Page 1 of Amber Gambler

“Bijou, Bijou, Bijou.” Hidden in curling shadows, Armie clucked his tongue. “I’m disappointed in you.”

Quick as a blink, he towered over me, his skeletal fingers wrapping my throat like a necklace. Or a noose.

“Did you think it was over?” He leaned down, his breath warm in my ear. “We’re just getting started.”

A sharp pinch jolted me awake as his soft lips brushed my cheek in a promise that left me trembling.

Jerking upright in bed, I slapped a hand over my mouth to hold in the scream clawing up my throat. With a shimmy of my hips, I scooted until my spine was flush against the headboard, craving a solid wall at my back. As my fingers drifted from my lips down past my jaw, I blamed any tenderness on my imagination.

Balanced on my left ankle, Badb lifted her head from my bloody toe, clicking her beak in staccato bursts.

“I’m okay.” I ignored the tremor in my arm as I lowered it to my side. “Just a bad dream.”

One word to Matty, and he would use his oneiros gifts to guard me from nightmares on the dream plane while I slept. But he had so little time awake and aware, I refused to waste a precious minute on myself.

A grumbled noise deep in her throat called me a liar as she hopped over my legs to nest in her cat bed.

Herstolencat bed.

A fluffy donut of faux fur in blush pink with iridescent threads she kept full to its brim with other pilfered treasures of dubious origin and negligible value. Including the plastic bird mirror she enjoyed staring into for hours on end.

Vanity, thy name is crow.

Which is funny becausec-r-o-wis also how you spellkleptomaniac.

Our neighbors would draw and quarter me if they figured out it was my bird robbing the block blind. She wasn’t even mine. Kierce had tamed her and indulged her larcenous tendencies. Granted, she never took anything too valuable. Mostly trinkets. Shiny things. Food deliveries. Cat toys. Cat beds. Bags of cat food.

Either she identified ascatinstead ofcorvid, or she stole to spite the pampered felines on our block.

Mr. Mittens on Laurel Oak Lane, in particular, ranked high on her naughty list.

The cat lived one street over, and his owners spoiled him rotten, making him a favorite target for her.

A knock on the door to my apartment brought me out of my head, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “I’m coming.” I hustled over before Matty let himself in and Badb out. “How are you up this early?”

One thing I could always count on when it came to Matty was he never woke up on time. His narcoleptic tendencies weren’t his fault. The call to slumber was in his nature. But his ability tosleep through alarms blaring at full volume meant he had never beat me out the door on a workday morning. Unless he’d had a hot date and hadn’t come home last night, this was a first.

So was finding one of Savannah Police Department’s finest waiting on my doorstep at this hour.

Offering me one of the cups from a carrier in his hand, he rumbled, “I’m always up this early.”

“Sam—” I swallowed his name. Much safer to think of him as Harrow. “Hi. Hello. Good morning.”

“Hey, Frankie.” His faded-denim eyes crinkled at my fumbled greeting, bringing my attention to the dark skin under them. “Is this a bad time?” His gaze slipped past my shoulder, sweeping the space behind me, but he didn’t comment on my new décor. No. He was searching for something else. “I can come back?—”

Probably he heard me talking to Badb and thought one of the other Marys was visiting me.

“Stay.” I grabbed for his hand on reflex. “Please.”

Harrow let my fingers slide off the tips of his. Which didn’t hurt. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

“You thought I was Matty.” He nodded to himself. “You haven’t been out to Bonaventure yet?”

“No.” I recalled my pajama situation and folded my arms over my chest. “Do you mind waiting for me?”

“Not at all.” He reeled his focus back in to my face. “Mind if I come with you?”

“To the cemetery?” I laughed until I noticed the hand flexing down at his side. “Kierce won’t be there.”

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