Grave Visions (Alex Craft, #4)(60)

“Darkness often takes creativity. I’ve collected many victims of those who considered themselves ‘artists.’”

I snapped my attention back to him. “I—You’re here, we shouldn’t be discussing such morbid topics.”

Death shrugged. “I am a soul collector.”

True. Still, I’d barely seen him over the last few weeks. He was my closest and oldest friend. My lover. He knew my secrets. I could tell him anything. We should talk about something happy. Something couples would discuss.

But the only thing I could think about was the case. And I was exhausted. Either my dream meeting with Kyran hadn’t corresponded with refreshing sleep, or I was running out of time. I needed a tie to Faerie. It occurred to me that Death didn’t know about the fading, though I was sure he could see something was wrong.

So I filled him in on everything that had happened recently. He listened, his hazel eyes growing increasingly concerned as I related my father’s revelation both of my ailing condition and of my theoretical betrothal, of my meeting with the queen and my need to find the alchemist, and of the two wedding crashing bogeymen. He asked a few clarifying questions, but he didn’t interrupt or redirect, he just listened, because that was what he’d done all of my life. It was one of the reasons I loved him.

That thought made me pause. And not just because of the panic that swelled up inside me at the word. I loved him. I did. Despite the fact I knew almost nothing about him. I’d learned more in the last few months than ever before, but I still knew very little about him or the man he’d been before he died and became a collector. I didn’t even know his name.

“What is it?” he asked, and I realized I’d fallen silent. I couldn’t remember where I was in my recap, and I had no idea where to pick back up.

I looked into those heavily hooded eyes, studied that strong jaw and full lips I knew so very well, and I thought about telling him. Just blurting out that I loved him. I knew he loved me, he’d told me so, but the words wouldn’t form. Instead I scooted closer to him, my arms sliding around his waist so I could lean on his shoulder.

I’d wanted to enjoy touching him without feeling the burning chill of the grave for so very long, and now I could, and it was thrilling, and comforting, but also wrong somehow. That thought made me frown, and I pushed it away, bringing my thoughts back around to safe topics. Like the case.

“So, like I said, it’s possible the light court is involved. Or maybe this is a wild-goose chase. I know you mentioned that creativity can be twisted and turned dark, but these people died from manifestations of their fears and nightmares. Maybe it’s not connected at all.”

Death didn’t say anything for a long moment, the silence stretching long enough for his lack of response to be noticeable. Finally he said, “Are you sure all the deaths have been from malicious manifestations?”

I straightened, meeting his gaze. “You know something.”

His eyes darted away, refusing to hold mine. He did know something. The secrets of soul collectors were well guarded and they were forbidden from speaking about those secrets. The souls he collected and their manner of death fell into that category. Still, he was also forbidden to see me, and for better or worse, he was breaking that rule, so I waited. If he decided he could tell me, he would. But I wouldn’t press him. Our relationship was already dangerous for him. Which made me feel guilty as hell, like I should send him away for his own safety. So I’d wait, let him set the pace.

Finally he looked at me again, and ran a hand through his dark, chin-length hair. “What have you found when you interacted with the bodies?”

“Weak shades.” I’d told him that already. I stopped. “Almost completely depleted shades. Like all the life energy of their being had been drawn out.” If the victims were unintentionally using the glamour in the drug to make their hallucinations real, they had to fuel that glamour somehow. Fae were born with the power to manipulate glamour, or maybe it was fueled through their tie to Faerie. But what happened when a mortal, especially a nonmagical mortal, used an artificial infusion of glamour? It still had to draw power from somewhere. I’d theorized that already. The victims felt like they’d been through some life-threatening magic burnout. But that wasn’t what had killed them. The hallucinations turned real had.

As if he could read the course of my thoughts, Death prompted me further. “And what if those children hadn’t manifested a nightmare, but something harmless?”

I thought about it. About how weak their shades were. About how much life force it must have taken to make that clown real. “They probably would have burned out completely and died anyway,” I said. Both sets of victims we’d found had died from violence, likely before they could get to a critical stage. But what if their hallucinations hadn’t been violent? “Are you saying there have been good manifestations?”

Death didn’t answer, not verbally at least, but he gave me the smallest incline of his head. My thoughts tumbled around my brain, a jumble of different half-realized ideas, until a memory rose to the surface. The homeless man on the unicorn. He’d been found dead several hours after I’d seen him, and from what I’d heard, the cause of death was unknown. I’d forgotten all about him with everything else that had happened, but I’d gotten a good look at that unicorn. It had definitely been glamour.