Page 20 of Veil of Death and Shadow

It felt like tempting fate, especially when things had been relatively calm and stable lately.

Of course, it also definitely didn’t help that being around magic shot my nervous system into overdrive. Any time I was close to an unfamiliar supernatural presence, an electric tingling feeling darted across my skin, impossible to ignore.

Occasionally, it would get bad enough that my vision would start to blur, and strange mirages of buildings or people would emerge transposed on top of whatever setting I was in, as if through a fog.

It was unsettling as fuck, and after watching a vampire rip out the heart of a werewolf with his bare hands, I couldn’t wrap my head around why Sora wanted anything to do with the supernatural world.

No thank you.

Menace was the only exception to my rule.

Sora, on the other hand, seemed infatuated with the new world. She often wasted entire paychecks collecting random talismans sold by swindling humans, that were more often not duds. She hoarded research on the supernatural and was excited by every demon and magic-afflicted human she encountered.

I still hadn’t brought myself to tell her that I was one of them—beyond the weird hair thing, that is.

My visions . . . premonitions? Whatever the hell they were, they hadn’t stopped after watching the wolf’s murder. It didn’t happen often, but every so often, I’d feel death’s nearness like asixth sense—more acutely than any bad omen I’d been plagued with before The Undoing.

I tried desperately to ignore it, as if I could somehow will the unwanted awareness away. But death was a thing that demanded you look.

And sure enough, whoever inspired the feeling—usually a passing stranger—would turn up dead shortly after.

She cleared her throat, brow arched.

“Sorry, what?” I asked.

“My necklace?” she asked, eyes wide.

“Doesn’t sound familiar,” I said.

Menace let out a caw then flew into the living room where we kept a small dog bed and cat toys for him. He seemed to prefer the dog bed to the birdcage and perch we’d tried first. Couldn’t say I blamed him. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a cage either, even if the door was kept open.

“Actually,” I snorted, nodding towards my nightstand. "Check the top drawer."

"Fucking bird is a nuisance." Sora cursed as she sifted through Menace's makeshift treasure chest, holding up a small, sparkly pendant with a triumphant wave. "Is nothing sacred in this apartment anymore?"

"You're just mad he saves the shiniest presents for me."

"Well," she shot me a glare, "it's not like you're the only one who feeds him. And I let him stay here too, you know." She raised her voice at the last part, speaking more to the crow than to me. Sora had a theory that Menace understood us when we spoke to him, but I didn't buy it. Mostly because having a wild crow that had been resurrected from the dead as a pet was more than enough strange for me. "Those peanuts he likes so much? I’m the one who bartered for them. Just saying, if he decided to bring me a nice pair of earrings or something, I wouldn't fight him on it."

I nodded to the drawer. “Take what you’d like, I don’t think he’ll mind.”

"Speaking of presents." Sora ran out into the kitchen, returning with a bag that she tossed onto my bed, all faux anger abandoned for a contagious joy that leaked out of her every pore. "Happy Birthday, Mars!”

Right. That was today.

Well, that explained my general grimness and the headache I woke up with.

“Twenty-seven! You know what that means?” At my blank stare, she added, “You officially won’t be inaugurated into the twenty-seven club. That’s cause for celebration."

“Pretty sure I have to make it to twenty-eight to avoid that, actually.”

“Oh. That makes sense, now that I think about it, but that totally ruins what I was going for.” She shrugged, then fished a small envelope out of the bag. “I’ll just save that card and joke for next year then.”

"You didn't need to get me anything." I stared at the bright pink bag, stuffed to the brim with vibrant green tissue paper, as if something might crawl out of it and attack.

"I did.” Her body was stiff with barely contained excitement, as if she was the one receiving the present. “You need something to wear tonight."

"What do you mean?" Since The Undoing, our Anniversary Extraordinaire celebrations had taken a bit of a back burner.

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