I don’t have time to figure it out, and it doesn’t matter anyway,he ground out.I didn’t foresee this. I apologize. I’ll… We’ll…He shook his head, flustered.I am sorry for what happened to you here, dove. I have placed watchers to alert me if anything else should transpire. Endure this place for a little longer. After that, we can move you. I just need that mind-shield magic to take hold. Never, ever lift up your hair. Not ever. Your safety depends on it.
He swore again as he pushed her back to flat.
Fully claim her? In front of an audience? Didn’t that mean…
Blackness rushed in and stole her consciousness.
9
Alexis
“Frank,seriously, for thelasttime, you cannot come.” Lexi faced him as the last of their new gear was being organized. His wispy hair arched over his mostly bald head, and lines creased his face. He’d known Lexi’s mom way back in the day before she died…and he’d died. Now he hung around, occasionally helpful, usually not. “None of you can.” She looked at John and Mia, two very useful spirits. “I can’t reach spirit on the other side of that portal, and I have no idea what Faerie will be like. I have power in this world because of my magic here. Hades, lord of the underworld, grants that magic. He’s not a god in Faerie. His domain ends here. My magic might, too.”
“They have the Amethyst kingdom in Faerie,” Mia murmured, picking at the big wooden button on her sweater from yesteryear. It was the one she’d died in, and she’d never decided to change her ghostly image. “Their affinity is for spirit.”
Lexi frowned at her.
“I’ve been listening in on your and Kieran’s planning and studies. I can’t understand time anymore, but I can retain new information.”
“Right…” Lexi hadn’t noticed that Mia had been taking an active interest in all of this.
“If they have an affinity for spirit,” said John, usually the commander of their undead army when they needed one, “they will have a setup for the afterlife. Hades was banished to the underworld here. He didn’t create it, or so the legends say. You can traverse it because ofyouraffinity with spirit. If we have fae in our underworld, they’ll have humans in theirs. And if humans are admitted, you can traverse the spirit. It’s only logical.”
She lifted her eyebrows. That was, indeed, quite logical.
“Yeah,” Frank said, not one of the real thinkers in this group.
“When did you all come up with this?” she asked.
“It’s been somewhat peaceful for years now,” John said. “We’re bored.”
They’d continually refused to go across the veil and find peace in the afterlife because of their devotion to Lexi and Kieran and their team. They could only speak to her and Kieran, but they were as much a part of the family as anyone. The others just didn’t know it.
She sighed. “I can’t guarantee your safety. The fae are wicked and their gods are vicious and awful. Even in death, things might be…difficult for you. I can protect spirits here, but I don’t know if I’ll have that power there.”
John chuckled, but it was Mia who spoke. “You didn’t know Valens. He was as ruthless as those Faerie gods sound, and just as cunning. He wasn’t even a god. He didn’t have any compassion. Not like they must have to keep their world working. He was evil all the way through…and he had friends. Close friends. Those friends are quiet now that you’ve been blessed by Hades, but they aren’t gone. I remember hearing allabout them when I eavesdropped. The Demigods of old weren’t as reined in as they are today. They didn’t do truces or give quarter?—”
“Your dad killed all his kids except you,” John told Lexi.
Mia nodded earnestly. “I don’t think we’ll be any worse off over there. If we are, you’ll fix it. You always do.”
Lexi shook her head. “No, you don’t understand?—”
“I’ll take my chances,” John said forcefully. “Dying has to be more of a shock than changing locations while already dead.”
“As a man who has changed many locations, I can attest.” Frank nodded, his hands on his hips. He didn’t seem to have a handle on the crux of the conversation.
Lexi bowed in resignation. “Fine. Do not blame me if this goes tits up.”
“Oh, it will absolutely go tits up.” John grinned. “That’s what’s fun about working for you. You’re very inventive when you’re under pressure.”
Most people didn’t understand why she was every bit as protective of spirits—of ghosts—as she was of people. That was because they didn’t understand her magic. Her duty to the spirit world.
She wondered if the fae had anyone like her. They had a whole kingdom with an affinity for spirit, like Mia had said, but was it the same thing? Protectors? Guardians of souls? She’d never voice her curiosity. That she wanted to visit and speak with them, just to see.
“Right, let’s get cracking.” She clapped once and headed away from the structures selling animals and merchandise. A hundred feet away, off on its own, a collection of weathered boards encircled a large area big enough for a horse-drawn carriage to fit. The air within it was waving lines of purplish haze, billowing like smoke that disappeared ten feet up. The portal, obviously.
Kieran met her there, all business until she was beside him. Then he turned to her and his hands fell around her face. His eyes delved into hers, and she could feel the concern through their bond.
