Hailey Edwards - Gray Court (Black Hat Bureau Book 7)

Black Hat Bureau, Book 7

CHAPTER ONE

I cant decide how to fill the eggs.

Lashes matted together with sleep, I groaned and rolled onto my stomach, mashing my face into my pillow. No. That was the whole problem. It wasnt my pillow. It was a new pillow. A fluffy pillow. Stuffed with a hypoallergenic down alternative, whatever that meant.

Its plush extravagance left me aching for the lumpy pancake I had been sleeping on for years, but that pillowmy pillowwas at home. A home that might as well have been on another planet compared to the farm and the tiny house where Asa and I now lived as a result of my falling out with Camber and Arden. The same tiny house that had suffered a seasonally challenged golem incursion before dawn.

I bought six dozen multicolor plastic eggs, one dozen plastic gold eggs, and one giant grand prize egg.

Groping for Asas ridiculously soft pillow, I snatched it and covered my head, sandwiching my ears between two luxurious golem-muffling layers.

The colored ones are easy. He ignored my attempts to ignore him. I put gift cards for local restaurants in those.

The mattress dipped when he invited himself to sit beside me, and I rolled toward him, wrapping myself in the comforter like a breakfast burrito.

Mmm.

Smoked beef brisket, molten cheese, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, with tomatillo sauce on a homemade tortilla. Throw in a few green chilies, and you had perfection.

Now that would have gotten me out of bed with a smile on my face.

The gold ones are giving me fits. He shifted his weight closer. Whats better than the gift of food?

The gift of sleep.

Go away. I snuggled down until the covers brushed my nose. The sun isnt up yet.

You mean that great burning ball of hydrogen and helium that has no respect for the melting point of wig adhesive? That was up hours ago. He turned smug. So was Ace.

That cracked my eyelids open, as he knew it would. I squinted at the khaki sunhat he sported to protect his bare scalp from sunburn. A wig would have helped with that, but no. Clays paranoia over bleaching his babies meant he preferred to go au naturel on the farm.

I had blackout shutters installed on all the windows. He leaned over and mashed buttons on a digital display Colby had explained away as the brains of the operation. Thermostat. Fuse box. Solar panels. Voice commands for lights and music trained to respond to Asa and not me after she caught me barking orders into thin air with increasingly violent tones one too many times. Let there be light.

Wide slats within the double-pane windows fanned out like blinds then cranked up into a decorative recess, allowing for golden sunlight to bathe my unimpressed face.

Ugh. I kept burrowing until the fabric covered my head, but it was too thin to do much good. Argh.

I believe the word youre looking for is arrr. He yanked, exposing my tender eyeballs again. As in arrr, maties.

The word Im looking for cant be said in polite company.

We have company? He glanced left to right, up and down, front to back. I dont see anyone.

Well, at least you know I didnt mean you. I gave up on rest and shoved upright, settling into a dejected slump against the padded headboard. St. Patricks Day is I could not math this early. Lets say a week away. Easter jumped around, which made tallying days even harder. That means your eggstravaganza is I tried picturing a calendar in my head with no luck, a month out?

Eggstravaganza is now mine. He dictated a note to his smartwatch. Ive co-opted it. Thank you.

Religious reasons aside I folded my legs under me, resisting the temptation to stretch them out then slide slowly, slowly down until I was right back where I started from. Actually, no. Thats it. I wiped the corners of my eyes. Thats why the centuria doesnt hunt eggs. Not their circus, not their monkeys.

A bunny delivering chocolates to fake grass nests made about as much sense, theologically, as Santa shimmying down chimneys to leave gifts under artificial trees.

Good thing I didnt have to understand where the symbology went wrong to appreciate the commercialized versions of holidays.

But egg hunts are fun. He made bunny ears behind his head. The centuria needs more joy in their lives.

Youre building them a water park. I never wanted to see those bills. Thats all anyone needs.

You hunt eggs with Colby.

I didnt know what to do with a kid when she first came to live with me, so yes. I celebrated every holiday to make sure she didnt miss out on one that might have been important to her or her family.

The way Colby coped with her transformation into a moth was to pretend she had always had wings, that it had always been only the two of us, that she had sprung into existence the night she died at the hands of a serial killer who would have consumed her soul had she not chosen me as the lesser evil.

Those earliest bumbling attempts I made to ensure her happiness saddled us with a yoke of family traditions no self-respecting black witch would be caught dead honoring.

Good thing I was embracing my gray areas these days.

She conned you into celebrating big gift holidays. Clay laughed proudly. You realize that, dont you?

All the excess holiday cheer in our lives? Shes not responsible. I am. I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress, unable to sit still while reliving those dark days. I was terrified I would kill her with neglect. She was afraid I would cave to the temptation of consuming her magic. I rose and crossed to the nearest window. We tiptoed around each other, barely spoke. It was miserable and awkward. Ugly sweaters, anatomically incorrect hearts, and gelatinous cranberry cylinders helped us bond when we had nothing else in common.