Page 558 of Flirting with Darkness

Worms eating through blackened skin.

Ghost wanted nothing more than to push it all away… push the card away… push away the image and feeling burrowing into his mind.

He fought with words.

He fought to ask her to remove the card, to get it away from him––

––when she did just that.

Her hand swept it away.

It swept all four cards away.

She leaned back, her eyes peaceful, and Ghost suddenly had a hundred and one questions for her. He wanted to know who she was, why she had appeared to him now, if she was his grandmother, his Aunt Jyn, a medium or a magician or even a particularly good spirit or a bad one. He wanted to know what he was meant to take from all of this.

The questions rose up through him. They confused him by their sheer number.

That time, instead of her, it was Ghost who leaned forward.

He reached out a hand, about to touch her arm…

…When she vanished from his eyes.

5

THE PASSENGERS

“No!” Ghost didn’t fully realize he’d spoken aloud.

Not until he felt and saw eyes turn towards him.

He was breathing too hard, sweating under the dinner jacket and formal attire, sweating and cursing in the center of the train’s dining car, a brandy by his arm, the book laid open in front of him. He glanced down at a page on etiquette when meeting the Tsar. A woodcut depicted a man executing a formal bow to Alexander II, demonstrating the proper form.

He fought to compose himself.

Even as he realized the need, it struck Ghost that some of those eyes might remember him later. Some might even be like him, traveling towards the court of Count Aslanov for his infamous yearly Christmas ball outside the Russian capitol.

Ghost took a few swallows of the brandy.

He exhaled slowly under his breath.

It was then that he saw the card.

It was not one of the four the woman had shown him.

It instead depicted an ornate, golden clock, shrouded by purple, black, and blue darkness. Only the faint light of candles illuminated the clock’s pale blue face. Instead of numbers, odd symbols decorated the clock’s face, which glowed under black hands.

Both of those hands aimed up, to the position of midnight.

Still staring at the painted card, Ghost drank down the rest of his brandy. When a porter passed by him, he ordered another. He did not take his eyes off the playing card for the duration of that second drink, either.

He was about to order a third, when he realized someone was watching him.

He looked over to find a pair of warm brown eyes studying his face.

The look there reflected open curiosity.

He glanced around. He realized the dining car was now full.

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