With an apologetic smile, she strode quickly back to the plane, offered a wave as she took the first step, then disappeared up the stairs.

* * *

• • •

I made myself walk back inside, forced my feet across the terminal and back to Lulu’s car.

“Bad news?”

“They’re leaving. Going back to Paris. The entire French delegation.”

“Didn’t you fly over here with her?”

“I did.”

“And they’re going home without you?”

“They are.”

“And . . . how do you feel about that?”

“I don’t entirely know. You are braver than me,” I muttered, even doing a pretty good imitation of Seri’s accent.

“She said that?”

“She said that.”

Lulu tucked her hair behind her ear. “Is it wrong if I say there’s something bitchy about that? Like she’s using it as an excuse. ‘Oh, you’re just braver than me.’”

“Seri’s a good person,” I said, but I didn’t disagree with what Lulu said. And I thought of Connor’s thin line. “And how do you know when you’ve stepped from brave right into reckless?”

“When you can change into a wolf?”

I dropped my head back to the seat, closed my eyes. “They’re going to tank the talks. If they go, there’s no way we’re going to get everyone together again. There’s no way we’re going to get peace in Europe.” Right now, it seemed like even peace in Chicago was in danger.

Was that why this mattered so much to me? Because my parents had managed peace here?

“I’m pretty sure the talks were already tanked.”

I opened my eyes, gave her a piercing look.

“You know it’s the truth, Lis. Murder doesn’t exactly whet the appetite for peace. And now the question isn’t how to get the talks moving again. It’s figuring out who wanted to derail them in the first place. Who wanted to ruin what we have? To change the balance of power?”

I was fired up and prepared to argue with whatever she’d said. But she was absolutely right. My job was no longer escorting the French delegates.

It was figuring out who had sent the French delegates home.

* * *

• • •

Twenty minutes later, we pulled up in front of the Portman Grand.

A knot of paparazzi waited outside, their gazes avaricious. They were waiting to question me about murder, about the peace talks’ failure, and, depending on how long they’d been out here, the fact that the French delegates had taken their luggage and run.

I sucked in a breath, put my hand on the car door. “I’m the brave one,” I murmured, but Lulu jerked the car away from the curb before I could get out.

“Nope,” she said, continuing through the circular drive. “Can’t do it.”

“Can’t do what? Where are you going?” I checked the side mirror, watched the possibility of a hot shower and minibar binge disappear behind me.

“I’m getting you away from this hotel and all those bloodsucking reporters—no offense. You’ll stay with me.”

“Stay with you?”

“In the loft. There’s a second bedroom. Well, it’s storage, really. And it’s small. And Eleanor of Aquitaine might have peed on some stuff. I mean, I check in there and keep the door shut, but I think she does it out of spite.” She waved it away. “I’m sure it’s fine. We’ll just Febreze it.”

I weighed cat pee against going back to Cadogan House and facing down my mother’s sword again. “Actually, that would be fantastic.”

“Good. Because traffic is a bitch. Autos were supposed to clear this nightmare up,” she said, laying on the horn.

“What about my stuff? My luggage?”

“You can grab it tomorrow when the reporters have slithered back into their pits. You can borrow some stuff tonight.”

“I don’t deserve you,” I said, marveling at how generous she was being, especially after I’d been dumped by vampires. For possibly the second time this week.

With a half-cocked smile, she adjusted her rearview mirror. “I’d say we probably deserve each other.”

* * *

• • •

This time, I tried to pay the proper respect as soon as I walked through the front door.

“Hello, Eleanor of Aquitaine.”

She just blinked and stared. And looked generally judgmental.

“I don’t think she likes me.”

“Probably not,” Lulu said. “But she doesn’t really like anyone. I’m here because she allows it, and we both accept that.” She reached down, scratched the cat between the ears. The cat leaned into her hand and made a weird little bark when Lulu stood up again.

“She barks.”

“She talks,” Lulu corrected. “In her own particular accent.”

As if offended by the comment, Eleanor of Aquitaine trotted away, tail in the air.

“Where did you get her?”

Lulu walked into the loft, pulled off her jacket, tossed it onto a stool at the kitchen island. “Honest to god, she was sitting outside my door one night, just staring up at it. No tags, no collar, no microchip. Just four pounds of attitude and expectation.”

I lifted my brows. “Black cat just randomly shows up at the door of the daughter of two famous sorcerers?”

“She was a kitten at the time,” Lulu said. “And she’s just a cat. She’s not a sorceress in disguise, or a familiar, or shifter, or whatever. She is particular, though. Keeps me on my toes. I bought her a cheap catnip toy one time and she could tell. Left a dead mouse on the kitchen counter. Found her sitting in front of it when I got up to make coffee, like she was daring me to clean it up.”

“Maybe it was a gift?”

“She hissed when I touched it. I had to wait until she was out of the room before I tossed it.”

“She might be evil.”

“Oh, she’s definitely evil.” She smiled broadly now. “That’s why I respect her space and her privacy.”

“How much privacy does a cat need?”

“You’d be surprised.” She yawned, stretched her arms over her head, then swiveled side to side. “Hell of a night, Sullivan.”

“Yeah.”

“Insomnia will not be a problem tonight. Let’s go take a look.”

“At the cat-pee room?”

“At the cat-pee room.”

We passed a bedroom and surprisingly large bathroom, and reached a closed door on the back side of the loft, farthest from the windows. So far, so good.

She opened the door, flipped on the light.

“Ta-da,” she said weakly.

It was a decently sized room, maybe ten feet by twelve. But it looked like the set of a horror movie, right before things go bad. There was a four-foot-high ceramic clown, and a headless male mannequin wearing a pair of lacy underwear. Lulu rounded out the collection with some kind of taxidermied albino rodent and a long board punched with dozens of rusty nails.

But the nightstand and bookshelf were fine.

“Sidewalk finds for future art projects,” she said, dragging the clown toward the back wall. Then she put her hands on her hips, looked around. “At least it doesn’t smell like cat pee,” she said brightly.

“No, it doesn’t.” But I eyed the mannequin warily.

“His name is Steve.”

“Where would you suggest I sleep? And that’s not sarcasm.”

She wheeled the mannequin to one side. The wheels made a rusty grinding noise Eli Roth probably would have appreciated. Then she pulled down a panel of wooden slats that hung on the side wall. I’d thought it was an art piece, but it descended to the floor, making a neat platform bed.

“Murphy bed,” I said. “That’s handy.”

“I had a roommate for a few months. It didn’t take.”

“What was wrong with her?”

“She was . . . chipper. I don’t mind laughing, appreciate quality sarcasm. But she thought the world was a happy and wonderful place.”