Page 84 of Veil of Blood and Bone

Shadows coil and drape his shoulders, brushing his skin like cats, until they sink within of him and disappear.

“They do. Do you like?”

I grunt. Without scope for a better explanation, I sip my coffee. Wind howls against the corner of the Victorian, tearing the last of the loose slate shingles from the roof.

“So, a dark Fae, a vampire, and a raven shifter go into a bar...”

“Poe never even dreamed of such a combination. Did he?” Wren’s smile should be infectious. “Perhaps a dirty limerick would do us more justice.”

Everything about him, and about this quiet moment, smooths over the rough edges in my chest.

“And you know me. All of you.” It’s not a question.

Wren shrugs and shifts to cross one leg over his knee. “Bird brain has some trouble. As you’ve seen. It’s part of his...curse, you’d call it.”

I shudder at the use of the same word I’d thought minutes earlier.

“Yes, we know you. We’ve known you more than twenty-eight years.”

My legs tremble. Ignoring the shadows, we’re two people having a conversation, Audra resting on the couch. And I want to throw myself out the window. I glance at her again, fingers curling around the cup.

“You’re lying.”

Something hideous twists inside me, forcing me closer to madness. But I knew one thing with certainty: Wren told the truth.

“Do you want to make this quick or talk in circles, monster?”

“It’s not possible.”

“It absolutely is. It’s real. It’s life,” he says.

“Then why don’t I remember you?”

Wren looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties, his face unlined and the earrings giving him a roguish edge. Right now we stand on the boundary of the universe. The one I know, and the drop off into the unknown.

He tips his head to the side and his eyes track up to mine. “Each new life wipes the slate clean. You’re born into a different body without memories of the past. But since none of us can die, we remember.”

“Sounds heartbreaking.”

“Oh yes. Heartbreaking. Bird brain has it the easiest, though. He’s cursed to forget.”

I shiver. “Doesn’t seem easy when he remembers.”

A flash of thunder illuminates the sharp angles of Wren’s cheekbones and catches the metal glinting along his ear.

Black shadows plume from his hands and circle the room, cloaking the decay from sight.

It feels wrong to talk to him when Audra needs me. When I should be watching her.

As though this conversation will hurt me.

“My mother believed in all that stuff.” She’s somehow a safer subject. Or a more familiar pain. “People thought she was crazy.”

Besides, I’m an atheist. And Norse gods are like any other—they’re better relegated to books and movies and TV shows.

My heartbreak keeps me company tonight, and I glance to the window, the reflection of the lamp like flickering candleflames.

“She insisted there was more out there. But she was always running from something. Always divining answers in runes and cards and omens.” I stare at Audra again until the outlines of her face blur. “Not me.”