“There. Good as new.”
I reach up cautiously, waiting for him to stop me. I gently touch his face. When he doesn’t move, I map out his features, my breathing becoming shallower and shallower. My heart tightens.
It’s really him. Half of me thought perhaps I’d imagined him, but I know this face.
“Come on, Strega,” he says in a teasing whisper. “Let’s go kill bad guys.”
“Do you need instruction?” I ask, embarrassed by my sudden lapse in reason.
He laughs and squeezes my wrist. “I do love to watch you slay things.”
“Well, pay close attention, Siren, I’ll teach you how to really move.”
“Enough flirting,” Reed snarls. “We’ve got a job to do, let’s get it done.”
I splutter. “I wasn’t-”
“Totally worth it,” Lirin says and bumps into me, sending me stumbling.
“Do you want to die?” I hiss at him.
“Only if you’re the one killing me.”
I have no idea what to make of this version of Lirin. Is he drugged? Has he touched a Viscous Purple Panter? Did the Stinglebob bite him?
Do they have those creatures here?
Canto fills the space between Lirin and myself and with an arm pressed to my lower back, moves me away from the deranged Siren and his laughing temptation of a voice.
The wind moves around, and I’m able to get a rough idea of how high this building is. Solid but not concrete, I smell wood and varnish. People, lots of them. But nothing recently. Beneath all that is a trace of rot, decay, and something that is familiar.
I duck into a crouch, pulling my hand free and walk low to the ground, feeling the way, touching everything I can.
“Fuck, Mei, wait for us.”
I pause under a wooden structure and turn back, my hand still on the wooden wall in front of me. It’s cold and smells strange.
“So, that’s why you’re having so much trouble navigating this world,” Brio murmurs. “You see with your body, don’t you?”
I tilt my head. “Ears, smell, touch, instincts. All of them. People scream when I walk.”
“It is a bit unnerving,” Brio admits, “but only because you move in a way that I don’t think any human can. You look like you’re dancing,” he muses.
I cock my head to the side.
“Enough talk,” Ronit growls and walks past me, kicking the door open.
The smell that comes out is revolting.
I lean back, my mind ticking over the different mixtures of scents. Decay, bones, dirt, dust, rubbish, faeces, and urine; something that doesn’t belong. It’s dark and cloying, like something that lived underground for too long.
Familiar, so familiar.
Lirin ruffles my hair, distracting me, and follows Ronit into the house. I hesitate on the perimeter, uneasy but unable to articulate why.
Leaf runs a hand over my arm as he passes the threshold, then Brio and Canto file in, leaving me with Reed.
“Scared, Strega?”
