Page 72 of Necromancers Don't Raise

“Must it have been? I don’t see why.” Mercury nodded at the waiter, who put his salad in front of him.

“Because they were dead and rotting,” Gabby said, taking her salad from the waiter. “People get freaked out about that kind of thing. I think it’s the smell.”

“Excuse me, but I believe that congratulations are in order,” my mother said from right behind my shoulder.

I froze, feeling the blood drain out of my face while I stayed paralyzed in his lap. I wanted to leap off of Mercury and deny that I’d sat on a man’s lap in public in a restaurant as respectable as this one, but she refused to admit that I was her daughter, that she had goblin blood, that she’d ever betrayed my father with a monster like Mr. Good, for money.

I turned my head slowly to look at the woman in the stunning dark blue dress that set off her eyes and tan perfectly. “Mrs. Clarence,” I said coldly. “What congratulations could I possibly want from you?”

She smiled her most charming smile at everyone at the table, even Mercury. “Congratulations on being named Mr. Good’s heir, naturally. That much is public knowledge. You’re quite the heiress. You must be very pleased.”

“Mrs. Clarence, will you join us?” Mercury said, sounding even and unemotional, but his hand slid over my stomach, holding me securely in place. It’s like he knew that I was thinking about leaping out the nearest window.

“I don’t want to interrupt,” she said, even as she sat down on my abandoned chair.

“Not at all,” Oswald Mercury said while everyone else stared at her.

“Of course not,” Vincent Bellham echoed, smiling at his wife and nudging her slightly.

“Yes, please stay,” everyone else said in so many words, although I couldn’t quite make out what Apples was mumbling under his breath.

I wanted to scream at her, accuse her of hypocrisy, and demand to know if she’d actually murdered Patricia Watford, but she wouldn’t react to accusations or emotions. However, she was here, and wanted to talk about my exciting inheritance. “It’s interesting, isn’t it? Why would a notorious criminal donate everything he has to a good cause? You know what I would do with a business like that, dissolve it, distribute it, and purge it from the world. So why would a criminal give all of his business, publicly, to me? I wonder if it has anything to do with the Seven Sundry. Have you heard of it?”

She held her breath for a half a second, enough for me to know that I’d rattled her before she gave me a bland smile. “Yes, you should be looking into Mr. Good’s former associates. From what I understand, they were a group of criminals that taught him to cut his way to the top.”

“And the half-goblin who was one of their leaders? What do you know about him?”

Her eye twitched before her calm smile was back in place. “Was there a half-goblin? I don’t recall. I found out everything I know about the Seven Sunderers from my research when Good started asking about you.”

“Why would Mr. Good want to know about Nova?” Gabby asked, scowling at my mother like she’d personally threatened me, her good friend. Only she was allowed to throw me off bridges.

My mother shook her head and replied quietly, “Why does Mr. Good want to know about someone? Because he wants to use them for his purposes. Nova isn’t only the granddaughter of a notorious dancer, she’s also quite the businesswoman, which is why her cousin Cassandra left everything to her in her will.”

My stomach tightened, and a chill ran over my skin. “No, she didn’t. I’m already refusing Mr. Good’s fortune. No need to add another one to the list.”

Her lips twisted. “You went to see him. If you didn’t want to get involved in his business, you should have stayed away. People were watching Mr. Good, and they saw you."

I held very still at her tone, the weighted warning in it. People were watching me now, and she’d come here, publicly, and was linking her name with mine and therefore his, something she’d cut her face off to get away from. Those connections she’d severed so long ago, she was making them again. Because I’d gone to see him.

I was suddenly incredibly furious. "Maybe I wouldn’t have gone if I’d been able to get straight answers from you!” I yelled. It wasn’t a loud yell, but it was loud enough that it should have gotten everyone’s attention in the restaurant. Weirdly enough, no one looked up. Oh, right. I was at a table with a bunch of sorcerers. No one else in the restaurant would be able to hear us.

“Mind your tone,” she said with that cool calm that made me want to scream.

I grabbed a butterknife from the table and glared at her.

“Mrs. Clarence,” Bellham said, injecting a world of calm reason into this conversation. “You’re saying that you’re related to Miss Nova?”

“No,” I snapped, standing up and breaking out of Mercury’s arms to glare at her. “I’m not good enough for the Clarences, and their perfect ideal world. If you don’t mind, you should be on your way. I’ve recently become engaged to a dark sorcerer. That’s why we’re here, to celebrate the occasion, you know, to be on display so everyone can see that we’re together and all those irritating suitors stop vying for my hand. I couldn’t possibly take Cassandra’s stocks and position. Absolutely not.”

Her smile was blinding. “Engaged? Congratulations truly are in order. May I see the ring?”

I blinked at her. She was happy to hear that I was engaged to a dark sorcerer? My confusion diffused all of my anger, leaving me limp and unresisting when Mercury’s hand slid over my left. He held it up to reveal the most exquisite engagement ring I’d never seen before. It matched the Daphne set, which was still safely in Mercury’s vault. It was all silver and gold filigree wrapped around a glittering aquamarine. Big but not too big, just perfect. The metal warmed on my hand, curling around my finger so it would be difficult to get off.

I swallowed hard and then looked up to give my mother a watery smile.

She wasn’t looking at the ring, but at me, eyes calculating, lips curved. “It’s lovely. As are you. Do whatever you like with Cassandra’s stocks, money, and belongings. Sell them, donate them, burn them.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

---