Page 91 of Echoes of the Banshee

“She had a dream about Ruby Zoisite,” someone says.

A death stone. I approach the table, holding her eye contact.

“Is that so?” A few murmured agreements. “I don’t care. Leave.”

The room is deathly silent.

I shake my head and pick up Thea’s picture. Another gasp. Ril et Thren written in Graven in her messy handwriting next to a spotted stone, five flowers growing out from under it.

Thea pretends to pack up her bag. “I don’t want to bother anyone.”

“Benson, she isn’t hurting anyone.”

I meet each of their eyes then turn to Thea.

“I know. This from your dream of Jerimiah?” I ask her as I come around the table. She nods as I pull over a chair and sit right beside her.

“Wait, what?” someone asks.

“Thea had a dream about a goblin she grew up with the other night,” I tell them before turning and adding. “And he’s dead, which would explain the death stone.”

“You know her?” the acne goblin asks.

I wink at them.

“Asshole,” Gabe says and throws a ball of paper at me.

“It’s not my fault y’all are unobservant and jump to conclusions. We’re together all the time.” I smile as everyone grumbles and returns to their work.

Thea has a book open to Ruby Zoisite. I pick it up and compare it to her drawing. “Why didn’t you ask me about the stone?”

“You’re busy,” she says as she takes her hands from her lap and reaches for the picture. She’s wearing elbow length gloves that I stare at.

“Why are you wearing gloves?”

She looks down at them then back at me, her long eyelashes holding my attention.

“I was trying not to contaminate everything.”

For how loud she is, she really does try to shrink herself.

“I’m never too busy to help you. And you’re not hazardous.” I hold her eye contact, my heart racing as I’m tempted, so tempted to close the distance. Instead I exhale, look down and grab her hand. Carefully pinching the fingers of the glove and pulling it off.

“How do you know how to do that? It took me fifteen minutes to get one off yesterday!”

“Opera gloves were popular when I was in my twenties.”

She studies me as I take her other hand and repeat the process. I’m about to pass the glove back when I get the scent of it. I raise it to my nose. It wrinkles at the smell.

“No wonder Dylan thought you smelled like a goblin, shifter, demon threesome!”

She cackles and I can’t help but join in.

“I borrowed them from a shifter in my English class,” she explains. I pass her the gloves.

“Better return them, or you’re gonna get a reputation.” Her face falls a little and I regret bringing it up. “So tell me about this dream again.”

She gives me some details and then pulls out a book from her bag.