Free City Of Souls by Vicki Pettersson Page B

portico to ring a bell that chimed for miles. I rubbed my arms through my T-shirt and gave Felix a closed-mouth smile, knowing he was wondering what it was like to be raised with all this space and falsely winking splendor.
    It’d been an emotional haunted house.
    How appropriate, then, that the door swung wide to reveal the woman of the hour…and one of the primary people who’d made it that way.
    “Pulling butler duty now too, Helen?” I stepped inside quickly, hiding the way Felix stiffened beside me. Neither of us had expected the Shadow to open the door. “Where’s Deluca?”
    My voice bounced back from the ornate vaulted ceiling. It was important that I act as breezy and unaffected by my surroundings as Olivia always had. “Helen” caught and catalogued every action. At least now I knew why.
    “He’s taking some time off,” she answered stiffly, nose high, skin sallow, and expression as disapproving as ever. All that was alive on her were those beady, assessing eyes. I met them openly. “I’m forced to take up his post.”
    “Didn’t he recently take a vacation?” I asked, tilting my head so blond curls fell over my shoulder.
    The visual cue that I was nothing more than a ditz, a nuisance, had her relaxing enough to shut the door behind us. She had yet to acknowledge Felix. Good. “This isn’t a vacation. It’s…a little more than that.”
    I raised a perfectly waxed brow. Ralphie Deluca hadn’t taken a leave of absence in the twenty-odd years he’d been employed by the Archer estate. I paused long enough that “Helen” registered my deliberately blank look as impossibly vacant.
    “Ah, well. This is my boy—” I broke off, pretending to stumble. “This is my friend, Nathan.” I took Felix by the arm, pulling him close. She’d think I was trying to pull a fast one on my father again by dating someone unsuitable, and would run to him with the news as soon as I left. Olivia’s flighty, unstable reputation would remain unsullied. “Nate, this is Helen…um, So-and-so.”
    Helen surprised me by addressing Felix directly. “I anticipated your arrival, Mister…?”
    “Stewart. Nate Stewart. Nice to meet you, Mrs. So-and-so.”
    My laugh rang, genuinely. Felix liked getting his digs in too.
    “But how’d you know I was coming?” he said before Helen could take offense. It was one of the traits that made him so likable, and it kept stoic, severe Helen off balance. “Olivia and I hooked up this afternoon rather…spontaneously.”
    He let the memory of something hidden and secret ring in his voice. I flushed at the intimation in it, shuffling my feet. Wow. Those coeds didn’t have a chance.
    Helen colored as well, before clearing her throat. “Well, it wasn’t
you
, precisely. Our Olivia seems incapable of traveling anywhere solo…” She left the sentence incomplete as she motioned for us to follow her into the sitting room. “I’ve prepared refreshments. You may wait here for her business with her father to be concluded.”
    It didn’t surprise me that she wasn’t going to let my new friend near Xavier’s office. The last time she had, a valuable mask had temporarily gone missing.
    “Actually, Nathan is looking to find a job at Valhalla.” I motioned toward the offices, and Felix half rose from the settee he’d just sunken down onto, his abject confusion perfect for the moment. “We want to ask Daddy if we can work in the gift shop together.”
    Xavier wouldn’t concern himself with minor personnel decisions, but Olivia would have been able to get away with it.
    “No, Olivia.”
    “But it’d be fun,” I protested with a little foot stomp. “Nathan’s great at getting people to buy things they don’t need. He could sell shot glasses at an AA meeting.”
    “I mean, no, your friend must remain here.”
    “The office is big enough for all of us.”
    “Your father’s not in his office.”
    My mouth snapped shut in surprise. At last, an emotion I didn’t have to fake.