Rían’s dagger . . .
All those things shouldn’t have happened. And yet they had. Why? I’d handled iron before and had no adverse reaction. Same with witch hazel. And the dagger? I’d never been able to conjure an object out of will and desperation.
What had changed?
Why were these things happening to me now?
The answer flashed like a bolt of lightning, sharp and fast.
I had died and come back, not after a year as the curse had dictated but after only a few months.
Not only had I come back, I’d been resurrected with an immortal’s life force.
“Rían!” I shot out of the tub, sloshing water all over the floor. “Rían!” I snagged the towel from the sofa, wrapping it around my waist. My sopping hair felt like ice on my back.
Rían came charging in, a stack of clothes in his arms. “Why are you roaring?”
I held out my wrist. “Look.”
The clothes fell to the ground. He took my hand, bringing it closer to the fire, turning it this way and that. His eyes slowly widened.
“You don’t think—”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I shifted your dagger,” I told him. “At least I think I did.” There was no other explanation for what had happened that night in the alley.
I didn’t have a dagger. I only wished I did.
And then one had magically appeared.
Cursing, Rían let me go to pace the three steps between the fireplace and the cabinet and back again.
“Does this mean I can evanesce?” If I could, then I wouldn’t need to cross the Forest to get to Tearmann.
“I don’t know.”
“Can I do the flicky thing?” I flicked my wrist, but nothing happened.
“I don’t know.”
“Am I immortal?”
He stopped, tugging on the ends of his hair as if he wanted to rip it all out. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“Why are you so upset? This is a good thing.”
If I was a true immortal, I couldn’t die.
Or rather, I could die, but I would come back.
This was amazing. Bloody brilliant.
I threw my arms around his neck, hugging him close, pressing my cheek to his chest.
A chest that held no heart.
No. . .