Page 10 of Echoes in the Void

I loved you, Minette. I love you still. And you will have all my memory and my heart of three hundred years. I pray you will forgive me in this.

My heart beat once, hard and painful and I gave into the thought of my Minette watching, and begged her mercy.

The short time I had with her was not enough. It should have been a mortal lifetime, but that was stolen by the demoness she ended, and gave her own life to free us.

“I love you,” I murmured, my voice low enough that the faintest flicker of morning breeze in the still, muggy air whisked my words away. “And yet, I live.”While you do not.

Perhaps Sebastian lived through his pain. Perhaps I had been selfish in my solitary confinement of stone while he bore his grief alone.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

And now, a fallen star called to me. Her brightness imprinted across my chest, an ember that burned soul deep, etching herself there.

I released a fragmented breath.

No, she was not the one Sebastian hunted. Maybe Ash—not her true name, I was certain—was who I needed, however.

I am not the one you seek.

Wasn’t she?

A soft laugh followed my confession, and this time the winds didn’t deign to steal my sounds. All I had to do was convince my best friend of that little fact on the word of a flighty being who burst into flame and ash every moment she was scared, even though he seemed to have missed her display back at the tavern.

The witch hadn’t, however.

I slipped my hand into my pocket, rubbing my fingers in the pinch of ash I kept there. I’d keep the small souvenir for myself, if for now, in any case. Perhaps Sebastian was into something with this mystery solving bent of his. It was time I joined the fray.

The witch’s tavern that I had frequented on my arrival in New Orleans—The Devil’s Fool, a play on the major arcana, Sebastian’s current voodoo crush was far from my first brush with magic users—was far from full of patrons as it had been the night before. I settled at the bar while he slept back in our room, hidden below street level where light could not enter our basement level dwelling.

“The same as you had last night?” The witch, Tifa, offered. Her many shawls dragged across the bar top in her wake.

I nodded, knowing I wouldn’t gain a single word of information out of her without Sebastian at my side if I didn’t drop coin in return for her custom. Metaphorical coin, I'd come to understand, after reading his scrawled instructions about the phone and how to work it. I held the screen to my face, tapped the colored square—I prayed I picked the right one—and held it out gingerly in payment.

The bleep told me I got it right. Tifa’s broad grin told me I didn't fool her for an instant.

“Glad you’ve joined the real world.”

“He’s spoken about me.” I bit back an oath and offered her a fake as fuck smile that bit into her good humor.

“At length.” The smile slid off her handsome face. Not my style, but Sebastian and I always differed in our tastes.

Damnit, I need to keep her happy.

I toyed with the ale that she poured for me and wondered how in all the hells I was supposed to start this conversation. “Perhaps I should have ordered something a little stronger.”

“Or start with what you know.”

I winced. “I am…unpracticed.”

Her nose wrinkled. Even that small motion had an edge of grace to it. “You don’t say.” She blew out a breath. Knowing emerald eyes found and held mine. “Is it about the phoenix girl The firebird?” she prompted when I didn't immediately respond to her barb.

I canted my head to one side.Interesting assumption, and wrong.About the girl, yes. That she was a phoenix… There, Tifa was not so correct. Not that I'd be removing that assumption from her any time soon. The longer she thought my Steorra was a firebird, the longer she might leave her alone.

Certainly, my girl’s little ashing issue held some similarities, but she didn’t flap her way to freedom, and she wasn’t reborn in the traditional phoenix manner. I’d encountered plenty of those in my lifetime. No, Ash was something rarer than a firebird. Plus there was that little flash of light that preceded her combustible moment…

I smiled into my ale. “If I told you there was another cause of your fires in your city, would that change the trajectory of your search?”

Tifa stilled. “You have evidence that your friend will accept, of course?” She flicked idly at the tangled fringes of her many seals, the rainbow melding into a conglomerate of color. “He won't like that you’ve brought change to his plans.”

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