“Stay away from me,” I said, taking another step back, this one more determined. “Satina.”
“Oh, someone’s been brushing up on their ancient history, I see. Did he tell you the rest?” The Conduit arched the dead woman’s eyebrows. “Did he tell you what happened the night I died?”
“Of course.” My back knocked into the far wall. “And if you think I’m going to listen to some idiot girl who gets herself so twisted up over a man that she throws herself off a building, then you’ve got another thing coming.”
For the first time in my life, I heard an honest-to-God cackle. It escaped her lips as she threw her head back gleefully.
“Is that what he told you?” She shook her head. “I must not be the only one who’s found herself in the throes of that man’s charms.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“If you’re willing to accept that pile of horse manure, than you’re in deeper than I imagined.” She leaned in closer, so close that the shackles pulled tight. “I didn’t throw myself, Supplicant.” She smiled again. “I was pushed.”
Chapter 18
“Pushed?” I asked, crossing my arms. “That’s not what Abram said.”
“Of course it’s not,” Satina spat back. “He’s the one who pushed me! Did you expect him to offer that up?”
This was too much. I wanted—no, I needed—to be done with this back and forth. Abram was good. Abram was evil. The whole thing was enough to give me whiplash.
“You’re a liar,” I ground out, “and I won’t fall for it again.”
It was one thing to finally make my peace with the existence of magic, Conduits, Supplicants, enchanted beasts, and leprechauns. Okay, so I might be winging it with the last one. But it was something else altogether to put my trust in someone the way I had just done with Abram. And standing here, watching this ridiculous creature threaten the stability of that trust with some horrible lie, wasn’t something I was prepared to do.
Even if, somewhere in the back of my mind, I still wondered if it was true.
Satina sighed. “You know, I don’t see what he sees in you.” She eyed me up and down with a sneer. “You’re not his type. He’s never been with a chunky girl before.”
“Curvy,” I corrected, then I waved my arm at her. “No different than you.”
“This?” she asked, looking down at her own body. “This is nothing more than a borrowed opportunity. I was waif-like and beautiful in my time … back before your boyfriend killed me.”
“You killed yourself,” I said, finding it suddenly easy to not feel bad over the loss of her life. “I know that’s probably hard for you to deal with, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
Satina leaned back, letting her chains hang loosely in the air. The look on her borrowed face was cool and collected. She eyed me up and down as if I was a slab of beef and she was picking the choicest parts to chop off.
A shudder ran through me. This woman … well, first of all, she wasn’t a woman at all, at least not the one I was looking at. She was a creature, some sort of spirit who had slung on a poor girl’s corpse and was wearing it around the same way I’d have worn a pair of Louboutins.
She was a walking obituary. Or more aptly, a sitting, chained-up obituary. And she wanted something from me.
“You better hope you’re right, Supplicant. Otherwise, I think it’s safe to say that you’re in over your pretty little head.” A disgusting smile parted her dry, cracked lips. “He was good, wasn’t he?” She rolled her eyes, seeming to relish some unspoken memory. “He was amazing back then. Not good enough to make up for the murder, mind you, but I can only imagine what a dozen decades of experience has brought to the table. Let me ask you, is he still a moaner?”
I shuddered again, thoughts of Abram and I in the Castle, thoughts of Satina and Abram all those years ago.
God, he was a moaner.
“Shut up! He didn’t murder you!” I yelled. “He’s not that kind of person.”