She shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s a little uncomfortable during the transition, but it wears off fast. Besides, here I don’t have to worry about losing time to the stupid doors.”
That much was true. The doors at the Bloom sometimes deposited people back into mortal reality hours later than anticipated even when every precaution had been addressed. Still, sunrise and sunset, the times when Faerie’s magic was weakest in the mortal realm, were hard on Rianna. As a changeling, she relied on the magic of Faerie to hold off the centuries she’d lost while a captive in Faerie. If she were ever to be caught in the mortal realm during sunset or sunrise, all those years would catch up to her, aging her hundreds of years in a moment. A mortal couldn’t survive that. The castle, with its strange blend of planes, prevented those transition moments from being deadly to her, but there was still enough of the mortal world here to make sunset and sunrise draining for her.
“I’m fine,” she said again. “Nearly back up to full strength already. Now tell me how the investigation went today?”
I groaned. “Not so hot. I ended up being taken hostage in a bank robbery.”
Around me, the chatter at the table went silent, and I could feel all eyes turn on me, particularly the silent fae at my side who was part spy, part protector, and, despite his attempts to distance himself, my friend.
“Obviously I walked away from it okay,” I said, though with the rash of recent walking corpses, maybe that wasn’t quite so obvious as it should have been.
“Another bank robbery?” Holly asked, breaking the growing tension, for which I was grateful. “That’s what, the third in a week? Was it the same three people? Did they catch them this time?”
“Uh . . . sort of?” They certainly wouldn’t be robbing any more banks. But Remy had only gone missing last night. While there had been three robbers, he couldn’t have been involved with the previous robberies, could he? “What did the people from the other two robberies look like?”
“Haven’t you been watching the news?” Holly asked, raising one of her perfect strawberry-blond eyebrows.
I shrugged. “Not so much. No electricity in the castle and I’ve been busy at work.”
She granted me that one with a begrudging nod as Caleb jumped into the conversation. “None of the robbers wore masks, but only one has been identified. Annabelle something or other. Her husband had reported her missing a couple days before the first robbery. The other woman and the man have not been identified yet, but the media has been splashing their pictures around.”
Huh. That sounded eerily similar. I made a mental note to look up the coverage as the conversation around me moved on to how we could get electricity and Internet in the castle. I was still deep in thought, mindlessly attacking my food, when I realized Falin was staring at me.
“What?” I asked, turning to face him.
His icy blue gaze swept over me, filled with worry and warmth. “You’re okay?”
I waved a hand, gesturing at my still whole and unharmed body. He studied my face, as if he could find the truth to any nonphysical pains I might be hiding.
“I’m fine,” I said, and I meant it. I didn’t like what I’d done. Seeing those seemingly living bodies drop like marionettes with cut strings would probably join the other nightmares that regularly woke me, but I stood by the fact that I’d done the right thing. They’d already been dead, and my actions meant no one else got hurt.
But it would haunt me.
Falin’s frown deepened, and I changed the subject before he could pry further. “Do you know any fae who could move a soul between bodies?”
“Like Coleman?”
I thought about it and then shook my head. “No, what he did when he stole a body left a lot of magic and glyphs on the body. And the bodies he stole were still alive. I’m looking for something that could put a ghost in a corpse without leaving a magical trace.” I thought about the female ghost I’d pulled out of Remy’s body and how she’d begged to be put back inside. “The ghosts may be cooperative, but I think they need someone else’s help to inhabit and take control of the stolen body.”
“Alex, what’s going on?” Rianna asked, her food forgotten in front of her. Her reaction made sense, as Coleman had been the one to hold her captive in Faerie. He’d used her to facilitate his body thieving, so she might know more about moving souls between bodies than any other living person. At least any I had access to. I hadn’t wanted to rehash what I’d encountered at the bank again until I got a chance to talk to Death at length, but it seemed I didn’t have much choice.
I summarized the story the best I could, focusing most of my details on what little I knew about the walking corpses. Falin listened silently, the scowl on his face darkening. Rianna interrupted to ask questions a few times, but by the end, she was shaking her head.
“That definitely sounds like necromancy,” she said, her voice thin, strained.
“So you know something about it?” Did I sound a little too hopeful to hear that one of my best friends had knowledge of forbidden magic?
“Eh, probably not much more than you,” she said, an apologetic note to her voice. “Coleman used death magic, true, but not necromancy. He wanted his bodies still alive and functioning.”
“Oh.” That made sense. I sighed. It had been worth a shot.
I focused back down on my plate, pushing the food around more than actually eating it. When I glanced back up, I noticed the soul collector watching me from beside the fireplace. I hadn’t expected Death to return tonight, but there he was, waiting and glaring at where Falin sat beside me. I swallowed the food I was currently eating and excused myself. Rianna started to protest, but I wasn’t sure how long Death could stay. When your boyfriend could be called away at any moment, there was no time to dally.
Chapter 8
PC met us at the door to the sitting room in my personal suite of rooms. He barked his greeting, standing on his back legs, front working the air as he begged. I released Death’s hand, taking a moment to lean down and rub the crest of white hair on the top of PC’s head. Rianna and I had a standing agreement that if I didn’t make it back to the office before she left for the night, she’d take PC home and lock him in my room. He would have loved to roam the castle, but we weren’t sure if animals could get addicted to Faerie food, so we weren’t taking any chances.
Once my dog had calmed, I straightened, turning back to Death. I lifted onto my toes and kissed him. Light and quick. Just a greeting. The “hello” that neither of us had said. I started to step back, but he wrapped his arms around me, drawing me into a hug that tugged me against his chest. He held me like that in silence for a moment, and for the first time in a while, I felt warm, completely safe, and content. I relished the feeling, and I hated it because I knew it wouldn’t last.
“I missed you.” He said the words into my hair, still holding me close, blocking out the rest of the world.