Page 93 of The Exorcism of Faeries

Sonder removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where did the coroner take the body?”

“Saint Patrick’s. Some of the higher-ups want to have a look, and then I’m told he’ll come to you here at Achilles.”

Sonder scrubbed a hand down his jaw, relieved he and Atta had gotten a good look before the corpse could possibly be tampered with prior to releasing it to him. “Thank you, Marguerite.”

“Of course.” She adjusted the strap of her purse. “I’d better get back to my office. Emmy is supposed to help me this evening and the phone has been ringing off the hook. If she answers it, I don’t know what I'll tell her.”

“Ringing off the hook as in media requests, or loved ones of Inhabited patients looking for us?” Sonder questioned.

“Both.” The cadence of her voice came off as more than just frazzled. He shouldn’t have involved anyone else in this bloody mess.

“Fax me what you have to the manor.”

“Sonder,” there was sufficient warning in her tone, and he knew what would come next. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing.” Her lips pursed into a thin red line, a slash against her smooth, tanned skin. “In more ways than one.”

Ah, she meant Atta. “You worry too much.” He wasn’t about to indulge her suspicions by confirming them. “Good evening, Marguerite.”

She frowned at the dismissal but left. He waited a full five minutes before instructing one of the anatomists to clean up the corpse in his lab and prepare for a new one to be delivered. The young lady, Lucy, he thought her name was, hardly had her gloves on before he rushed out the door to check on things at the manor before the delivery.

Atta was on a bench in the hawthorn atrium, three empty coffee mugs around her, when he arrived. Winding his way through her trail of notes and open books was as wild as it was endearing. If either of them was a mad scientist, it was Atta—and he adored it.

Seasoned, old, ancient as he felt, Sonder had never understood desire until she’d walked into his life. He crouched and kissed her tenderly. She licked her lips and tucked them between her teeth for just a second after he pulled back, a flush under her freckles.

“Papers were spit all over the floor of your study,” she said.

“Faxes from Vasilios,” he responded, but he found himself distracted by something other than her lips and bent to pick up a list she’d made. It wasn’t the first attempt, judging by the mass of crumpled and scratched-out papers surrounding her. “Stages Protocol,” he read.

Atta tucked a pen behind her ear and he took another mental snapshot of her. “It’s not set in stone, of course, but a working theory.” She looked away. “If we get there in time, that is.”

“We need a compilation of symptoms as well,” he added. “And to spend more time with the Inhabited’s counterpart. That way, the Inhabitation can be recognised earlier, and we can potentially discover how the hosts are being selected.”

She stood and walked through her mess of notes and books and potting soil before stooping to pick up a weathered tome he knew to be his mother’s, one from the top shelf in the library. “I’ve been thinking about that,” Atta said, pointing to a passage. “Faeries notoriously hate hubris. Lisle stated that his mother is a selfish woman, and I saw that displayed quite erotically in my vision.”

Sonder raised a brow at this new detail but refrained from comment.

“And I read on one of those papers Marguerite faxed over that Mr Byrne was a business owner. That led me to flip on the news. They were interviewing some of his employees concerning his death, and he wasn’t a very well-liked man.” She took up pacing in front of a plant that looked more like it belonged under the sea to him. “Lauren, on the other hand, was a bit snobbish but very well-liked. So I think there is more the Fae are looking for. Another component. They’re not just selecting humans with overbearing pride, but that does seem to be something they’re considering.”

Sonder watched her in awe as she picked up a mortar and pestle, bending down to where he was still crouched on the ground. Burying her fingers in the fragrant mixture of dried flowers, she lifted them up and let some of the yellow and pink blossoms in varying shades sprinkle back down like confetti. Her eyes met his, lit mischievously, and she whispered, “Watch this.”

She rose with a bounce and Sonder stood. Like a maiden delighting in the spoils of spring to call forth the Fae Folk, Atta sprinkled a dusting of the dried flowers onto a bulbous plant that looked tropical to his untrained eye. As soon as the floral confetti made contact, the plant’s vibrant petals withered. Another sprinkle and the plant was scorched, as if it had dried out in the summer sun.

Atta smiled at him and lifted her mortar. “St John’s Wort, Yarrow, and Rue.”

Sonder looked from her wide grin to the withered blossom and back. “Have I ever told you that you’re a genius?”

She preened at him and he realised he’d do anything for that smile. “No, but you’ve danced around it,” she said coyly. “Nice of you to finally admit it. Admission is the first step to recovery.”

He slowly closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her waist. “And what am I recovering from?”

She looked up at him and he could see a graphite smudge on the tip of her nose, ink stains on her cheek. “The hit to your ego. Knowing that I’m smarter than you.”

He knew she was only teasing, but he had begun to wonder if she was right. Not that it bothered him in the slightest. He lightly kissed the smudge on her nose. “Mm. All the more reason to get you reenrolled at Trinity, then.”

Atta’s face fell and she took a step back, breaking his hold on her. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny, Atta. I mean it.”

“You just said earlier that it’s likely the Society will have it out for me.”

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