Uncharacteristically, the soul within that lantern hadn’t stirred when I’d entered with its usual vessel, though it had brightened with interest. Now, as I turned away to pace in the office, it dimmed again, waiting no doubt for me to state my business.
And I did have business.
“Don’t think this means I give a rat’s ass what happens to you,” I growled, just to dispel any illusions he might be laboring under. “I’d throw your carcass in a wood chipper myself if I didn’t need to put you—all of you—somewhere where I can keep a watch on you.”
The soul didn’t respond, but it had to be listening.
“Was this your doing?” I held up a slip of torn parchment between two skeletal fingers, the note I’d taken along with the book I’d found in Helena’s apartment. The small volume had caught my eye after she’d fallen asleep, her soul at last disentangling from mine, and I’d snaggedthe book from her nightstand before going to plug in her phone and leave my keys so she’d have a relatively safe way to get to work.
I didn’t want her walking or taking public transport—not with her life dangling by a thread. Maybe, with the Fated mark on her soul, The Judge wasn’t any safer than the rest of the world, but lending it to her made me feel better. And in this situation, false comfort was still better than no comfort, wasn’t it?
False or not, that comfort had been short-lived. Because of this note. The one that said “Yes, Helena, he’s real” in scripty blue handwriting I’d never seen before. But just because it didn’t match Cedric’s tight cursive didn’t mean it wasn’t his. If he could enchant a bookmobile to go rogue, he could forge a note in Swahili if he wanted.
“Found this in a book,” I grumbled. “About me. Someone had to have planted it there knowing she’d go looking for answers.”
With my hooded mug on the cover of that volume, which Helena had bookmarked with what had to be a hundred tropical-flower-speckled page flags, what else could that note mean?
“Then again,” I muttered, “who else could have planted this for her to find?”
The glow from the lantern increased, the aura from Cedric’s noxious green soul washing all in an eerie light and casting his pale face a sickly hue.
“I guess the real question is why you did it. Obviously, you’ve been following me. You must have been there that night I met her on that balcony. You saw then what I did—didn’t do.”
Cedric’s soul flickered. Did that mean I was on the money? Or out in left field…
No. I was onto him. I had to be.
“Was that how you knew where to leave the note?” I asked. “That would also explain how you knew to look for her at the library after the incident with the elevator.”
I stopped pacing to turn toward Cedric’s body, which lay between me and the glowing lantern.
Dark wood-paneled walls surrounded us. Above, from a ceiling enchanted to display the night sky and its star systems, hung a magic-suspended mobile of the planets and their current alignment.
“The question is why?” I said. “If you knew she was the missing soul right from the beginning, why wouldn’t you try to take her sooner? Unless… the elevator wasyourdoing.”
Rage boiled up inside me, born from the idea that Cedric would have sought to hurt Helena right from the start. I rounded the desk, went to the shelf, and seized the lantern, bringing it close for inspection.
The soul bobbed around inside, banging against the glass panes as though startled.
Heshouldbe afraid.
EvenIdidn’t know what I was capable of these days.
This accusation, however, that Cedric had triggered the elevator’s failure made little sense. Because, in that instance, I’d again felt the pull for Helena’s soul.
Even if Cedrichadrigged the elevator, that didn’t explain the note in the book about me. Helena didn’t need to be tipped off that I happened to be real for Cedric’s plans to undermine me to work. In fact, her doubts would only have served his purpose.
So why eliminate her suspicions?
“Why leave her the note?” I demanded. “Why tell her about me if you were just there to finish her off—or to ensure she was dead—just so you could nab her soul and rat me out to White?”
The light in the lantern sparked and flashed, flickering and sizzling—probably telling me off in spirit speak.
“You were waiting for me to slip up, weren’t you?” I asked. “Following me around and biding your time for the moment I screwed up badly enough. But you needed insurance. You needed me to be invested. You knew I’d save her again to cover my ass. And you thought you’d get her involved and asking questions… Is that it?”
That seemed like a stretch, too. The Few might have forgiven myinitial slip, but they wouldn’t have tolerated my bid to cover up my part in a missing Fated.
To get what he wanted, Cedric had never needed me to become interested in a human.
