What? What did he find out? What terrible thing has he learned about me?
He strode to the dishwasher with his empty plate and placed it sideways in the rack. Dropped his fork and knife in the silverware caddy, too. “That it’s best to be up front and that what a person does is most important.”
Oh. Okay. That didn’t make her sound so bad. But just because he had the ability to read her thoughts didn’t mean he had the right. How could Marcie stand it? Layla knew she herself couldn’t. With so much power at Segue’s disposal, how could they ever have thought she’d be a threat to them? The mind reading alone ensured that she couldn’t act against their wishes without their knowing.
He stopped at the doorway. “You’ve got one thing wrong, though, and it’s bound to become a huge problem for you. Considering the players involved, it might even cost lives. Or worse, souls.”
What the heck was he talking about? She had neither magic, like Khan, nor extraordinary ability, like Custo.
Custo’s gaze darkened. “You’re at the boundary of Shadow now. Segue straddles it more than it ever has, even as Adam strives to hold the darkness back. What you think and what you feel here are just as important as what you do. Maybe more. Temet Nosce.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s the best advice I can give you, and, sister, you need it. Know thyself.”
Now she was angry. “I do. I’m Layla Mathews. I know who I am.” Where did he get off suggesting otherwise?
“Oh, okay,” he conceded easily. He turned to leave, pushing open the swinging door and tossing over his shoulder, “Then you know you’re one of the weird ones, too.”
Chapter 7
Once in Twilight, Khan trembled as Shadow dissolved the mortal body he’d worked so hard to hold. He strained to retain a semblance of Kathleen’s Shadowman but was too weak to stop the cyclone of his dissolution. The cold, wild tendrils claimed him again, and he became the Reaper, a Shadow-fae consciousness wrapped in darkness. Instantly, the keening of his scythe filled him, the curved blade a hated extension of himself, paining him like a ghost limb.
“So lift the blade again,” a soft voice said.
Moira. He didn’t look upon the lie of her lovely face. The long fall of gold hair, the youth shining from her sunny skin, eyes that matched the earth’s blue sky. Of her three faces, this countenance promised life and health, but her nature was age old and rotten with it. Fate.
She’d cut Layla’s lifeline from the fabric of humanity, and he’d stood by and watched her do it. Moira was the inevitable.
“All mortals must die,” she crooned. “Even your woman. Only the blade is eternal.”
His scythe, his fate. A legacy of death.
No. To take up his blade again would sever him forever from Kathleen. He’d take what little time he had with her, with Layla. Moira had already done her worst.
He was here only to reclaim his strength so that he could hunt the creature that Layla had released. He knew the burden of letting loose something evil into the world. He would not have her bear it. And then he would deal with the gate.
A moment here and already he was growing stronger. Shadow may have destroyed the illusion of his mortal body, but it also fed him. He could feel the contrary stuff snapping within, his power redoubling, his darkness deepening.
“The human form Kathleen made for you is lost.” Moira laughed. “What will Layla make of you? How will she see Death?”
Only Kathleen had ever made him beautiful, and it had taken every iota of strength to hold that body in Layla’s presence. Without Kathleen, he was hollow. The next time he saw Layla, she would alter his appearance according to how she perceived Death. At least he’d seen her to safety first.
“You said it yourself: she will reject you, because it is human nature to do so. Life cannot make peace with death. Between the two is Shadow. Bide . . . you . . . here.”
Moira drew her shimmering skirts aside. Beneath crawled the blinded, ravaged soul of a human woman. Her eyes were sunken, and her hair was balding, long strands still clutched in her own hands from when she’d pulled them from her scalp. She’d died, but because he’d abandoned his post, there was no one to see her safely across to the Hereafter, as was his duty.
“Like so many others, she got lost in the trees,” Moira said. “The angels try, but they have not found this one yet. I keep her hidden; it’s so much fun to watch them search.” Moira clucked with her tongue, and the mortal looked around in terror. The woman’s spirit was dim, flickering with exhaustion. She was losing herself to whatever illusion Moira had trapped her in.
Pity flared within Khan. “Set her free.”
Moira’s eyes twinkled. “Set her free yourself.”
“I cannot. I will not.”