Chloe tried to get her legs under her to help, but they’d decided they weren’t speaking to her anymore.

  “Several times.” The Lamia glanced away as if she couldn’t be bothered to actually care. “And now she’s somewhere she can’t hurt anyone, and no one can hurt her, so…”

  “So? She has to pay for what she’s done.”

  “Agreed,” Ramses said, but without Chloe serving as a conduit, it seemed like Helen couldn’t hear him.

  “Yeah, a few hundred years in your boring-ass sanctuary should do it.” The Lamia put her hand on her hip. “It did it for me. Notice how I’m not killing all of you, even though I had the chance.” She examined her nails as if the three of them were no more of a threat than a breeze through her hair. “I just want to get back to waiting on Melusine and playing Call of Duty.”

  The terrifying, blood-sucking Lamia, eater of human flesh, who had a dragon as her final form, sounded tired as hell, for all her show of bravado. Maybe time was the great redeemer Helen had always been searching for.

  When Helen looked at her incredulously, Chloe shook her head. “I’m the ghost expert. This one’s on you.” She took her hand. “And I trust you like you trusted me.”

  Helen gave her a look so full of love and appreciation, Chloe had to give her a quick kiss.

  “Time and place,” Ramses muttered. “When will the two of you learn?”

  Chloe sighed and turned to him. “Do you have an opinion on this?” She nodded toward the Lamia.

  He raised his hands as if in surrender. “I’m leaving this one up to the living. I’ll just help deal with the consequences.”

  His way of saying he trusted her, too, maybe even trusted Helen a little by proxy.

  Helen stared at the Lamia for a good minute, and Chloe had to fight the urge to squirm, especially when the Lamia stared back, neither of them giving an inch.

  When the Lamia finally raised an eyebrow, Helen took as deep a breath as if she’d been underwater all that time. “You’ll take the oath on the River Styx?”

  The Lamia rolled her eyes so hard, Chloe was surprised she couldn’t hear it. “Fine.”

  Helen smiled. “Let’s go home.”

  Epilogue

  The sanctuary’s first inter-species barbecue was a tense affair, humans on one side and everyone else on the other. Chloe did her best moving between the two groups, along with Fatma, Damian, and Ali, but she couldn’t keep tap dancing for long, and her forced grin was starting to hurt her face.

  Ah well, the beer was nice and cool, and the smell from the grills was enticing, and she decided to enjoy herself in spite of her mom’s scowl.

  “She’ll come around,” Ramses had kept saying, flying in the face of impossibility. It was much harder to trust him in situations like this than when they were imperiled. Well, their lives might be safe right now, but her mom’s expression was blistering her spirit a bit.

  Then Helen, the best thing in the world, appeared at her side in a yellow sundress, looking magical as could be, and Chloe didn’t give a shit if everyone started killing one another.

  Well, much of a shit.

  Helen squeezed her hand as they stood between the two groups, and even though the lines around her eyes spoke of a tense morning, she looked relieved and happy. “The Lamias aren’t coming.”

  “Some good luck at last.”

  Helen gave her a wry smile. “We’re supposed to be fostering goodwill.”

  “You’d pick those two to be your ambassadors, huh? The one who tried to take over the world or the empress of disdain?”

  “Good point.” The longer Helen looked at Chloe, the more tension seemed to melt from her expression, just like it was falling from Chloe’s shoulders. “I love you, you know.”

  “I know.” She waited before Helen’s face began to twist into amused disbelief before she added, “I love you, too.” It was a new feeling—at least to say it out loud—and they both giggled like schoolgirls. Their souls, their godhoods, felt like they had been in love much longer, as if the magic that infused them was either the same or bound in ways they couldn’t begin to imagine.

  Maybe anyone who carried a piece of that magic always found their soulmate in life.

  Her mom had groaned so loudly when Chloe had told her that, it was a wonder she hadn’t thrown up. She’d read Chloe the riot act up and down the harbor when they’d reconnected, then for the entire ride home, then at her apartment, then Chloe’s apartment, and countless times over the phone for the first couple of weeks Chloe had been home.

  It hadn’t made any difference. Chloe had read it right back to her, certainty and Ramses on her side. She had told herself time and again that she wouldn’t say anything about her conversation with Jamie’s ghost, but she’d finally laid it out there in person one day after her mom wouldn’t stop calling.

  Her mom had gone still for a good minute and a half, just breathing, staring at nothing, her eyes swimming with tears that had finally dribbled down her cheeks.

  Chloe had expected Ramses to hop in with some advice, but he’d fled, and she’d supposed that was only right even as she’d longed for him to return. But she’d still known he’d always have her back.

  “She…it can’t…you…” Her mom’s words had seemed unable to connect themselves, but her shaking head had conveyed that she didn’t want to believe it.

  Chloe had crossed her arms and waited. She wouldn’t lie about such a thing; her mom would figure that out.

  She’d had Chloe go through the whole thing three more times. For the last, they’d sat on the couch, her mom watching her eagerly as if solely wanting to hear news of the daughter she’d lost years ago.

  They’d cried in each other’s arms, her mom blubbering things like, “I’m so proud of you, too, baby,” and Chloe had bawled and hiccupped and managed, “I’m proud of you, Mom.” They’d said they loved each other and loved working together, and even though that last part wasn’t exactly true, it felt good to say it amidst all the snot and tears.

  After that was sorted out, Chloe had spent most of the three months since at Helen’s sanctuary. For the first week, she hadn’t left Helen’s house at all, spending the days helping fix the place up when she wasn’t in Helen’s bed. At night, she didn’t even try to pretend that being in Helen’s arms wasn’t the primary reason she’d come to the sanctuary in the first place.

  Little by little, Helen had introduced her to the residents, and she’d helped repair other parts of the island, and at some point, she and Helen had hit upon the idea of this get-together to introduce the two spheres of their lives. Fatma and Ali had been happy to help, both in giving Chloe a lift to the sanctuary, and by granting the residents a chance to know outsiders who were only partly human.

  David helped now, letting Damian lead him among the residents. Many of them chuckled over the Lil’ Devil T-shirt Damian had finally managed to borrow off Fatma. According to Jillian, David and Damian had been spending a lot of time together out in the world, and Chloe finally knew for sure who had taken advantage of Damian’s offer that day in her mom’s apartment.

  And she still wasn’t thinking too hard about it.

  Jillian finally took her mom firmly by the arm and forced her to stand closer to Chloe and Helen, just close enough for the sanctuary residents to do the same on the other side. Eventually, they all scooted forward enough to speak, exchanging pleasantries while Helen and Chloe served as a buffer. When one of the fey started talking about magic and reagents, Jillian and Chloe’s mom perked up a bit, always happy to talk shop.

  But keeping back the reasons they’d become involved in said shop in the first place.

  Helen knocked her beer bottle against Chloe’s. “Mission accomplished,” she said in Chloe’s ear. “Ish.”

  Chloe shivered. “Stop tickling my ear unless you want to vanish for at least an hour.”

  Helen grinned. “At least? I’m intrigued.” She bit her lip like Chloe was always doing, and it was just as much of a turn-on as Helen said.

  “Knock that off. My mom is watching.”

  “So? She’ll see that we’re in love.”

  “And that’s all I want her to see, thanks very much.”

  Helen laughed delightedly.

  It melted Chloe on the spot. She would have used her godly power to give Helen anything in that moment. Lucky for her, Helen had her own power and could get whatever she wanted for herself.

  With a smile and his hands clasped behind his back, Ramses appeared at Chloe’s side.

  She startled, dribbling beer on her shirt. “Shit.” She wiped it off as much as she could and flicked it from her hands.

  “Ramses?” Helen asked with a smile.

  “Ah,” he said with a smile of his own, his head bare in the mild sunshine of a Caribbean winter. “I like how she always senses when I’m here.”

  “Me dumping drinks on myself is a dead giveaway,” Chloe said.

  He shrugged. “I prefer to think of her as a natural leader, always aware of her surroundings.”

  “Always wary of getting something spilled on her.”

  He gave her a flat look. “Why are you trying to spoil my good time?”

  “I thought you were spying on conversations over there. Why didn’t you just walk over?”

  He waved as if to say he couldn’t be bothered, but she knew part of him liked scaring the hell out of her.

  “You’re gonna make me old before my time.” To Helen, she mouthed, “Sorry.”

  Helen was still watching with that amused, loving look. “I’m just sorry I can’t see or hear you unless our powers are joined, Ramses.”

  They’d been practicing, though Chloe still found raising her godhood an exhausting exercise, and it was damned hard to do unprovoked. Still, they were getting better.

  “Tell her it is a shame,” Ramses said. “I’ve enjoyed our conversations.”

  “He says he likes talking to you, too.”

  He gave Chloe’s shoulder a warning tingle, and the striped nemes covered his head again. “Not like that. Friendlier. And you forgot the first part.”

  “The meaning is the same.”

  “But my words were better.”

  Chloe put on her most maniacal grin. “’Tis a shame, m’lady fair. He doth adore speaking to you forthwith as well. Verily.”

  “I’m going to shock the shit out of you.”

  “Bring it on, chum.”

  Helen burst out laughing, and they both stared at her. “It’s so fun filling in his side of the conversation. I could watch you two all evening. You’re like a sitcom.”

  Chloe glanced at Ramses, and his frown echoed how she felt. “Is she making fun of us?” she asked.

  “I think she might be,” he said.

  “You shock her a bit, and I’ll tickle her?”

  “Verily.”

  Helen backed up, her hand and the beer held out in front of her while her eyes were filled with mock alarm. “Mercy, my lords!”

  They had a short, laughing chase through the crowd, and everyone smiled as they watched, seemingly caught up in the good mood that spread far more easily than godly power.

  Such a small gathering didn’t speak of peace forever, but it was peace for now, a grace they could all take sanctuary in.

  About the Author

  Barbara Ann Wright writes fantasy and science fiction novels when not hoarding glitter. She has been a finalist in the Foreword Review Book of the Year Awards and the Lambda Literary Awards. She’s won two Golden Crown Literary Awards and five Rainbow Awards. Her first novel, The Pyramid Waltz, was one of Tor.com’s Reviewer’s Choice books of 2012 and made BookRiot’s 100 Must-Read Sci-Fi Fantasy Novels by Female Authors. Lady of Stone, the prequel to The Pyramid Waltz, was recommended on Syfy.com.

  Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

  Coasting and Crashing by Ana Hartnett. Life comes easy to Emma Wilson until Lake Palmer shows up at Alder University and derails her every plan. (978-1-63679-511-9)

  Every Beat of Her Heart by KC Richardson. Piper and Gillian have their own fears about falling in love, but will they be able to overcome those feelings once they learn each other’s secrets? (978-1-63679-515-7)

  Grave Consequences by Sandra Barret. A decade after necromancy became licensed and legalized, can Tamar and Maddy overcome the lingering prejudice against their kind and their growing attraction to each other to uncover a plot that threatens both their lives? (978-1-63679-467-9)

  Haunted by Myth by Barbara Ann Wright. When ghost-hunter Chloe seeks an answer to the current spectral epidemic, all clues point to one very famous face: Helen of Troy, whose motives are more complicated than history suggests and whose charms few can resist. (978-1-63679-461-7)

  Invisible by Anna Larner. When medical school dropout Phoebe Frink falls for the shy costume shop assistant Violet Unwin, everything about their love feels certain, but can the same be said about their future? (978-1-63679-469-3)

  Like They Do in the Movies by Nan Campbell. Celebrity gossip writer Fran Underhill becomes Chelsea Cartwright’s personal assistant with the aim of taking the popular actress down, but neither of them anticipates the clash of their attraction. (978-1-63679-525-6)

  Limelight by Gun Brooke. Liberty Bell and Palmer Elliston loathe each other. They clash every week on the hottest new TV show, until Liberty starts to sing and the impossible happens. (978-1-63679-192-0)

  Playing with Matches by Georgia Beers. To help save Cori’s store and help Liz survive her ex’s wedding they strike a deal: a fake relationship, but just for one week. There’s no way this will turn into the real deal. (978-1-63679-507-2)

  The Memories of Marlie Rose by Morgan Lee Miller. Broadway legend Marlie Rose undergoes a procedure to erase all of her unwanted memories, but as she starts regretting her decision, she discovers that the only person who could help is the love she’s trying to forget. (978-1-63679-347-4)

  The Murders at Sugar Mill Farm by Ronica Black. A serial killer is on the loose in southern Louisiana, and it’s up to three women to solve the case while carefully dancing around feelings for each other. (978-1-63679-455-6)

  Fire in the Sky by Radclyffe and Julie Cannon. Two women from different worlds have nothing in common and every reason to wish they’d never met—except for the attraction neither can deny. (978-1-63679-573-7)

  A Talent Ignited by Suzanne Lenoir. When Evelyne is abducted and Annika believes she has been abandoned, they must risk everything to find each other again. (978-1-63679-483-9)

  All Things Beautiful by Alaina Erdell. Casey Norford only planned to learn to paint like her mentor, Leighton Vaughn, not sleep with her. (978-1-63679-479-2)

  An Atlas to Forever by Krystina Rivers. Can Atlas, a difficult dog Ellie inherits after the death of her best friend, help the busy hopeless romantic find forever love with commitment-phobic animal behaviorist Hayden Brandt? (978-1-63679-451-8)

  Bait and Witch by Clifford Mae Henderson. When Zeddi gets an unexpected inheritance from her client Mags, she discovers that Mags served as high priestess to a dwindling coven of old witches—who are positive that Mags was murdered. Zeddi owes it to her to uncover the truth. (978-1-63679-535-5)

  Buried Secrets by Sheri Lewis Wohl. Tuesday and Addie, along with Tuesday’s dog, Tripper, struggle to solve a twenty-five-year-old mystery while searching for love and redemption along the way. (978-1-63679-396-2)

  Come Find Me in the Midnight Sun by Bailey Bridgewater. In Alaska, disappearing is the easy part. When two men go missing, state trooper Louisa Linebach must solve the case, and when she thinks she’s coming close, she’s wrong. (978-1-63679-566-9)

  Death on the Water by CJ Birch. The Ocean Summit’s authorities have ruled a death on board its inaugural cruise as a suicide, but Claire suspects murder and with the help of Assistant Cruise Director Moira, Claire conducts her own investigation. (978-1-63679-497-6)

  Living For You by Jenny Frame. Can Sera Debrek face real and personal demons to help save the world from darkness and open her heart to love? (978-1-63679-491-4)

  Mississippi River Mischief by Greg Herren. When a politician turns up dead and Scotty’s client is the most obvious suspect, Scotty and his friends set out to prove his client’s innocence. (978-1-63679-353-5)

  Ride with Me by Jenna Jarvis. When Lucy’s vacation to find herself becomes Emma’s chance to remember herself, they realize that everything they’re looking for might already be sitting right next to them—if they’re willing to reach for it. (978-1-63679-499-0)

  Whiskey and Wine by Kelly and Tana Fireside. Winemaker Tessa Williams and sex toy shop owner Lace Reynolds are both used to taking risks, but will they be willing to put their friendship on the line if it gives them a shot at finding forever love? (978-1-63679-531-7)

  Hands of the Morri by Heather K O’Malley. Discovering she is a Lost Sister and growing acquainted with her new body, Asche learns how to be a warrior and commune with the Goddess the Hands serve, the Morri. (978-1-63679-465-5)

  I Know About You by Erin Kaste. With her stalker inching closer to the truth, Cary Smith is forced to face the past she’s tried desperately to forget. (978-1-63679-513-3)

  Mate of Her Own by Elena Abbott. When Heather McKenna finally confronts the family who cursed her, her werewolf is shocked to discover her one true mate, and that’s only the beginning. (978-1-63679-481-5)

  Pumpkin Spice by Tagan Shepard. For Nicki, new love is making this pumpkin spice season sweeter than expected. (978-1-63679-388-7)

  Rivals for Love by Ali Vali. Brooks Boseman’s brother Curtis is getting married, and Brooks needs to be at the engagement party. Only she can’t possibly go, not with Curtis set to marry the secret love of her youth, Fallon Goodwin. (978-1-63679-384-9)

  Sweat Equity by Aurora Rey. When cheesemaker Sy Travino takes a job in rural Vermont and hires contractor Maddie Barrow to rehab a house she buys sight unseen, they both wind up with a lot more than they bargained for. (978-1-63679-487-7)