Page 2 of A Lost Light

So he said. But I knew that was bullshit. I could hear the yearning in his voice. I hadfeltthe way he craved a physical body, in the moments when I shared my aura with him in our weird sort of half-possession. It just wasn't right that he was still trapped in his own personal hell, when the rest of the people around me had been freed.

Gradually, bits of conversation resumed as everyone dug into the meal Zhong had somehow managed to put together for us out of the odds and ends we had on hand. But it didn't last long.

“I could do it,” Dyre said, his deep voice once again halting all conversation and movement. His violet eyes were locked on mine, and he hadn't touched the food in front of him. “We could do it, the two of us. I'm almost certain.”

I stared at the necromancer. “Why the held didn't you say so before?” I demanded.

He arched one blood red brow, and the expression on his pale face said he was surprised I had to ask. “Because I assumed everyone involved would have objections to harvesting a fresh body.” His other brow rose to match its mate. “A very fresh body.”

“You can't mean—” Elijah began, but I spoke at the same time.

“How fresh?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the necromancer on the other side of the table.

“Ensnared at the moment of death, as the soul leaves the body,” he said, unflinching, his gaze boring into mine. “In order to rehouse your angel's spirit, in theory, we'd need to kill someone and be prepared to perform the transference spell the moment the soul left the body.”

Silence.

“Does it have to be a specific body?” I asked, leaning forward. Elijah could be alive again! “Would just anyone work?”

“Andy!” Elijah's distraught voice brought me back to my senses, and I had to work really hard to reel in the part of me that had fallen into Lovell mode—all curiosity and wonder at the possibility of performing some strange new magic that others could never dream of…without really weighing any of the moral implications.

“You're not going to kill someone just to steal their body,” Niamh said flatly. “You're not that cruel.”

I avoided meeting her eyes as I stared down at my bowl of stew and tried to tell myself she was right. Of course I'd never kill an innocent person. I wasn't like the rest of my evil family, willing to do anything, justify any means for my own ends.

Was I?

“It's a moot point,” Dyre said, dispelling some of the tension in the room as he finally started loading up his plate. “It would require a willing soul. And your ghost is clearly too high and mighty to settle for a previously used home.”

Elijah made a strange moaning sound like a ghost from some cheesy human movie back in the Planus realm. “I would never condone killing someone simply so I could live!” He touched my shoulder again, making me shiver as he brushed up against my aura. “I know too well how precious and fleeting mortal life is. I would never rob another of that gift.”

I nodded in understanding. Of course. It was a horrible idea. And evenifI couldn't feel the disapproval from everyone in the room right now, Elijah's opinion was all that mattered. If he didn't want to entertain such morbid thoughts, then that was his choice.

Some part of me knew, though, deep down inside, that if he wasn't so opposed, I might actually do it. I would do anything for the people in this room. And that was… beyond unsettling. That was how a person started down the road to evil. Maybe I needed to run a few checks on myself and make sure I wasn't cursed or corrupted or something.

I lifted my spoon to my mouth and my eyes landed on Aahil across the table. The jinn's expression was bland enough, but a little flare of fire magic lit up his golden eyes. His gaze met mine, and he tilted his head slightly. He glanced subtly at the others, then, when he was certain no one was paying attention to him, he slid a glance from Dyre to me… and winked.

Okay, so maybe at least one person understood my depravity. I was fairly certain Aahil wouldn't object to a random killing if it made me happy. In fact, part of him would probably enjoy it.

What was my life coming too?

As we ate, conversation gradually returned to safer topics. We discussed everything Elijah could tell us about angelic society, and the bits of limited information he and Bis had dug up in the library as we tried to plan our excursion to the angelic realm.

Usually, getting there would be a problem. The angels strictly controlled portal access to their realm. They wanted humans to believe that they were celestial beings sent by some deity or other to bring peace and order. It wouldn't do to have people randomly popping into “heaven” and discovering that it was just a realm filled with its own species of people, just like any other. It would upset the balance,anddisrupt the steady stream ofpower and strength that the angels drew from the faith of all the enthralled races out there.

But somehow in my slap-dash panicked spellcasting I had managed to create this pocket world by latching onto the borders of the angelic realm. We were like a boil on heaven's ass. And I was pretty sure that was going to make it fairly easy to break into the angelic realm when the time came.

Then we'd just have to quote rules and regulations at them until they handed over the nullifier. Again. Piece of cake. Absolutely sound plan. No room for it all to fail spectacularly.

After we cleaned up, everyone drifted off, while I lingered at the table randomly doodling on my notepad, trying to figure out how we should proceed and which of the million possible holes in our plan would be the one to kill us all.

I didn't realize Dyre was still there until he spoke, his deep voice echoing in a way that said it wasn't just Dyre who spoke. I glanced up at him in surprise as he loomed over me. He reached out and his long, cool fingers cupped my cheek.

“An angel would be best,” they said evenly, mismatched eyes of black and violet regarding me without judgement. “You may want to consider that when you are planning our visit to the angelic realm. A host of the same species would be less… uncomfortable for the ghost to adjust to, in theory.”

I forced myself to draw a breath. “It's a horrible idea,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster. “You heard the others. You saw how they reacted. No one here would ever kill someone just to make this possible. And Elijah…” I closed my hand over the charm that was nestled between my breasts. It was empty at the moment, cool and hollow. I didn't sense Elijah in the room. He must have fled elsewhere for the moment.

The two beings who made up my necromancer boyfriend stared down at me. I wasn't sure how much of this conversation was Sunny and how much was Dyre. And that in itself was a littleunsettling. I shouldn't be relieved that I wasn't the only one who seriously considered murder a viable option.

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