The gray tendrils wrapped tighter around me.

I was pulled off O’Sean’s body. Hands touched me, and frantic voices filled my ears as someone tried to push their magic into me. Missy’s voice snapped above all of them.

“Your fae magic won’t save her now, Crash.”

I mouthed a word, a name.

Robert.

A skeletal hand clutched mine and I stood up, only I was looking down on my body. My friends had gathered all around me, Corb doing chest compressions as Crash breathed for me. Suzy held one of my hands, tears streaming down her face. It was all very sad, but I wasn’t really dead. Was I?

I turned to the hand that tightened on mine. Robert stood next to me. Only he wasn’t a skeleton. He was a man. About my height with long black hair tied back in a ponytail, sharp angular features, and eyes like ice. “Holy shit, Robert?”

“You are the first to know my name in a very long time,” he said, then shook his head. “You aren’t going to die. They will think you are dying. They might even bury you if we don’t get you back quickly. But this is the first threshold.”

I tightened my hold on him. “You mean I’m going to come back like a skeleton? Like you?” I wasn’t sure that I was ready for that.

“No. You’re going to go back, but things will be different. You will see more like me. More like . . . Skeletor.” He laughed. “That is a good name for the horse. He likes it.”

“Oh, well that’s good. Um . . .” I looked at the frantic energy rolling around my friends. “Can I go back now?”

Robert pulled me into a quick hug. “Go. And know that you are loved, and you deserve that love. Accept it for what it is. I will be with you.”

He shoved me hard, and I stumbled, flipped over backward, and hit the ground hard enough to pull a gasp from my body. I sat up, head-butted Crash, shoved Corb off me, and was up on my feet in a flash.

My entire body shook as I turned to look at my friends. “Hi.”

22

Suzy was the first to grab me, pulling me into a tight, slobbering, sobbing hug. “Oh my God! Breena, your heart stopped!”

I hugged her back, though I’ll admit I didn’t have a ton of energy for it. “Right, well, I’m back. I’m good now.” And, strangely enough, it was true. Energy flowed up from the soles of my feet through my limbs and the fear and exhaustion slowly peeled off me. I stood a little taller. Around me the tombstones seemed to light up, like they had LED lights embedded in them and I wondered if that was where the energy was coming from. “Honest, I’m okay.”

Corb stared at me like he was seeing a ghost. Crash seemed . . . bothered by the fact that I was standing there, fresh as a ducking daisy. I gently pushed Suzy off me. We still had Missy to deal with, and while I had very little left to bargain with her, I was still going ahead with it. Knowledge was power in this world, and Missy had knowledge I needed.

“Robert, bring me my bag please.” I held out a hand to him, but my eyes were on the old woman, who watched me like a hawk eyes a bunny rabbit. Only this rabbit had fangs. The bag strap settled in my open palm and I closed my fingers over it. Suzy gasped, which told me that the bag had just reappeared.

“Cool trick,” she whispered.

I pulled the bag over my head and flopped it open, pulling out the book. “If you want this leather-bound book, then you need to give me something for it,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “What, pray tell, would that be?”

“Three answers,” I said.

“One,” she fired back.

“Two it is,” I said, and she nodded.

“Are you still a guardian of Savannah?” I asked, and her eyes bugged wide for just a moment. Obviously that was not the question she’d been expecting.

“In my own way, yes,” she said. “I am not Celia.”

“You sure as hell aren’t,” I muttered, took a breath, and asked the next question. “How many bad guys are we dealing with?”

Her lips twisted upward. “We?”

I nodded. “We.”

“So you fancy yourself a guardian of Savannah now?” One of her eyebrows twitched upward. Curse her—of course, she could pull off that trick.

Suzy stood beside me. “I’m with Breena. We are guardians of Savannah now.”

“How many?” I asked again. “I’m making this easy for you. All you have to do is give me a number, no names.”

I held the book out to her and she put her hands on it, but I didn’t let go. Her eyes locked with mine. “You are a fool.”

“Why, because I’m giving you this leather-bound book?” I asked.

“Because you are not what your grandmother believed. You are a mutt with blood that is too diluted to be anything more than a thorn in my side.” She tried to pull the book from me, but I held it tight.

“True enough, but I stopped Hattie with nothing but a pair of knives and my wits, so maybe I’m not like you. Maybe I don’t need magic to survive in the shadow world.”

She hissed at me, freaking hissed. “There are five that battle for Savannah, and you killed a pair who made one of them.”

Four baddies left then. Damn.

I let the book go, and she stumbled backward with a glare. Tucking the book under her arm, she left the cemetery.

Eammon stepped in front of me, watching her go. “Terrible idea, lass.”

“Probably one of my best, actually,” I said. “She might not have given me any truly useful information, but then again, I didn’t give her a terribly useful spell book.”

Eammon whipped around to look at me. “What did you give her?”

I smiled. “A little switcheroo. Spells for Beginners is about as thick as my gran’s book. Take pages out of one, stuff it with the pages of the other. And I of course signed it over to her.”

All the best with your casting of spells. I hope this helps as I thought it fitting to your skill level. Love B.

Louis and Tom looked at me as though I’d been speaking in tongues. But Louis had a strange, assessing look on his face. It was Louis who was really looking at me. “You . . . I watched your spirit float above your body. Who were you talking to?”

Right. “Well, that’s Robert. I still don’t get why you can’t see him. He’s very nice.” From the corner of my eye, I could see Robert swaying on his feet, a skeleton once more.

“Friend.”

The mentors didn’t seem to know what to do. They sent the remaining three trainees home, and then they all looked at me. I looked back. “What?”

“What are you going to do next?” Eammon asked softly. “You need to be dealing with Karissa yet. My fault, that one. Damn spell made me weak to her again!”

Karissa. I’d sent Feish to her to keep her busy, because I knew that if all the players showed up at once, the shit show would have been beyond any sort of control. But that Feish hadn’t come back—her job had been to deliver a message and then return—meant things had gone very sideways.

“Hells bells, I gotta go!” I turned to Crash. “You good? The mark is gone?”

He bowed at the waist. “It is gone. With my thanks.” Very formal, but whatever, I didn’t have time to figure out what was going on with him.

I’d left Feish with Karissa long enough.

“Skeletor!” I yelled for my horse and the mentors laughed. Until he pulled himself from the ground. They all stumbled back.

“What in the world is that?” Louis breathed out, shock making his French accent heavier than normal.

“Oh, so you can see him but not Robert?” I pulled myself up onto Skeletor’s back and patted his neck, noticing that his flesh was indeed firmer. Plus, he’d been invisible to other people before. He was changing, although I didn’t understand how. Maybe it was because of me and my near-death experience? I shook my head, not knowing, and at the moment not needing to know. Later. I would figure it out later.

Louis put his hands in the air like he was doing the Y in YMCA, his eyes wide and brows high. “C’est quoi ce bordel?”

I blinked and looked to Eammon for an explanation, but it was Crash who translated. “What the duck?”

Yeah, he didn’t say duck, and I gotta say, hearing him drop an f-bomb sent a rather strong shiver through me. “Look, I gotta go. I’ve got to deal with Karissa. Suzy, you get back to Eric, and lock down the house till I’m back.”

Suzy gave me a quick nod and took off running.

Crash stiffened. “I should come with you. I can help you deal with Karissa.”

I snorted and Skel—see, shortening it already—scuttled sideways. I clamped my legs tight around the horse’s middle. “Yeah, because your ex-wife is going to be easier to deal with while you’re there? Every other man here knows that’s a terrible idea, Crash.”

All the other men nodded in unison. “She’s not wrong,” Eammon said. “I should never have encouraged her to help Karissa.” He rubbed at his head. “She’s always been a weak spot for me, but I thought I’d put her behind me.” His weak spot. So, I’d been right, the spell O’Sean had put on the Hollows had latched on to their weaknesses and amplified them.

But wait, if Karissa was Eammon’s weak spot . . . I had to blink a few times before the meaning sunk in. “WAIT. You and Karissa?”

Eammon winked up at me and touched his nose. Holy hot damn.

And just like that, the animosity between him and Crash made total and complete sense. It didn’t matter which of them had come first—Eammon was still pissed that she’d picked Crash at some point.

Crash growled something under his breath, but I was done with the drama. I turned Skel, and Robert scrambled up behind me. “Okay, enough of the gossip, fun as it is. I’ve got to wrap this day up.” Fatigue was biting at me, and the ache in my low back was throbbing.

A hand settled on my calf, and I looked down to see Corb there. “Look, you should take someone with you. You . . . you were dead just a few minutes ago, Bree.” His concern was touching.