“I’ve been sent to capture you,” he said. “And promised a nice reward for your return. All I have to do is call my angel partner, and it’s over.” He smiled. “Unless you can make me a more attractive offer.” He lowered himself to the ground. “She appears to be taking a while to die. Shall we discuss my terms?”

Chapter 16

16

I FELT A PANG OF GUILT AT HAVING LEFT THE JAIL BEFORE I could find the little boy and say good-bye. Too late to go back now. I hadn’t left a marker, so it’d take me hours to walk there again. I’d return and see him when this was all done.

I found Kristof in my house, and told him what had happened.

“Why not just kill her?” he said when I’d finished.

I threw my hands up. “Exactly. Why isn’t this dead obvious to everyone but us?”

He put his legs up on the ottoman, resting his feet a hairsbreadth from mine. “This Janah told you to find the latest partner. Is that because she’s the only one you can use?”

“No, I think that was just because she’d be the easiest one to find. With the others, who knows if they’re still alive…” My chin jerked up, eyes meeting his. “I see. If I don’t need to use the latest, then I can check out one who’s already passed over, and test my theory, see whether they’re connected to the Nix when she’s on this side. I’ll just need to visit the Fates and get myself a visitor’s pass to a dead partner’s hell dimension.” I looked over at him. “Want to come along?”

He smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“No,” the eldest Fate said, not even pausing in her spinning long enough to look at us. “You cannot go flitting about the other dimensions, bothering ghosts in purgatory.”

“We can’t bother ghosts in purgatory?” I said. “What the hell is purgatory for, then?”

The middle Fate took over before her sister could answer. “Most wouldn’t speak to you anyway, Eve, and those that did would only try to lead you astray with lies and half-truths.”

The youngest Fate cut in. “What about—?”

Her sisters cut her short, and the three of them flipped past as they discussed something. Then the middle Fate returned.

“We have a possibility,” she said. “Someone who may be inclined to help you, and who will be truthful. However, like the others, she’s not a supernatural, so she isn’t within the realms we govern. We must make arrangements for you to speak to her, and this may take some time. Leave it with us.”