Page 50 of How I Met Your Murderer

Rather than take a seat to rest his knee, Raff leaned on the railing, still breathing a little hard from the climb. His wavy red hair stuck to his forehead in a way that made him look unfairly heroic. I hovered just beside him, close enough to steady him if he needed it.

The night was clear and cold, the stars sharp as daggers scattered across a sea of black. Perfect conditions to spot Orion, Perseus, Gemini, Auriga.

But Raff wasn’t looking up. He was staring down, his jaw clenched. “Eric . . . do you see? What the hell is that?” he whispered, even though we were alone.

I followed his gaze. At first, I thought it was a trick of the moonlight—a shape that didn’t belong, a shadow that didn’t match the trees. But that was just my mind trying to protect me, because the details slowly sharpened as I waited, and my stomach dropped. Or at least, I had those same sensations: a tensing up and a prickle of cold dread.

A deer carcass lay split open just a few yards from the stables, ribs cracked wide as if pried apart by something with a grizzly’s strength. The bones were gnawed down to splinters, and those that remained showed the drag marks of sharp teeth. The ground around the poor animal was torn up, clawed or thrashed into chaos.

I couldn’t see it in the dark, but I was willing to bet the earth was painted crimson.

“There, too,” Raff muttered urgently, pointing.

Almost obscured by the carnage of the deer was another shape. Smaller. A fox, I thought, or what was left of one. My energy recoiled on instinct.

“There aren’t any bears in Ireland,” I said, babbling to fill the quiet that had turned tense. “But I don’t know what would do that besides a grizzly. Or a fucking polar bear. There’s no animal in this entire country that can exert that kind of force. None.”

With plenty of energy to draw from in the castle and on the grounds these days, I made myself look more solid and slid an arm around Raff’s waist, nestling into his jacket like it was armor, a second skin. The night suddenly felt too big, too empty, too full of teeth.

“Do you think,” Raff began slowly, bringing his arms up around me and folding me against his chest, “that if something really did take Máirtín, it could have done that, too? Because it sure as shite wasn’t a badger, or any of those other things you said.”

I didn’t want to answer. But the truth pressed against me like Raff’s hand at the small of my back. “If it did,” I said quietly, “I wonder what it did to his spirit. I wonder what it could do to me, because it’s definitely stronger.”

“Fecking level five,” Raff muttered worriedly. “They didn’t exactly train us on how to handle those.” He rested his cheek against the top of my head and held me tighter like he never planned to let go. If only.

He didn’t speak again until we had finally moved to the far side of the balcony, dragging our chairs away from the view below.

“I need to tell you something,” he said, toying with his pendant. I was all for a good magic amulet in a fantasy game, but this wasn’t pretend, and I wondered if he should be putting so much faith in that thing to keep him safe. Or any at all.

“You remember when I told you about my Second Sight? I know it’s silly,” he added quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “But those useless glimpses of the future, they always come to pass one way or another.” When I nodded, he went on in a whisper, “Well, last night, when we—when we kissed, for the first time . . . I got another one of those visions. It was only for a few seconds, but it was clear enough.” Once again, the fear darkening his eyes wasn’t for himself. “I saw the castle empty. You were gone, and I was leaving in a hurry. I looked a little worse for the wear, too. I assumed I’d moved you on, but—maybe you’d vanished like Máirtín. Maybe it was a warning.”

I glanced up, searching for Andromeda and finding Ursa Major.

It still stung to consider it, even though it was inevitable—moving on or fading away or being swallowed up by some bigger, badder spirit. But hell, being moved on by Raff was a whole lot better than what might be the alternative. I didn’t need to look at that deer carcass again or see the panic in the oldest ghosts’ faces to know that.

I wanted to offer some kind of reassurance. To let him know that him doing his job, or trying to protect me the only way he knew how, didn’t change how I felt about him in the slightest. My only regret was that our time together might be up sooner than I’d hoped.

“Raff—” I began, weakly.

“I think I need to focus on moving you on first,” he rushed to say. “Before you disappear on me, too. I can’t—” His voice broke, like the time he tried to sing Backstreet Boys. Only no one was laughing now. “I can’t risk that. You deserve peace. And I—I deserve to know that you’re somewhere good, not in a monster’s belly.”

I leaned in, my hand hovering over his cheek before I dared to touch him. When I did, his skin flushed under my cold fingers. “I don’t want to let go, either. But we don’t have a choice. I’m scared, too. And I wish it could all be different. I wish . . . I could try your mom’s colcannon, and hold your hand on a busy street. Take a nap on the couch with you. Play a game for hours and forget the world. Bring you home to meet my sisters. Go to the library together. Pick out a kitten with you—or a puppy, whatever you wanted.”

Raff nodded once, sharp. His eyes shone harder than the stars, overbright, and I sensed that he couldn’t add to that list right now, no matter how much he might want to. No matter how much he liked the sound of it.

So we sat there, the wind tugging at his curls and my fingers brushing them away from his eyes. He didn’t flinch from the chill like he usually did, but eventually reached up to take my hand in his, lacing our fingers together and settling them in his lap.

“Last time I was in the village, I met this . . . wise woman of sorts, Niamh. She runs the shop where I got my pendant, and she told me there were other ways of moving spirits on. She seemed to think she knew a lot more than the ExorSquad handbook, which is probably true. I’ll ask her what we need to do. For something that can’t fail.”

I nodded, even though the thought of him asking how to send me away while he sipped my favorite drink from the village café made something inside me twist painfully sharp. If I’d needed to breathe, it would have been nearly impossible just then.

Raff settled back in his chair, my hand still tangled up with his and resting on his leg. His face was haunted enough that he seemed to know what I was thinking. Or maybe he was thinking it, too. I scooted closer, resting my head on his shoulder, and we stayed like that for a long time. Long enough for the stars to shift. Long enough for the cold to have seeped into Raff’s bones, though he was doing an admirable job of hiding it tonight.

When he finally went back to the van, I followed. Climbed inside, promised to stay close while he slept—and though he insisted this arrangement was so that he could keep an eye on me, I watched over him as he curled up under his blankets, counting his heartbeats like they were the clock by which I set my days. And wondering about so many things.

It was the longest night.

For the first time since dying, I jumped at every small noise. Every rustle of dry autumn leaves skittering across the parking lot. Every creak of the van’s metal siding as it settled into the deepening cold. Every distant animal cry that sounded like it was in pain.