AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eli offered that half-shrug, as if to dismiss the inexplicable feat of gathering so much earth for me inElphame. “I called in favors, and it was brought to me. You were ill, and I was . . . determined.” He cleared his throat. “Jesse helped.”
I couldn’t decide whether to be more stunned that Jesse and Eli worked together or that there was soil-of-my-home here for me. I started to reach into his mind for answers, but stopped myself. Leaving him with a migraine because I was trying to rummage around in his mind was wrong.
“You can look at my memories, Geneviève.”
“What?” I stared at him.
“I know you can do it.” He smiled at me in that vaguely amused way. “I felt you a few times.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” I blurted. “I mean, just now was, but—"
“I tried to project,” he interrupted. “Images of us, naked. Of me, thinking of you in my home. Of—”
“I missed most of that.”
He nodded. “It was worth a try. Go ahead and look. We couldn’t stay where we were.”
“It hurts if I do it on purpose,” I warned him.
He shrugged.
I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to glance into a mind without harm, but with an invitation, maybe the walls that protected the mind were lowered—or maybe it was because he wasn’t human. My rooting around in the treasure troves of someone’s consciousness was allowed—and safe for him—because he’d invited me.
The dead were gathered like a soil-caked army. As Eli carried my unconscious body in his arms, bridal-style, the mass of semi-healed corpses surged. It was as if ripples slid over them.
“Do not pause,” Beatrice ordered. “I can give you a few meters of space at best, so you need to keep moving.”
I could see the wave of animated corpses, clad in magically-restored clothes from eras past, older than I ought to be able to call from graves. They moved around us as if they were a ghastly escort. Lights from windows in the buildings we passed illuminated terrified faces.
“To me,” Beatrice murmured.
Draugrpushed through the walking dead, clustering between us and the revived corpses. They were clawed and battered, shoved and trampled. They were Beatrice’s to command, and she was clearly commanding them to aid her in her protection of Eli and me.
“Near?” she asked, voice strained.
“Yes.”
And then we were in Elphame where we were greeted by guards with silver swords. A man stepped forward—
I was thrust out of Eli’s memory.
“If we had stayed in the city, they’d have torn you limb from limb in their eagerness to be near you, Geneviève.”
“You could’ve beheaded me.”
He gave me a look of utter heartbreak. “If you had died, I would’ve. If you’d changed into adraugr. . . I would’ve. I agreed to your request.” He took my hand in his. “You are alive, Geneviève, and I would pay near anything to have it so.”
“What will it cost you? I heard Beatrice. Who was that man? Why—”
“I will pay the cost if I must.” Eli stared at me, as if this was a declaration, and maybe it was. I had no idea because he wouldn’t tell me anything substantive.
“Did that hurt? Letting me in?” I asked. He seemed fine, but I needed to know.
“Not at all,” he said.
I nodded, relieved. “How long have I been out?”
“A month, but—”
