Flight feathers sprouted from Aggie’s arms and smaller feathers framed her face as she remembered the wounded look in Miss Vicki’s eyes.

“She said Miss Vicki should hire someone presentable to deal with guests because no one with any social standing would want to deal with a person who looked like she’d been dragged through a bush backwards.”

“This Pam-EL-la female is the one who said that?” Ilya asked mildly.

Aggie rounded on him, forgetting caution in her desire to remind him that Miss Vicki had been the first human to act as Reader in The Jumble for a long, long time, and she was nice and . . .

When she looked at him, she realized Ilya’s mild voice hid the same burning fury that she felt.

“Yes, she said that.”

Ilya thought for a moment. “Humans say unkind things about each other all the time when the person being . . . pecked . . . with words isn’t around to hear.”

“They knew she was there. Eddie Crowgard heard them talking before Miss Vicki came back to the cabins with the treats. They were waiting for her, watching so they would be sure she heard them.”

“I see.”

She was certain that he did see, and whatever happened to these humans would be a reflection of that seeing.

Aggie hesitated, but if the Sanguinati were going to take vengeful payment for the humans being mean, she should mention the one human who hadn’t been mean. “The Heidi human . . . After Miss Vicki left the treats and went back to her nest to cry, Heidi said that maybe they shouldn’t have let Miss Vicki believe they were reviewers from important travel magazines who were here in-cog-ni-to to tell other humans about The Jumble. But even her mate said she was being softhearted—or softheaded—and the sooner Miss Vicki was out of the way, the sooner their own deal could go through.”

Ilya stared at her. “Out of the way. Is that the exact phrase they used?”

She nodded.

They said nothing for several minutes, just stared at the other side of the lake.

Finally Ilya stirred. “Who among the Crowgard here can take a human form well enough to pass for human?”

The answer was simple, but Aggie thought about it, trying to figure out why he would want to know. “Besides me? Clara. Eddie. Jozi.”

“Eddie and Jozi are closer to your age, yes?”

“Yes. Why?”

“They’re going to stay at the cabin with you. The three of you rented the cabin for the entire summer. The girls sleep in the bed and Eddie sleeps on the sofa.”

“But Miss Vicki didn’t rent it to three of us,” Aggie protested. “We all decided that I would be the lodger.” The Crowgard had discussed it and squabbled over it and finally voted on it, and she’d been so proud to be the one the rest of the Crows had selected for this important first contact with the human who had been working to repair The Jumble.

Ilya rose from his chair. Aggie tried not to flinch. In Crow form, she could fly fast, but the Sanguinati, in smoke form, could move even faster, could wrap around their prey and draw blood through the prey’s skin. In human form, she didn’t stand a chance against him.

Then again, neither did humans.

“You need to stay close to Miss Vicki and help her—and report to me everything the humans do and say around her. But these are dangerous humans, Aggie, and a lone Crow is vulnerable. I don’t want you to be alone with those humans living so close.”

“My kin live all around The Jumble.”

“But not seen—or not understood for what they are. Three Crowgard in human form staying in a cabin? Better odds. Knowing there is a young male present, one who claims kinship to you, will discourage the males from being . . . inappropriate.”

“Who is going to stop them from being inappropriate with Miss Vicki?” Aggie asked.

Ilya smiled, showing his fangs. “I will.”

It wasn’t until she was flying back to The Jumble that she remembered that, in the thriller books she liked to read, “out of the way” usually meant dead.

* * *

• • •

Ilya watched the Crow fly across the lake as he considered the information she had provided. Humans arriving at The Jumble under false pretenses, using words to open wounds. They knew each other, had come here as a pack. Had come incognito.

“Problem?”

Ilya glanced at Boris, who usually filled the role of chauffeur, insisting that a human who had a driver had more status than one who drove himself. Ilya wasn’t sure that was true, but driving the car pleased Boris, so Ilya didn’t argue about it. Besides, a chauffeur was considered to be in a different social class than an attorney, making it easier for Boris to talk to shopkeepers and flirt with—and feed on—the women who worked at the diner or the Pizza Shack.

Of course, feeding in Sproing might be more difficult now that the Sanguinati had taken over the bank, forcing the citizens to acknowledge their presence. All the more reason to protect the places that provided shelter for transient humans—like The Jumble and Ineke Xavier’s boardinghouse.

“Yes, there is a problem,” Ilya replied. “The guests used words to harm Victoria, told lies to make her think they are something they are not.”

“Easy enough to eliminate problems,” Boris said blandly.

The thought of how to eliminate those problems made him hungry, so he pushed it aside—with regret. “Killing the first guests at The Jumble would not encourage other humans to visit.”

“It might, if we started a rumor that one of the cabins was haunted. We could even assist with the props—a chair that rocked on its own; a radio that turned on by itself; a blank pad of paper that had the beginning of a note written on the first page the next time a human walked by. Easy enough for one of us to do.”

Ilya huffed out a laugh. “We’ll save that possibility.” He sobered quickly, his anger returning full force. “For now, we need to know who these humans really are and where they’re from. We need to know if they’re the danger Julian Farrow sensed closing in on Victoria, or if these humans are like Detective Swinn and his men. Are they more hounds to chase and harry, or are they the hunters, the real threat to Victoria?”

“I could fetch the car,” Boris said. “We could drive over and pay a call.”

“No, I don’t want to announce our connection to The Jumble. Not yet.” His lips curved in a savage smile. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t cross the lake and wait for an opportunity to find out more about Victoria’s guests.”

CHAPTER 44

Vicki

Moonsday, Sumor 3

“If these are the kind of people I’ll have to deal with on a regular basis, I don’t think I’m cut out for this business,” I told Ineke as I sat in her kitchen instead of running the errands I had told my guests I needed to run. The truth? I hadn’t needed to run errands first thing that morning. I had needed to run away from my guests.

“They’re checking out tomorrow morning, so you’re almost done with them. You can hang on for one more day.” Ineke pushed a plate of double-fudge brownies closer to me. “Eat a few of these. You might end up in a chocolate coma and not wake up until it’s time for them to check out.”

“I agreed to pick up pastries and other appropriate breakfast foods since I can’t be bothered with serving meals, which is what I should be doing if I want to keep up the pretense that The Jumble is a vacation spot.”

“Is that a direct quote?”

“Close enough.” I reached for a brownie. Then I thought about the “helpful pointers” that had been made for the past three days every time I saw one of my guests. Well, screw them. If I was already a ginormous, slovenly glutton with a permanent bad hair day, I might as well stuff my face with food because, with my lack of looks, style, or fashion sense, a man who wasn’t desperate wouldn’t give me the time of day let alone a screw. As if I wanted one! Yorick had cured me of that little fantasy, and now I knew the only good, romantic sex was found in romance books.

I bit into the brownie and chewed furiously, struggling against the tears stinging my eyes. Then I noticed the way Ineke stared at me.

I swallowed, forcing the bite of brownie down a tight throat.