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Because I certainly wouldn’t be able to resist them. I might be psychic, but my skills were on a more ethereal level. And as I’d already discovered, me fighting the Raziq was like a leaf fighting a gale.
“When it comes to you, I have learned to be very vigilant.”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing more than it says.” But a glint in his eyes belied his words.
Despite the fact that reapers were generally about as emotional as a plank of wood, this one definitely had a sense of humor—even if it was a very odd one.
I headed back into Mom’s room. The main safe was in the study, just across from my old bedroom. As in all the other rooms, the furnishings here were minimal. A desk, a couple of chairs, and the colorful painting that hid the wall safe. But sunlight streamed in through the double windows, lending the space a warmth that many of the others lacked.
Azriel followed me in, a powerful presence who was quickly becoming a permanent—if often distant—fixture in my life.
“I’m not believing a word of that statement, Azriel.”
“Allowing you to fall into Raziq hands again would not be the wisest move. Not when they already have the book.” His soft voice held little inflection, but I still had the odd feeling that he was amused. “And especially when they are the very people we are trying to stop.”
“You could stop them by just killing them.”
“I cannot do that unless they actually succeed in this plan, simply because there is nothing concrete connecting them to the portal’s unauthorized opening.”
“You may not have proof, but you know they’ve made keys and you know my father was involved. I thought that would have been enough, given that life as we know it hangs in the balance.”
He shook his head. “It is not within the rules.”
“Whose rules?”
“The rules we must live by.”
I glanced over my shoulder. “And who made the rules?”
He shrugged—a small movement that was oddly elegant. “I do not know and I do not care. I just obey.”
“Because a world without rules is a world in chaos.”
“And that chaos is called earth,” he commented.
I swung around in surprise. “Did you just try to be funny?”
“Reapers are many things, but we are never funny.”
But that twinkle was stronger in his eyes, and I felt an answering smile tugging at my lips. ?
?You lie, reaper.”
“I never lie.”
“You might not tell outright lies,” I said, walking around the desk to the wall safe, “but you certainly don’t always tell the absolute truth.”
“No, I just don’t always say everything I know. There is a difference.”
I snorted softly. “Only by a matter of degrees, Azriel, and you know it.”
“In my world, degrees can mean the difference between life and death.”
That was true in mine, too, but I resisted the comment and instead pressed my palm against the reader, then let it scan my retinas. When the scans had registered and the first lock released, I spun numbers on the old-fashioned dial and unlocked the safe. Inside was a stack of papers—nothing vital, I guessed, because Mike already had all the necessary legal stuff for Mom’s companies, insurance, and whatnot.
I left the door open and turned off the alarm. The new owners could reset it when the place finally sold. After gathering everything together, I turned around and faced Azriel, only he was no longer paying any attention to me. His head was cocked to one side, as if he was listening to something. And Valdis—the sword strapped to his back, which held a life force of her own—was beginning to flicker with blue fire.
