“Yoursoul is still locked in your body,” I snarled her way. “So… a little less accessible than mine. Aside from that, you never make deliveries to the Black Basin. You want to collect a few of the dark spirits? Then try that again?”
“Sure.” She folded her arms. “We could even swap beats for a night.”
“Yeah, no thanks,” I grumbled as I again turned away.
“Flora’s back!” said Pluto. “Gave Grim a heart attack.”
“Grim hasn’t got a heart,” said Flora, who hurried over to stroke the bird’s chest with a finger. “Or so he’d like us all to believe,” she added under her breath, earning another scowl from me.
“How’s me dapper bird boy?” she asked the raven.
“Dunno,” said Pluto, blinking at her. “You should ask him.”
Flora had come to the Hallowed Halls well after I’d entered this role—when I’d finally asked for help. Flora got the kids now. And that let me concentrate on everybody else.
The dark spirits in particular could be… unruly.
“Grim.” Johann this time.
Grinding my teeth, I halted again, because could it be he’d already tracked the missing soul?
“Turn around, please,” he instructed.
Glaring hard out the impenetrable shadows cast by my hood, I slowly rotated to find the old man squinting at me from behind his round spectacles, his pointy nose out of that book and his long pheasant-feather quill, for once, motionless in his hand.
This was it. He’d noted I was short. Which meanthewas short.
And none of us who worked here in the Hallowed Halls could afford a single slipup. Not when the alternative was facing the consequences—therealconsequences—of the actions that had led us each to these… roles.
“Something the matter?” I asked the old man.
“The matter,” he echoed, rubbing his chin. “Yes. There’s something quite the matter, I’m afraid.”
I spared a glance at Flora, who only blinked at me, her expression expectant. It was like she’d somehow sniffed out my being short a soul as well and was silently urging me in that goody-two-shoes way of hers to fess up.
“Well, what?” I barked, never one for admitting anything until backed into a corner.
Johann tilted his glasses down, then pointed a crooked finger at me. “There’s glitter on your robes.”
“Oy, gods!” said Flora, letting the words out as if she’d been holding her breath. “I noticed that, too! Wasn’t going to say anything, because it’s right funny considering who you are.”
Glitter?
I peered down at myself—patting my midnight robes. Which apparently provided the perfect backdrop for the dusting of golden glitter that covered my front.
“Fuck,” I grunted.
Flora snorted, then burst out laughing. I sent her a glare that, of course, due to my hood—not to mention my lack of a face—she wouldn’t see. Then I swiped at the onyx fabric with one bony hand, trying to loosen some of the sparkling dust.
“Pretty!” cried Pluto as a flutter of sparkling motes floated to the floor.
But more remained, the tiny specks embedded in the fibers.
“How in the Hallows did that happen?” asked Johann, and I had to stop myself from admitting I’d bagged a children’s librarian dressed as sunshine and rainbows that night because, oh yeah, screw me,I hadn’t.
“Don’t worry about it,” I snipped.
“Did somebody keel over in a craft store?” prompted Flora. “Then again, maybe you picked up a go-go dancer.” She bounced her brows at me.
