Page 51 of Necromancers Don't Raise

“What do you mean?”

“Why else would you come to a funeral asking questions about the deaths? No one else was asking questions. It’s almost as though you were personally involved. And the way you shoot? No one else shoots like that. But the absolute clincher is running to the rescue of the helpless humans. That’s your family mission statement, and you had it engraved into the fibers of your being.”

I swallowed hard while his hand grew heavier and heavier against mine. “I am surprised to hear that. Mrs. Clarence couldn’t accept that I was more than a stranger. Why can you?”

He finally turned to look at me, and for a moment, I stared in wonder at the absolutely mesmerizing beauty of him. He was enchantingly golden, eyes of blue that sang to me of clear waters and serene skies, skin more flawless than mine had been, and a smile that was as sad as it was beautiful.

He raised his other hand between us, rubbed his fingers together and pulled a flaming rose out of nothing. It burned without consuming, just burned, and then hardened, solidifying into a gold bloom. He handed it to me, and I took it, staring at it then at him, in confused befuddlement. He was just so absolutely phenomenally glorious. I couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t think any other coherent thoughts until his brightness went out like he’d snuffed the candle of his magic, leaving me gasping and pulling away from him.

Of course, I couldn’t get away from him because he had a grip on my hand, the one I’d wrapped around his arm.

“I’m an enchanter,” he said as he started walking down the hall. “Tell me more about your death.”

I sputtered, heart pounding, hating the way I’d been entranced by him only a moment earlier. Enchanters were incredibly dangerous, capable of laying the subtlest spells of deception and enticement that you didn’t notice until it was too late. “Are you an imposter? What did you do with Philip?”

“I’m not an imposter. At least, no more than you are, Miss Nova. He must have taken your soul and put it into this body.” He looked down at my body, considering it objectively, which gave me the weirdest feeling of inadequacy mixed with disbelief. Now he was noticing me? He was too annoying.

“Actually, no, he didn’t. This is my body without surgery. It’s as shocking a betrayal as the fact that my former fiancé was a magic user all along, isn’t it? You know how important it was that I marry a human. And I suppose now we know how important perfect beauty was to both of us. Enchanters are notoriously superficial, and so are humans.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Impossible.”

“Mercury thinks I’m Callie, without all the surgery.”

He raised his golden brows in disbelief. “You? Callie? She wouldn’t care if her best friend was hit by a train. She’d never bother herself about the safety of anyone else, human or not.”

“Don’t talk about her like that! She’s dead.”

“Is she? Do you honestly think that you could look so much like that infamous cabaret dancer unless he collected her body in his sick and twisted way? Mercury is obsessed with you. That’s why he brought you back.”

“Actually, his rats found me in a sewer after I wouldn’t stay dead, after something cut off my nose, chopped off my fingers, and did a fine job thoroughly disfiguring the rest of me. I don’t remember anything past the train, but I know for a fact thatthis body regenerated out of the corpse of Cassandra Clarence, because I got to experience every moment of the magic.”

“You were sampled? But that means…”

I opened the kitchen door and shoved him outside into Singsong or Apple City, I didn’t care which. “Goodbye, Philip. Move on. The blue diamond wasn’t ever real, and neither were you.”

I slammed the door on his face, feeling like I’d fallen through a window of a building that had collapsed on me. This was us breaking up for real, permanently,

I slid down the door to the floor and sat there, heart pounding, stomach tangling, because not only had that horrible conversation happened, I’d failed to help Mercury sell the Daphne collection and had no way to get it off.

Chapter

Fourteen

“Miss Nova, can I get something for you? You must be starving,” Mercury said, his shadow falling over me.

I looked up from my position on the floor, blocking the door with my body, feeling like my soul had been pulled out and trampled by a dozen horsemen. “No. I can’t be hungry because I failed so miserably to earn my bread. I should have shot Philip from the beginning. And the demon, too. No, I should have been quietly at your side while you operated your auction house the same way you have for decades, without jumping in and ruining everything.” I frowned at my wrist and the glittering aquamarine that flattered me so well. “On the other hand, Phillip did bid fifteen million for the Daphne set. You could send him a bill for that, couldn’t you?”

Mercury sat down beside me, leaning against the door, his arm brushing mine. “What about ice cream?”

“Ice cream? What about it?”

He leaned over and bumped my head with his. “Ice cream to help soothe your broken heart. Someone as obsessed as he is can’t be easily seduced, however charming you are, and Miss Nova, you are entirely charming.”

I stared at him, just staring at those dark eyes and flickering lightning, like his emotions weren’t entirely stable, but he didn’t feel the need to collapse in front of doors unless he was trying to help his pathetic undead feel better about being crushed by Philip a second time. He honestly thought that I’d been trying to seduce Philip? Callie would probably try. And fail. And he thought that’s who I was. “That makes sense. Everyone’s obsessed with Cassandra Clarence.” I elbowed him. Hard. Like he wasn’t the most obsessed of them all. He’d commissioned a blue diamond statue. You didn’t get more obsessed than that.

He drew his brows together, frowning at me. “Was that you trying to hurt me? You should use your guns instead of your elbows. You’ll bruise them on me if you aren’t careful.”

I sighed heavily. “Would you stop with the precious dead show? I’m not your precious anything. I failed you. But here you are coming down to my level and offering me ice cream like money means nothing to you.”

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