Chapter 4

Ever wake to that feeling, before you even open your eyes, that you are no longer alone in a room? It’s one of the creepiest sensations, doubly so, because in the middle of the night, in a dark room, I couldn’t see a thing. My eyes were too damaged.

Blood pounded in my ears and I strained to hear over it, searching the quiet night for sounds that someone was there. I heard nothing but PC snoring at my feet and the slight buzz of the house wards. Even Caleb and Holly were finally silent. I should have been relieved that the wards hadn’t been disturbed; after all, they were meant to ensure nothing malicious and no one uninvited got inside, but too much had happened in the last few months for me to feel truly safe, even behind wards.

I had a moment of indecision. If someone was in the room and I opened my eyes, they might notice, and it wasn’t like my eyes would do me any good in the dark. But it was a reflex. My instincts demanded I try to look around. I fought the urge as I instead listened for something disturbing the darkness and wished my dagger was closer, like under my pillow. I hadn’t quite gotten that paranoid yet, but maybe I should have. Unfortunately, the dagger was in my purse somewhere on the floor by the bed. Fumbling for it in the dark would definitely give me away.

“You’re cute when you pretend to sleep,” a deep and wonderfully familiar voice said.

My eyes popped open, my fear washing away in delight. Normally, with the room so dark, I couldn’t have seen someone leaning against the closed guest room door, his thumbs hooked in the loops of his faded jeans. But Death wasn’t a normal guy, and I wasn’t exactly seeing him with my eyes. The smile that tipped his full lips was both relaxed and suggestive, and he watched me with hooded hazel eyes, his dark hair falling forward to brush his chin.

“What time is it?” I asked as I rolled into a sitting position and stretched. A yawn caught me unawares in the middle of the stretch, and I pressed the back of my hand over my mouth to cover it.

“Late or early, whichever you prefer to call it.”

I nodded at the answer. There was a clock beside the bed, but I couldn’t make out the numbers.

I smiled at Death, but it felt awkward and I clutched at the edge of the comforter where it still bunched at my legs, pulling it self-consciously higher on my thighs. I’d seen Death only once in the last two weeks, and we hadn’t gotten much of a chance to talk. He was my oldest and closest friend, but during a case involving a creature from the land of the dead who’d been riding mortal bodies, we’d become more. A lot more. I wasn’t sure if we were exactly dating—did adults really date? That felt like such a high school term—but we’d become lovers and I’d promised I wouldn’t freak out because of the change. I didn’t do relationships well.

But now? Well, he’d kind of disappeared on me again, and since we’d switched essences back, I was once again mortal and he was a soul collector. The relationship was forbidden. And he was just leaning against the door, watching me, not saying anything.

I tugged the comforter up higher, until it covered most of the thin silky cami I’d worn to bed. Death watched the movement, one eyebrow lifting, and then he pushed away from the door. My breath caught as he strolled across the room, his gait casual but his presence seeming to take up more space, so that by the time he stopped in front of me there seemed to be no air left in the room. I wanted to reach out to him, to fling myself in his arms, but I also had the urge to scoot back, putting more distance between us. I’d like to say it was a compromise between the two that I did neither, but in truth I just froze, waiting.

Death, on the other hand, had no hesitation. He reached out and trailed one finger down my cheek.

“No running, remember?” he whispered. His finger traced my jaw and he tilted my chin so I had no choice but to look into the fathoms of his eyes.

Then he kissed me.

It started light, just a teasing brush as much breath as lips. My hesitation melted away. The comforter fell from my fingers, and he deepened the kiss, drawing me into his arms. I met him eagerly, almost greedily, standing and lifting onto my toes as my hands slid up, over his shoulders.

I nipped at his bottom lip playfully and his mouth pressed a smile into mine. When he chuckled, the soft sound rippled over my flesh, sending a surge of excitement through me. Turning, he sat on the bed, dragging me down with him until I was straddling his lap.

The heat of his body passed through his jeans into my bare thighs and I was extremely conscious of how very short my silky shorts were. That of course, didn’t stop me from kissing him again.

We were both breathless when we broke apart and from where his body pressed against mine it was obvious he was happy to be exactly where we were. Still . . .

“Isn’t this against the rules?” I asked, pushing back slightly so I opened the smallest of gaps between our bodies.

He made a sound that could have been anything and leaned forward, pressing a kiss against my shoulder. He brushed the strap of my cami aside and kissed the spot it had covered a moment before.

I pressed a hand against his chest, stopping him. “I’m serious. What happens when your boss finds out about this? He’s psychic, maybe omnipresent.” And I’d met the Mender, who seemed to run the soul collectors. He was freaking scary.

“He doesn’t know everything. And there have been others who have hidden things from him.”

“You mean the Reaper?”

“Among others.”

I frowned, my body cooling. Several months past a grave witch changeling and her soul collector lover had nearly torn reality and the world as we know it apart in an attempt to be together. I didn’t like the parallel.

Pushing back, I stood. The second I lost contact with Death, my innate planeweaving ability stopped pulling him into reality and he scrambled after me before the bed became unsubstantial under him. I turned from him, wrapping my arms over my chest, my hands balled into fists. The movement must have been too sudden because black dots gathered in the corners of my eyes, a wave of dizziness crashing over me. I’d have fallen if Death hadn’t caught me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and once my vision cleared, I could see the concern written across his face.

I shook my head, but didn’t push out of his arms. “I think I’m coming down with something. Don’t worry about it. Now what will happen if the Mender finds out you’ve been with me?”

His frown matched mine. “You know many of our secrets already. Our relationship hasn’t been expressly forbidden recently.”

Which so didn’t mean it wasn’t forbidden. Nor did it answer my question. “What will happen?”

“He might reassign me to a different area. Somewhere that will make it harder for me to see you.”

Might? I stared into his face, searching for what he was hiding. “And worst-case scenario?”

He sighed. “He might strip my powers and I’ll move on like any other soul.”

I swallowed and forced my nod to be slow, controlled. To not let the frantic panic show even though he’d just admitted being with me might be a death sentence for him. He’d pass on and be gone forever.

“Alex . . .” He started, but trailed off. His gaze flickering over my face as if he was memorizing every pore in my skin.

Then colors swirled in his irises. Once I hadn’t known why that happened or what it meant, but now I did.

“You have to go,” I said, and even to my own ears, my voice sounded distant, guarded.

His nod was reluctant but definite.

Somewhere, one of the souls in his care was at a pivotal moment in their life, or their death. His eyes did that when he saw possible lines of the future, at least one of which would lead to a soul that needed to be collected.

I lifted up on my toes and kissed him, but it was a chaste kiss compared to all the ones that had come before. When we broke apart he wove his fingers into my hair and pressed his forehead against mine. It was more friendly than intimate, with a hint of sorrow that hung like an albatross between us.

“I’ll return when I can,” he whispered into the heavy silence. “No running.”

He didn’t give me time to protest, but in the next instant vanished, leaving me alone, staring at the darkness where he’d been. I stood there a long time. Until PC whined from the bed. Then I slid back under the covers, but it was a long time after that before I finally fell back asleep.

•   •   •

When I woke next it was to the sound of bells. Wedding bells. Coming from my phone . . .

I totally hadn’t set that ringtone. Which meant it was likely the work of my self-appointed ghostly sidekick. He was getting poltergeist good at manipulating objects on the living plane.

“Roy, when your insubstantial butt appears again, I ought to . . .” I muttered, rolling to the edge of the bed, but I didn’t finish, suddenly winded just from the effort of moving and attempting to fish my phone out of my purse. My body felt heavy and sluggish with more than just clinging sleep. I was exhausted. If not for the thick block of sunlight peeking around the curtain alerting me to the fact I’d overslept, I may have believed I’d gotten no rest last night at all. I felt more tired than when I’d gone to bed. I definitely caught something. My hand finally landed on the phone, and I pulled it free so I could read the display.

Tamara.

Well, at least the wedding bells made more sense. She was getting married this weekend. I hadn’t missed any duties, had I? There were no more dress fittings, and all the prep work that could be done beforehand had been finished. All that was left was the rehearsal dinner tonight—and a glance at the clock proved I hadn’t slept that late.

I hit the TALK button.

“Hey, Tam, what’s up?”

“I can’t go through with it.”

Please don’t be talking about the wedding. Because I was so not the person to give advice on committed relationships. “With what?”

“What do you mean, ‘with what’? What do you think, Alex? The wedding, of course.”

Oh, shit.

“What happened?”

Tamara sighed, the sound rushing through the phone. A slight catch at the very end betrayed that she was either on the edge of tears, or she’d already been crying. “Nothing, exactly. Everything. Oh, hell, I don’t know.”

This was not good. I slid out of bed and padded across the floor to the guest room door, hoping I could enlist some girl-talk reinforcement from Holly. I stepped into the hall, but found it quiet, both Holly’s and Caleb’s doors open and their rooms empty. Holly was a morning person and had probably left hours ago. Which meant I was alone. I slunk back to the bed and sank into the mattress.

“Well, you have until you exchange vows to back out of the wedding,” I said, and Tamara made a strangled sound that was probably a sob. Crap, I was no good at this. Why hadn’t she called Holly?

Tamara was one of my best friends. We’d met on the very first case John had brought me in on, and while we’d been far from instant friends—she’d just been appointed head ME at the time and was less than thrilled about some college freshman with no credentials being brought in to examine a murder victim—she was a witch as well as a scientist and eventually mutual respect grew into a friendship. But while we had many shared interests, our view on relationships was drastically different. She’d been with her fiancé, Ethan, for about as long as I’d known her. If all she was suffering from currently was pre-wedding jitters, I definitely didn’t want my relationship-phobic advice to influence her into something she would regret for the rest of her life. Which meant I needed to proceed with extreme caution.

She hadn’t said anything, and I could still hear soft snuffling sounds despite the fact I was pretty sure she was muffling the phone with her palm. Which meant I needed to say something that didn’t drive my foot in my mouth.

“You love him, right?”

“More than anything.”

“And you were waiting for how long for him to pop the question? I’ll be honest here, after he did, you were rather annoying with the sheer glee of being engaged.”

“That’s just it, Alex,” she said with a catch in her voice. “It took him forever to propose, and then after he did, I couldn’t get him to nail down a date until . . . And what if he is only marrying me because . . . And we don’t even know if . . .”

She trailed off again, but I knew what hadn’t been said in her pauses. I knew what had finally prompted Ethan to agree to a date, as well as why this wedding had been planned in a little less than a month. Tamara had unexpectedly begun expecting.

To complicate matters, Tamara had been attacked in the morgue several weeks ago, and had nearly transformed into a ghoul. We’d stopped her life force from being drained away before permanent damage to her had occurred, but no one was quite sure what damage might have been done to the baby she carried. She was still a month short of finding out the gender and seeing if all the organs and bones were forming properly, but we did know the baby was a fighter. He or she had stuck it out, and the baby’s heartbeat still looked good. But while the baby had measured right on time in early ultrasounds, the little one was now falling behind and measuring small.

Tamara was stressed. And who could blame her? Brides were always stressed, and she also had all the uncertainty involved with an unplanned pregnancy and concerns for the health of the baby. And yeah, Ethan may have dragged his feet a little, but the man adored her. He’d proposed long before the baby arrived in the picture.

“Tam, I have no doubts that Ethan loves you and wants to be walking down the aisle with you tomorrow. Even if there wasn’t a baby to consider—”

A sharp sob cut across the phone. Shit. I hadn’t meant it as such, but I’d just broached the fact that the baby might not make it to the point of being a consideration. Foot meet mouth. Geez, I was bad at this.

After a long moment of helplessly listening to her sob, I said, “Is it too early in the day for me to go buy an un-birthday cake and show up on your doorstep?”

She laughed then. It wasn’t exactly a happy sound, but at least it was a laugh. “I’ll pass on the cake. Food still isn’t agreeing with me. Besides, we have a wedding cake and a groom’s cake in two days. I’m going to be stuffed with cake by the time I leave for my honeymoon.” She sighed. “And I’m meeting Ethan for an early lunch soon, so I should probably go get ready. I’m doing the right thing, right? I mean, if you were me, you’d get married Sunday, right?”

I tried to imagine being in her situation. I couldn’t picture it. Of course, my boyfriend was a soul collector other people typically saw only during their last moments of life, and I’d just learned his being with me might lead to his soul crossing over to the other side. I definitely didn’t foresee all our friends and family gathering to watch us get married anytime soon. Besides, vows would be tricky considering I didn’t even know his name, and then there was that whole “until death do you part” complication. Yeah, even if I didn’t have commitment issues, that would never work out.

“I think only you know if it is right for you. If you decide it isn’t right, I’ll support you,” I finally said. “But in that case, I’m totally keeping your wedding gift—it would be amazing in my kitchen.”

“Oh really? Well, I guess that is fair.” Again she gave a weak laugh that sounded a little raw from tears. “Thanks, Al. I actually feel a little better. And it means a lot to me to know you’ll have my back if I borrow your running shoes and turn tail.”

I cringed as her thanks caused a debt to open between us, but only said, “I hope that’s a metaphoric loan because I favor boots, and I can assure you that running is neither fun nor easy in them. Besides, they wouldn’t go with your dress.”

Now I got a more genuine-sounding laugh. Then she said she needed to go to meet Ethan and I promised not to be late for the rehearsal dinner before I said my good-byes and ended the call.

“Well, that was painful but hopefully not a complete disaster,” I said to PC as I dropped my phone back into my purse. The little dog just cocked an ear and tilted his head. He was waiting for one of his favorite words, like food or out. And he probably needed both of those after how late I’d slept.

Dragging myself off the bed, I trudged across the room again, gathering my things as I went. Then, with PC prancing around my feet, I left the main portion of the house and climbed the stairs to my room, expecting it to be empty.

It wasn’t.

Falin didn’t say anything when I opened the door, but I could feel his eyes on me, watching. He said nothing as I filled PC’s bowl, gathered clothes, and slunk off to my shower. He hadn’t moved by the time I emerged from the bathroom. If he would have headed to the station, I likely would have dismissed the day as a sick day and rested for the rehearsal tonight—I didn’t want to be sick for Tamara’s wedding—but he hadn’t left, and that huge weight of silence that had chased me out of my room last night still hung in the air between us. I had to get out of the house, and my office was as good a place as any.

By noon Rianna hadn’t shown, nor had Ms. B. I had no clients on my docket for the day, and I was seriously considering locking up and taking a nap on the love seat in the waiting room when the chime on the front door sounded.

I reached with my senses as I stood, my magic sensitivity scanning the unseen visitor for spells. Nothing. The lack of magic confirmed it definitely wasn’t Rianna, but didn’t tell me much else about my visitor. Stepping out of my office, I found a man in a dark suit standing just beyond the doorway. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place his face.

“Ms. Craft?”

I nodded, summoning my professional smile as I crossed the room. I made it only halfway before he spoke again.

“Governor Caine requests your presence at his estate.”

I ground to an abrupt halt. That was where I’d seen him—he was one of my father’s drivers. The smile fell from my face and I crossed my arms over my chest.

“You can tell him—” I started, but the man interrupted me.

“He was most insistent. You have been dodging his calls.”

My shoulders hitched, just a notch, because it was true. And as it was true, I couldn’t deny it. My father wanted me to come by for more glamour lessons, which I desperately needed to learn to control, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn from him.

My father was an enigma. He played the long game, and apparently had been doing so for quite some time. I wasn’t sure exactly how old he was, but I did know he was once Nekros’s first governor, and at that time he was openly fae. Fifty years later he was once again the governor, with a new name and face, only this time he was with the Humans First party, an antiwitch antifae organization. He’d disowned me when I was younger, distanced our known association as much as possible, and I would have said hated me for being a wyrd witch. Now I knew it played into his long game. I just didn’t know how.

Even scarier, I’d also recently learned he’d had me spelled most of my life, which was why I hadn’t known I was fae until the spell began breaking under the Blood Moon. I’d washed away the remaining effects of the spell at the Harvest Festival when Falin had tricked me into drinking Faerie wine. Which was when I’d started shimmering like a glowworm and I’d had my first glamour lesson with my father. I’d agreed to call him to schedule another lesson, but I never had.

The man opened the front door, motioning me to exit. Beyond him, I could see a black town car idling at the curb.

I hesitated and the driver turned toward me. “I’m to remind you of his promptness in responding to your recent calls.”

I wasn’t sure if that was meant to guilt me or was a threat that I might owe my father a favor, which he could call in at his discretion. Either way, it was a true enough statement. I’d called him several times when all other avenues had closed on me. With a sigh, I retrieved my purse.

It looked as if I was off to see daddy dearest.

•   •   •

It wasn’t until the driver showed me into the house and led me all the way to the second floor to stop in front of the suite that had, until recently, belonged to my sister but now contained an accidental pocket of Faerie, that the nagging suspicion at the back of my brain beat through my exhaustion and screamed that something was off. Cracking my shields, I studied the driver’s profile. Under the generically familiar face was another, stranger, more striking face. A face that hung in a place of honor at the statehouse.

My father’s face.

“I should have known,” I whispered as he opened the enchanted locks on the door. “You never would have sent a staff member to retrieve your witchy daughter from the Magic Quarter. Tongues might wag.”

My father glanced over his shoulder and grinned. It was one of the most genuine expressions I’d ever seen on him. “You do have a bad habit of seeing through glamour. I simply wanted to test the ability. I take it by how long it took that you have to See intentionally.”

I didn’t answer. I don’t think he even expected me to, because his grin only grew at my silence.

“Come in, come in,” he said, ushering me into the room and shutting the door behind us. I felt the magic in the door relock as it closed.

I shuddered at the feeling. I didn’t like being locked in this room. Well, honestly, it wasn’t this room that was the problem. It was the next. Formerly Casey’s bedroom, it was now the scene of some of my worst nightmares. Mostly because a few months ago I’d nearly died there. As had my sister. Oh yeah, and I’d nearly been the trigger that could have ended the world. Nothing big, right?

It took more effort to cross the sitting room and enter the bedroom than I’d like to admit, each step twisting my stomach as my clenched fists shook by my sides. But when I crossed the once-invisible line that marked the circle, everything changed.

I’d been here a few weeks back, so I already expected the maddening mix of merged realities. The pockets of Faerie and the land of the dead that spilled into human reality were splashed around the room like a Pollock painting, the realities bleeding and merging in ways they were never meant to do. But no, that was no surprise to me. What stopped me in my tracks was the sudden lightness I felt. Like my exhaustion had fallen from my shoulders and I could float if needed.

I don’t know if I made a sound or if it was simply my expression, but my father stopped and his grin fell away. He didn’t just look at me, his eyes scrutinized me, a frown growing across his face.

“You’re unwell. You should have answered my calls earlier,” he said after an agonizingly long moment.

“Because that would have prevented a virus?”

“Alexis, you do not have a virus. You’re fading. I did not expect it to happen quite this quickly, but from the looks of it, you’re teetering into the second phase. I imagine you’ve been feeling rather exhausted for weeks now.”

I had been, but that was because I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks, wasn’t it? I couldn’t be fading. Could I?

The fae were said to have been fading before the Magical Awakening. Lack of belief was literally erasing them from the world. That was no longer an issue. In fact, there were rumors of old legends awakening in the few wild spaces left in the modern world. The fae were no longer fading, and surely I, in particular, wasn’t.

His eyes scanned my face and I could feel him noting my doubt. “Have you ever asked yourself why there are no unaligned fae? All either belong to a court or have taken the vows of the solitary fae.”

I shrugged. “Because the ruling monarchs take exception and make their lives miserable?” Or at least, that was what was happening in my life currently.

“Do try to take this seriously,” he said, the reprimand in his voice clear. “Fae must join a court or be granted the vows of the independent fae because it is through their court Faerie sustains them. The more powerful the court, the more fae it can maintain. Without a solid tie to a court, there is only the most tenuous tie to Faerie and the fae will fade.”

I swallowed, digesting the words. “You’re saying that I’ll die if I don’t join a court?” I reeled under the idea. I’d been told for months I’d eventually have to choose a court, but I’d been avoiding it. If I joined a court, I’d be bound to stay inside the areas it controlled. Nekros was currently inside the winter court, but the doors moved. No one knew when the doors to Faerie would shift, rearranging which court held which territory, but when they did, all fae within that territory would have to follow.

The courts had a scary amount of power over their subjects, even the independents within the court’s boundaries, but much more over those who’d sworn fealty to the court itself. I hadn’t interacted with all of the courts, but what I’d seen thus far was enough to let me know I didn’t want my life bound to one. Especially not the winter court. But if I joined a different court, I’d have to move. My friends, my business, my whole life was in Nekros—I didn’t want to leave. When Falin had first been ordered to move in with me, I’d sent a petition to be declared independent, but the queen had denied my request.

And so, I was court-less.

And that could kill me.

My thoughts flew to Rianna, whom I’d assumed was sick because she’d been weak, dizzy . . . I didn’t even know what else. “What if other people are bound to an unaligned fae? What happens to them if she fades?”

My father cocked an eyebrow, interest gleaming through his concern. “Like changelings and lesser fae? What have you gotten into, Alexis?” He rubbed his chin between two fingers and his thumb. “That would explain the acceleration of your decline.”

“Yes, but what happens to them?”

“Their tie to you would normally be what ties them back to Faerie. Without that, they will drain you until your self-preservation naturally cuts them off. Then they would fade fast, very fast. Especially if they spent large amounts of time outside of Faerie.”

Great. My indecision was killing my friends. I had to join a court, and soon.