AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No.”
“So how do you know what she’s saying?”
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I just know.”
“Telepathy would have been less weird, I think.”
Memere smiled at him, then returned her bright blue eyes to me, still waiting.
“I bet you already know why I’m here,” I told her.
She mirrored my half-shrug gesture. Cheeky old witch.
I let out a sigh, suddenly wishing for a way to avoid facing this situation. We’d come all thi
s way and now that we were here I wanted to avoid the topic altogether. Hey, maybe if I just stayed here forever none of the dead would ever find me and I could pretend there were no problems at all?
That sounded awesome.
Memere continued to stare me down, waiting patiently for me to get around to it. She had all the time in the damn world, she wasn’t going anywhere.
Finally I spilled it all. I told her about Mercy—first explaining that she’d been killed, since Memere might not have gotten the notice about that all the way out here—then onward through the rest of the drama she had missed, and explaining I had three undead shadows following my every move.
She lifted up four fingers.
Oh, right, four undead shadows, one of whom was still a mystery to all of us.
“That’s it, I guess. That’s why I’m here, anyway. Santiago couldn’t figure out who had cursed me, and we figured if anyone could see who was responsible, it would be you. Can you help?”
She nodded and got up from her stool, wandering off to the other side of the room, then returning with a slim-bladed knife and a small bowl filled with water. I let out an audible groan. “Do we really need to do this again?” Remembering the whole ordeal at Santiago’s place, I didn’t particularly relish the idea of doing this whole dog and pony show another time.
Memere clucked her tongue at me then wiggled her fingers impatiently. I yielded to her much more easily than I had the last time I went through this. She cut a line in my palm and I squeezed my hand into a fist, letting the blood drip into the water.
Unlike Santiago, when she was satisfied I’d bled enough, she rubbed her thumb and forefinger together until a spark ignited and a flame came to light on her fingers. She touched the surface of the water and suddenly the whole bowl was alight.
The fire died as quickly as it had begun, and the entire bowl was bone dry.
Memere stared into the empty bowl, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening. She scraped a nail along the bottom of the wooden surface, then licked her fingertip, as if she’d found something in the dish worth consideration. She frowned.
I frowned.
I didn’t like her expression.
“Can you tell who it is who cursed me?” I asked.
She looked from the bowl to me, then back to the bowl. After a long, contemplative moment, she nodded gravely. Now I extra didn’t like how her face looked, and the wan expression she wore.
“Who?”
Clearing the distance between us, she paused, then pressed a finger to my chest. “Tu.”
Chapter Fifteen
Tu.
You.
I stared at her, not comprehending the meaning of what she was saying. Yeah, we already knew I was the one who was cursed. Now I needed to know who had done it. Had I not been clear about that part?
