“Ow,” I whined, glaring at Nox. “What’s with the biting?”
“He’s helping me,” Ivan said, turning back to the printer as it whirred to life, spitting out pages. “Find Jude.”
“What?” I stared at the machine. “Like where Erlik has his body?”
“No. Jude. Across the Veil, there are thousands of realms, right? Some of which are part of the afterlife.”
“Ivan…” How could I explain it wasn’t that simple? I’d lost plenty of people over the years. And as far as I could tell, Jude was agnostic at best, more likely atheist. Which, in my experience, didn’t mean there was no place for him. It just meant the destination wasn’t prescripted by faith, more that the soul returned to the greater whole of magical energy. Whatever that meant.
In the decades since I’d first met Nat, I’d learned a little about the beyond. There were countless ways to die, and even more realms beyond the Veil to find yourself in. A Christian wasn’t any more likely to wake up in Valhalla than an atheist was automatically damned to Hades. What you believed mattered less, in the end, than what you were. The weight of your soul, the nature of your magic, the debts you carried. The afterlife, it seemed, ran on a different kind of ledger. One not made by the fallacies of man.
Ivan held up a freshly printed page, his expression fierce with a hope that felt fragile. I took the paper, examining a transcript formatted almost like a text thread.
Are you there?
Please. Just tell me you’re okay. Nox said you can talk to me this way.
I’m here.
Where?
Is it bad? Are you safe? Can I help? Please, Jude, don’t go yet.
I miss you. Don’t be sad.
:’(
Jude…
The words blurred. My throat tightened. “What is this?” My voice was raw. “This… this is a trick. It’s got to be.” Some cruel, haunted piece of tech preying on a grieving kid.
“It’s not a trick,” Ivan insisted, his voice trembling. “The printer is from Xavier’s office. The really old one he keeps in the warded room. Luca is always cursing at it and asking to take it down to storage, but Xavier refuses. Nox dragged me in there and sat on it. It’s small enough to fit in my duffle bag, so I took it.”
“You really shouldn’t take anything from Xavier,” I began, trying to think of how to caution him away from the demigod. I tried to focus on the bonds I’d seen in the cell at the SED, but whatever power I’d gotten temporarily from Jude had vanished. Ivan’s lines were invisible to me. “He’s more than he seems.”
Ivan waved a dismissive hand. “I asked Nox to help me find location spells. I can’t understand the books he brings, so he’s translating them. Through the printer.” He shoved a stack ofpapers at me, covered in arcane diagrams and dense, scribbled notes.
Nox sat beside the whirring machine, looking like a noble, miniature lion with his gray mane fluffed and his eyes glowing with an otherworldly light.
“Do not give the kid unsupervised access to magical theory,” I lectured the creature, my voice tight. “Or haunted office equipment.”
“We can find him,” Ivan insisted, his voice cracking with desperation. “Don’t you get it? We can find him.” He snatched up his phone, thumbs flying over the screen. A moment later, the printer hummed and a fresh page slid into the tray. “Bring him home.”
He held it out, his hand trembling. The transcript was stark in the glow of the buttons.
Angel’s here. He misses you.
Love him. He’s my heart.
The air left my lungs. I stared at the page, the words blurring. It had to be some sort of trick.
“You’re telling me,” I said slowly, the world tilting on a new, impossible axis, “that Xavier’s office printer is a Ouija board, and you’re using it to text your dead brother in the afterlife?”
“He’s not dead,” Ivan corrected, tapping the paper. “He’s there.”
“He’s answering vaguely,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as him. “I’m here.It could mean anything. Or nothing.” I sucked in a hard breath. “I cut his life thread, Ivan. Me. I did that to stop Erlik from using him. He’s dead.” And I was one hundred percent to blame. The memory threatened to unravel my careful control, but I had to be strong for Ivan.
Ivan stared at me for what felt like ages, then picked up the stack of spells. “You don’t have to help me. But I don’t think he’s mad at you.”
