Page 53
They swirled around me, not quite dancing, but aware. Present. Waiting. Judging, probably. Everything else in my afterlife seemed to have an opinion.
I flexed my fingers. The ground beneath my feet felt almost solid. Almost real. A breeze stirred the fog, and I felt it, actually felt it, brush against my cheek. Which was weird, considering I’d been a mostly transparent, flickering nuisance for weeks. But here, in this strange pocket between worlds, I felt real again.
Not solid, I thought, testing my weight. But closer. Like I could touch something and actually make it move.
I reached out toward a mote near my shoulder. A small one, barely bigger than a spark. It pulsed once, curious, then drifted into my palm.
Big mistake.
Flash. Sharp hot pain nearly brought me to my knees, then nothing.
I yanked my hand back. The mote floated away, unconcerned, already pulsing with its usual soft rhythm like it hadn’t just emotionally sucker punched me.
“Okay,” I muttered, shaking off the ache. “Note to self: touching the sad little soul fragments is a terrible idea. File that under ‘Things I Should Have Learned by Now.’”
A rustle in the ferns broke through the eerie silence. I hadn’t noticed the lack of bird and bug sounds until that moment, which, honestly? Creepy. I turned, bracing myself for whatever monster was about to eat my face.
But a raccoon waddled into the clearing.
Just a raccoon. Fluffy. Fat. Bandit eyes glittering with dark mischief.
It twitched its nose, stared directly at me, and chittered.
I had to suppress the urge to coo at its cuteness. Then I reminded myself it was a wild animal. And I had always been the sort of person whose death description would probably read: Petted the danger kitten. It did not go well.
Its eyes were too knowing and focused for a normal animal.
“Hi,” I tried, wondering if I had suddenly become a Disney princess with the ability to talk to animals. “Can you actually see me?”
It chittered back as if in direct answer to my question.
We shared another long stare. Its little masked face was unnervingly patient. Maybe it was like the hellhounds that stalked me in the library, sensing the otherness clinging to my soul, some metaphysical stink that marked me as not belonging here. Or maybe the local wildlife was just really, really judgmental.
Nox gave a hissing growl, hunched low around my neck, his cheek practically pressed to mine. So much for feline dignity.
If a raccoon could look annoyed, this one did. It glanced up, chittered again, this time with a distinct note of impatience, and nudged my ankle with its damp nose. Then it darted back toward the tree.
It could touch me.
“Okay.” I breathed. “You’re not just a raccoon, are you? Either that, or I’m about to break into song about finding a prince. And I’d honestly rather have the grumpy cat shifter back home.”
I hesitated only a second as what else was I going to do, argue with a supernatural trash panda? I followed, weaving my way to the tree, watching as the critter hesitated at the base.
The thick bark of the tree shimmered, the texture shifting like water under moonlight. Around the rough surface, a ring of giant mushrooms erupted from the moss with deep, velvety caps in bruise-purple and bone-white colors, glowing faintly in the gloom.
Between them, a series of small, flat steps materialized, spiraling upward around the massive trunk like the grooves of a staircase.
It was the kind of setup that screamed fae hospitality.
“Is this a fae trap?” I asked the damp, silent air, feeling red flags snap to attention in every corner of my ghostly mind. “This is totally a fae trap. Accept the path, lose your name, end up as a decorative moss growth for the next thousand years.”
The raccoon let out a grouchy, high-pitched chitter, as if personally offended by my survival instincts. Then it turned, fluffy tail twitching, and skittered up the steps with unnerving speed, vanishing into the fog-wrapped heights, leaving me at the bottom with a magical staircase, a ring of ominous fungi, and a choice that felt a lot like a test.
What was the rule about fae traps? Don’t accept gifts. Don’t give your name. Definitely don’t follow the magical animal up a magical tree. But if Ivan was up there…
I sighed, and stepped onto the first mushroom. I expected my foot to pass right through, but the cap held firm, dense and strangely springy beneath my weight. My palm brushed the trunk as I steadied myself, and the bark scraped my skin, rough and vivid, more real than I had felt since I died.
I climbed slowly, each step a careful negotiation between weight and will. The stairs spiraled tight and narrow, the fog swallowing the ground below until all that existed was the tree, the steps, and the yawning, mist-cloaked drop. One misstep, one lapse in concentration, and would I fall? Not just down, but into some deeper layer of the Veil and a second death with no one to weave me back together?
