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My attention slid to a river, and my magic rolled over current and stone. This was not where death was. The dead did not belong in water that gave life to land and animal. I pulled away again. I felt my magic seeking the dead, and the dead that looked back at me were waiting for the spark of life I carried.
Eli’s voice carried all around me, an echo over land and water as he urged, “Geneviève, focus. I need you.”
Eli. Eli was a shelter, a strong rock under which I could find rest and peace. If I found the dead creature I sought, I could return to Eli. My partner. My tether. Peace to my violence. Balance. A thread of truth there called me. Balance was my source. Life and death. My nature-bound mother and the dead thing that fathered me.
I needed a specific dead, not one I called to speak from ash-made lips. I needed one who was dead, but again-walking.
Draugr.
Beatrice.
The thought of her name again, the third call to her, was enough to send me hurtling toward her. She stood in a room I couldn’t see, surrounded by people. Seven. Eight. There were others watching her. These seven were the ones I should see. Another time I would ask, study, understand. Today, I simply wanted to live.
“Leave me.” Beatrice pressed her lips together.
I knew she didn’t mean me. She was sending them away. She offered me privacy.
The bodies left. Doors closed.
“Stop trying to see beyond me, Geneviève.” Even without being beside her, I could tell she was exasperated again.
“You are beside me.”
My magic surged. She was here. In my home. With Eli. Was Eli safe?
I felt her sigh echo in the chambers of my mind, a warm strong breeze. It rushed around, battering at the fog that seemed to be filling my mind. I didn’t like the fog.
“You’re not in my home, nor am I in yours. Yet. I gather you are grievously injured then?” Beatrice was moving, footsteps on marble. Her floor was marble. I saw a glimpse of heavy drapes as she passed them. Red brocade.
“Burgundy,” she corrected as she left the building.
I stayed next to her as she walked. I could smell grass, wet earth. This was not within the city of New Orleans. The Outs? My mother—
“Lauren is fine.” Beatrice sighed again. “I would never harm your mother. None of mine would unless they’d like to find their second death.”
I shook my head, and I felt Eli there next to me. He was in the room where I was in physical space. The part of me that was drifting along on magic was far away, but my body was with Eli.
He was stroking my face. “Geneviève? Come back to me, love. Find the woman and return. I can’t get your fever down this time. Geneviève? Please, I could not bear to lose you.” He was weeping. Tears sizzled on my flesh. “Please.”
At that, I felt myself return to my body. I stared up at him, but I could not speak. I could not move. My body was motionless, but I heard my pulse.
Come, I called, with every sliver of my magic.
I could not untie myself from this form or place. I’d never projected before, at least not that I was aware of doing. I’d send my magic out in waves, but not my veryself. Somehow, tonight, I’d sought out my mother, and I’d found Beatrice. My astral body was tied to my physical self, but I was able to explore. A trickle of fear suggested that this was a result of my impending death. Apparently, it wasn’t only feats of great strength that were possible in times of peril, but feats of new magic.
I’d pulled myself away from where I was in the world to seek help. I had no idea if it would work. Did Beatrice know where I was? Could she hear my summons and find me?
If not, there was no time left to give her that information. I shivered in the cold I felt but could not see. Eli must have added more ice, covering me, and as my temperature lowered again, I felt caught, like some sticky fibrous mass was wrapped around my body, melding me to the flesh, the space, the moment where I was. I could not leave my building to find Beatrice, and I wasn’t entirely convinced that her aid was something I wanted.
But I didn’t want to die.
Again, I sent the word out on the pulse of my magic:Come.Then for good measure, I added,Beatrice, please come.
She didn’t answer, and I was unable to untether myself from my body again. When I heard the pounding on the door, I wanted to tell Eli it wasn’t her. They were human. I could feel them, but I could neither move nor speak.
“Let me see if that is our knight in an elegant gown,” he murmured as he kissed my forehead. Only then did he release my wrist. Eli wasn’t beheading me, despite my requests to him, but in his defense, I wasn’t technically dead either.
“I need to see Miss Crowe,” an angry voice insisted.
