She nodded, still shivering so hard I could hear her teeth chatter.

“You want to go someplace warmer?” I asked.

“Not cold. Just…” She shook her head, then gave herself a full-bodied shake, and straightened. “Thanks for the help. With the stalker. I owe you.”

“And I’m sure you’ll get the chance to repay me soon. I don’t know exactly what I’ll need or when I’ll need it, but we should set up something, so I can find you when I need to.”

She agreed. The Fates gave me just long enough to make arrangements for contacting Jaime again, then sent the Searchers to retrieve me.

The Searchers dropped me off in a foyer the size of a school gymnasium. It was white marble, like the throne room, but without any decoration or furnishing—a room for passing through on your way someplace else.

Lots of people were passing through it at that very moment. Wraith-clerks, those who kept our world running smoothly. Wraiths are pure spirits, beings that have never inhabited the world of the living, and they look more like classic ghosts than we do. Everything about them is white. Even their irises are a blue so pale that if it weren’t set against the whites of their eyes, you’d miss the color altogether. Their clothing and skin are almost translucent. If they cross in front of something, you can see the dark shape pass behind them.

Wraith-clerks can’t speak. Can’t or don’t—no one is sure. They can communicate telepathically, but never telegraph so much as a syllable if a gesture will suffice.

As I walked through the foyer, wraith-clerks flitted past, pale feet skimming above the floor. They smiled or nodded at me, but didn’t slow, intent on their tasks.

From the center of the room, I surveyed my directional choices. Too damned many, that was for sure. At least a dozen doorways off the foyer, as well as a grand arching staircase in each corner. No helpful building map to show the way. Not even discreet signs above the doors.

“Okay,” I muttered, “what am I doing here and where am I supposed to be going?”

Without so much as a hitch in their gait, the four wraiths closest to me lifted their translucent arms and pointed at the northwest staircase.

“And what’s up there?” I asked.

An image popped into my head. A winged angel. Whether the wraiths had put it there or I’d made the mental jump on my own, I don’t know, but I nodded thanks and headed for the staircase.

The staircase ended at a landing with three doors and another, narrower set of stairs spiraling up. As I stepped toward the nearest door, a passing wraith-clerk pointed up.

“Thanks,” I said.