She is part fae,” Roderick said softly, placing his hands on his desk, palms down. “You have but to bind her to her word for the duration of this meeting, and she will not be able to lie.”

I spread my hands out to my sides. “I’m game. But let’s be very honest before we start—some of you aren’t going to like what I have to say. Especially Davin. I mean, I’m assuming you have rules about how you can use your magic as council members?” That was a guess, but by the series of nods that went around the room, I’d hit the nail on the head.

Damn it, I should have asked for a meeting with the council sooner.

I put my hands to my mouth and blew Davin a double kiss. He jumped up, red-faced. But Roderick was already moving toward me, his hands glowing with the same magic that had pinned me down in the Marshall House. Damn it, I should have thought this through. That had been uncomfortable at best.

“If you don’t fight it, then it won’t hurt,” he said, no doubt seeing me tense.

I nodded. “Sure thing, Rod.”

The necromancer’s mouth quirked up on one side. “She is very much like Celia in some ways.”

I tipped my head toward him. “Thank you.”

“But very different in others. She has strengths Celia did not,” Roderick chimed in as his magic swept around me, stealing my breath.

The necromancer stood. “My name is Jacob. What is it that you wished to speak with Davin about?”

The words were already there, eager to come out, but I worked them into the best order I could. “Davin helped my ex-husband manipulate the human court system so that Alan—that’s the ghost over there—could foist all the accrued family debt and then some onto me, take both our house in Seattle and my gran’s house, and leave me penniless and alone. But”—I held up a finger—“Davin and Alan didn’t count on me figuring out their little connection. Then Alan over there broke into my house and tried to steal not only my gran’s amazing spell book that everybody and their dog wants to get their hands on, but also a talisman that my gran left me.

“And now, as you can see, poor Alan over there had his throat ripped out by an animal. Which I highly doubt was a real animal—more likely it was a shifter, or maybe a goblin, but I don’t doubt it was directly due to his connection to Davin.” I drew in a big breath, Roderick’s magic in me humming along. “But again, let’s be honest here, gentlemen, Alan couldn’t see a good thing if it kicked him in the ass. I mean, he threw me away like I was nothing but a piece of garbage. Like I was worthless.”

“You are worthless,” Alan yelled across the room. “A worthless, no good—”

Jacob snapped his fingers, and Alan’s mouth snapped shut. I really didn’t want to like any of these councilmen, but Jacob was moving up the ranks in that department. “I did not give you permission to speak, ex-husband of Breena.”

Alan’s face twisted with a fury I knew all too well. Whenever I’d disagreed with him or proven him wrong in a public setting (no matter how politely), he would lose his marbles on me as soon as we got home. Tell me that I was undermining him and making him look bad—something he would never do to me in front of others.

Not that he hesitated to do it the moment we were alone. Although what was there to badmouth? I’d cooked and cleaned for him; I’d made the money that had paid our bills while he went to school. I’d been more than happy to have sex with him whenever he wanted. All of that, and I still hadn’t been good enough for him.

That old wound in me cracked open a little, and I hated the insecurity that leaked through it.

“Is there anything else that you’d like to say?” Jacob asked. It struck me that he had taken charge, not the man in the center of the room, whom I’d assumed was the head honcho.

I lifted my head, barely realizing that I’d lowered it. “Well, did you know that Davin had Sarge and Corb from the Hollows Group playing double agents with Hattie’s crew? Or that the O’Seans were only one of five groups trying to take over Savannah? Or how about that Missy is still a royal pain in my ass? That the goblins are acting up? That there is a damn demon in the house next door to my gran’s?” I shuddered, feeling the urge to spill the beans about Crash. That one wasn’t necessary, but my lips quirked upward anyway. “You want to hear about my sex life too?”

Alan shot forward. “I saw you with that man, and that is entirely ridiculous. He looks like a troll! It’s embarrassing to me that you would lower yourself by carrying on with such a freakshow.” He blinked and shook his head, staring hard at me. “You aren’t this pretty. Did you get work done?”

I stared at him, not sure where to start with all that.

Roderick cleared his throat. “She had a glamor on her, likely one that her gran put on her when she left Savannah to keep her safe. It dulled her sparkle, if you will.”

Holy shit. Gran had kept me from being . . . too pretty? Was that what Crash had meant when he’d said I didn’t see myself as others did? And what was this troll business? Crash was gorgeous by any person’s terms. He’d mentioned that most didn’t see the real him.

Alan shook his head again as if his ears couldn’t believe it. “You could’ve modeled.”

I almost thanked him.

“If you hadn’t been so chubby.”

Oh, he did not go there.

This time I snapped my fingers at him, grabbed his ear, and yanked him toward my bag while he caterwauled. I stuffed him into the bag while he squealed, not caring who saw me manhandle him. Flipping the bag closed, I turned back to Jacob who was staring at me with new interest.

“She is not a necromancer,” he said softly. “But she has some power over the dead.”

“Interesting,” the others all murmured, and a soft discussion began that I couldn’t hear.