Page 17

“Okay, okay. I’m up.”

I rolled over, dislodging him, and pushed myself to my feet. The room tilted once, then steadied. The door to the forbidden section was still shut, but when I tried the handle, it opened without resistance. Nothing stopping me from leaving.

Except the book. I hesitated, counting out a breath. Three rounds of square breathing and I stepped out of the room, Nox at my feet, and closed the door behind me.

Nat perched nearby, leaning against a shelf. Worry on his face, turning to relief when I appeared.

“Hey,” I said, not sure what had just happened. “I guess I needed a nap?”

“Perhaps that’s something you should schedule,” Nat said, aiming for neutral. His voice said something else. Recommendation. Not suggestion.

“But I’m a ghost.”

He waved a hand like maybe, technically, but also no.

I sighed. “Great. Rule book thrown out for this part of my existence too? I love being special.”

How much time had I missed?

I reached for my bond with Angel, but only got the vaguest sense of him. Distant. Muffled. Which meant he was on the living side of the Veil, deep in the mortal realm where our connection went staticky.

He was working, and didn’t need me.

My chest ached.

I could trace the strand through the entire team now. Part practice, part nature as the protection spell would always be part of me. Wade. Victor. Ezra. Remi. All of them across the Veil, little more than ghosts to my senses.

They were all working.

And I was here. In some otherworld library, stuck between existence and nothingness.

I should be out there.

Not that I could do much. A ghost who couldn’t touch anything, couldn’t be seen by anyone except Angel and sometimes Ivan. What was I going to do? Float menacingly? Whisper cryptic warnings?

But, still.

The longing hit me again, annoying, inconvenient, and deeply stupid. I wanted to be with them. Not just tethered, not just listening through the static. I wanted to move. To search. To feel the stupid solid ground under my feet instead of this half-lit limbo.

But the ache lingered. Stubborn, hopeless, but human, even when I wasn’t anymore.

I pushed off from the doorframe, ready to return to the library proper, when anxiety flickered at the edge of my awareness.

I paused, carefully searching for it. Mine? Angel’s? Someone on the team?

The wave of unease came and went. Excitement causing a racing heartbeat.

Ivan.

He was close. On the paranormal side of the Veil, not far from the community center and moving.

Urgency rolled off him in waves. A frantic, desperate pulse, like he was trying to sneak away and do something unseen. He’d run away that first night I’d taken him back to Grandpa’s. Was he on the run again? I swallowed hard and followed the thread, reaching his side in a dizzying blink.

He rushed down familiar streets, covered in pea-soup fog, occasionally glancing back as if searching for someone. Not me, I realized, but his shadows.

The kitsune twins were nowhere in sight. Had he ditched them? That wouldn’t make Xavier happy. And while I liked pissing off the demigod fate had chosen for my kid brother, the idea of Ivan wandering around alone on this side of the Veil gave me palpitations. Metaphorical ones, I reminded myself. Because dead.

Ivan paused, gaze landing on me. He shook his head, stopping to face me. “No.”