“We have company?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Lula rubbed the dog’s head. “I don’t care. We could stay here.”
There was hope in her voice and behind that a spider-silk thread of worry, vulnerability. I had all but died, and she had been bound and buried. We hadn’t had time to deal with any of that. To know that we had survived, together.
“Are you hurt?” I ran my fingers over her hair, callouses catching in the soft waves. “Did the god hurt you?”
She shook her head, and I knew she was lying.
“Ah, Lula,” I said softly.
She was still shaking her head. I pressed my palm against her cheek and she closed her eyes. A tear trickled down her cheek and warmed between my skin and hers.
“Tell me?” My anger was distant. I would deal with it later. Right now, all that mattered was Lula and what she needed from me.
“It wasn’t…it wasn’t physical. But the god…You died, Brogan. Mad Mat showed me…you died.” The last word hitched. She tried to smile, but it broke as tears ran freely now. She swiped at her face, frustrated at the emotion.
“I didn’t die though. No, wait. Listen, love.” I tried to sit, but there was a lot of dog in my way. It took a minute to talk Lorde into moving to one side, then there were the ribs that made sitting and breathing an either/or thing, before I finally settled my back—carefully—against the headboard of the narrow bed.
“Let me get you something,” Lula said, swallowing until her voice was steady. “Water?”
“Just you, love,” I said, patting my chest in invitation. “Come here. The world can spin without us for a minute or two.”
She shook her head again, but it was a tiny thing. She eased back down onto the bed and carefully—much too carefully—rested her head against my shoulder, her hand over my heart, her knees tucked up against my hip.
I waited until my breathing was even, waited until some of the strain in her muscles relaxed.
“I didn’t die,” I whispered, my hand spread across her back, holding her to me.
She made a noise, and I went on. “No, love. I really didn’t. I met Death, but I didn’t die.”
She leaned away to look back at me. “You met Death. The god of death?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? He might have been another god. A trickster. A liar. An illusion, like Mat.”
“No, it was Death. He was…not what I expected. He said he’s on vacation. He had a shirt with Ordinary, Oregon, on it.”
“The vacation town for gods is named Ordinary? Really?”
I tipped my head. “Maybe.”
“What was he like? What did he say?”
“Intense, and not unkind. I would almost say he was funny, but amused might be a better word. He radiated power, just…everywhere. He told me he wasn’t home, so he wouldn’t let me into the house of death, and basically didn’t agree with my dying.”
“He can do that?”
“He said he’s older than a lot of gods and can bend the rules.”
“That’s…not comforting.”
“He said the god who was using Mad Mat has been hunting us for years. Us and the book, and that that god was the one who sent the monsters to…to change us, bind us to the road.”
Her face and settled into the sharp lines of anger.
No, not anger. Determination.
