Page 168 of Veil of Death and Shadow

We were in what appeared to be an entryway. There was a chill in the air, though I thought I heard the familiar crackle of a fire in the room ahead.

I clung to Kieran’s back, like a shadow as I adjusted to the strangeness of this place.

When he paused outside a doorway, a soft light emanating from the room, I nearly ran into him.

“You’re finally back,” a deep voice said, an ember of familiarity curling in my stomach. “The hell took so long? Rafi’s ready to kill you both at this point.”

“Who are you?” Thorne asked, the muscles in his back tightening.

The owner of the deep voice groaned, the sound low and grumbling. “Fucking hell, Thorne’s wiped? This is seriously the last thing we need right now. Kieran, what the fuck happened out there?”

“There were,” Kieran glanced back at me, then took a step to the side, nudging me into the room, “a few complications.”

My breath caught at the familiar figure in front of me. He was dressed head-to-toe in black, as always, his dark hair curling slightly into a pair of gray eyes that made me dizzy with relief to see again.

Levi.

His mouth pressed into a firm line when I shifted closer, but he otherwise didn’t move or react at all.

He was . . . dead?

For how long?

Tears clouded my vision as I ran to him, wrapping my arms around his middle.

“No fair,” I heard Thorne mutter behind me. “I definitely didn’t get that greeting.”

Levi stiffened at the contact, but otherwise kept still, his arms pressed down at his sides. For a moment, I thought I felt his face bend towards me, the barest pressure of his hands moving to meet my waist, but then Kieran clapped my shoulders and pulled me back.

“Sorry, Levi,” he said, his eyes meeting mine briefly, wide with warning, “new recruit. You know how disorienting it can be. Can you please go find Rafi? We need to talk.”

Kieran pulled me to his side, his arm wrapping around me as if preemptively protecting me from whatever was about to come next.

When Levi’s focus shifted to where Kieran’s hand met my waist, he instantly dropped it, before carving a few inches of distance between us.

Levi didn’t move at first. His expression was almost blank. Though there was a flicker of something in his eyes—anger, maybe—when they took me in again, before shifting back to Kieran. A muscle in his jaw pulsed, some silent challenge playing between the two of them as my heart raced loud and angry in my chest.

He was here. He was alive.

Well, sort of.

“And might as well take Thorne with you, too,” Kieran said, his tone clipped. “I’ll need to speak with Rafi privately.”

In a hurried and desperate attempt to catalogue all the differences between this Levi and the one I knew, my attention immediately landed on the dark rings adorning his fingers. Like Thorne and Kieran, he had quite a few tattoos now, though not nearly as many as they did.

But then my stare caught on his wrist, and I had to swallow back a gasp.

A small, black band circled it.

My hairband.

As if sensing my stare, he inched his sleeve down, until the band was covered, then left the room without another word, not even sparing me another glance.

Thorne—who’d been watching the scene unfold with a kind of calculating focus, as if combing for bits of information—turned one last, lingering stare on me, before following on Levi’s heels.

“Levi’s only been dead for two years,” Kieran whispered, when we were finally alone, his voice gentle. “If you knew him in the mortal realm, he won’t remember you. You can’t do that again, Agony—don’t draw attention to yourself. Whatever he was to you, you have to sever it. He’s not the boy you once knew. Erase him in your mind altogether if you can. For his sake and yours.”

I nodded; my throat tight.

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