“Iamangry.”
“At me?”
“No.” I shook my head. “At Gregor. At myself. Not at you.”
He advanced toward me again. “Phew.”
“You’re definitely an illusion, because Real Remo would never sayphew.”
He let out a soft, amused-sounding snort. “And yet I’m real.”
“That’s impossible. You bled and then exploded into dust!” Not only was I conversing with a ghost, but I was arguing with one.Oh, Gregor, you’re a sick, sick man.
Remo stood a few feet away from me now, no longer smirking. “I’m guessing what you saw was another illusion.”
“It lookedexceedinglyreal.”
He took a step closer. “Touch me, Amara. Touch me.”
“Turn around.”Crack.There went the last piece of my mind.
“Why?”
“If you’re real, then you’ll have a gash between your shoulder blades, the same way I have cuts everywhere.”
Remo’s gaze stroked up my face as though just noticing the assortment of wounds I sported. A groove appeared between his brows. Skies, even his frown looked real. Slowly, he pivoted around. So much mud cloaked his back that I couldn’t see the cut, but his tunic bore a rip.
Why was I checking for a wound anyway? Like bodiless Unseelies, ghosts were phantoms, the molecules of their flesh and bones as slack as air.
I huffed an annoyed breath and shook my head, trying to clear it of what was evidently a vision.
“What?” asked Remo’s ghost.
“I’m chatting with spirits, that’s what.”
The specter glanced over his shoulder, eyes the same mossy green as his real ones had been. “Why are you chatting with spirits?”
I cocked an eyebrow, then poked the air, expecting my finger to slide right through Remo’s ghost, but it bumped against something solid. I reeled my hand back, the blood draining from my cheeks. “You’re not . . . you’re not . . . but—”
Remo pivoted to face me.
“How?” I whispered. “How are you not dead? You exploded into ashes. Isawyou explode.”
“Either you can’t die in this place, or like I said, my death was an illusion.”
“The mud on your tunic. It was on your front. Now it’s . . . now it’s only on your back. Why? How?”
Remo glanced sideways at the cliff topped with the ice garden. “When I came to, I was lying in the field of mud again.”
My forehead grooved, which made the gazillion cuts on it sting. “The one under the portal?”
“Yes.”
“Was the portal there?”
He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed sharply. “It was.”
“And was it still . . . far?” I wasn’t sure why I asked. He’d made it clear earlier that if the portal was within reach, he wouldn’t hang around. I was such a glutton for punishment. “You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
