Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(138)

Light dawned. “H grabbed your ankle.” I remembered Ray mentioning that, but it hadn’t seemed important.

“With the hand holding Naudiz,” Ray agreed. “It transferred to me and the next second, Jókell was dead.”

“That still doesn’t explain how I got it.”

“Naudiz is designed to sustain life,” Caedmon said. “It cannot function properly on a creature that, by its definition of the term, is already dead. It lent him some additional energy while it searched for a living body to fulfill its function, but it could do no more.”

“The bokors said that’s why I came through the whole dismemberment thing so good,” Ray added. “According to them, I should have been pretty out of it.”

Come to think of it, Ray had seemed remarkably . . . resilient. “But why transfer to me?”

“No reason other than you were the first living body with which Raymond had extensive contact,” Caedmon explained.

“Yeah, your hands were all over me,” Ray said with a cheerful leer. “And at some point—boom! It transferred. Probably during that crazy pursuit. I mean, who would notice, right?”

“But I’ve been hurt since,” I protested. “subrand broke my wrist!”

“Naudiz isn’t a shield, Dorina,” Caedmon told me. “It does not protect you against all injuries. It does ensure that those injuries are not life-threatening.”

I nodded and started to ask something else when a huge yawn interrupted me. “She’s tired,” Claire said, getting up. “We should go.”

“I’m okay,” I protested, only to have her look at me severely.

“The healers said you’ll need lots of rest, probably for the next week. The rune may have kept you alive, but you took a beating down there.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad. I—”

“LouisCesare had to pry your body out of the brickwork!”

I was suddenly grateful not to be able to remember anything. “Okay, but one more thing,” I said as everyone else got up. “How didsubrand know I had the rune? I didn’t even know.”

“The most likely explanation is that he tracked the fey to the nightclub and saw Christine leaving the office,” Caedmon said. “By the luduan’s description, she was heavily muffled up, and from what I understand, she did bear a superficial resemblance to you.”

I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess, from a distance, we would look something alike: dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin and roughly the same height. Of course, her hair had been long, but she’d usually worn it up. And the luduan had said she had a hood. I decided it was feasible. It also seemed irrelevant.

“There must be thousands of people in this city who look like me,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but there are not thousands who could take on a fey warrior and hope to survive.subrand saw a small, dark-haired woman with no discernable power signature leaving the office shortly before Jókell was found murdered. He does not know many humans, and therefore his thoughts must have immediately gone to you. He had his spies check your home and discovered that Claire was here. His logical conclusion was that she had asked you to retrieve the stone, and that you had done so.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“My people tell me that he has returned to Faerie for the present, no doubt realizing once we arrived that the rune was lost to him.” He looked at me soberly. “But you should be careful, Dory.subrand is not the type to forget a defeat, and you have bested him twice now in front of his men. I think you may see him again.”

I remembered the fey I had seen following LouisCesare. Hadsubrand hoped he would lead him to me? I decided I owed Marlowe’s boys a drink.

Claire bent over to retrieve Stinky. “Get well soon,” she told me. “I want to go see some movies, eat some greasy human food, go shopping. . . .”

“So you’re not headed right back?”

She shook her head. “I know it doesn’t sound like it from the way I’ve been talking, but there are things I love about Faerie. But I’m half human, too. And I think I’ve been away too long.”

“Maybe you need to visit more often, then.”

She grinned. “Maybe I do.”

Radu was the last one remaining. He settled beside me on the bed, looking sober. “LouisCesare is downstairs. He’s been here since he brought you back.”

“Why didn’t he come up?”

“He doesn’t think you want to see him. I told him he was being ridiculous, but you know how he is.”

“I’m learning.”

“Should I tell him to come up?”

“Yeah.” I had a few questions for him.

Radu nodded, but he didn’t leave. “You know, even if she hadn’t been an evil mutant, she was always quite bad for him. Not that I meddle.”

“Of course not.”

“But she was. He needs a nice, levelheaded girl. You’re levelheaded, Dory.”

“I’m insane, ’Du.”

“Well, not all the time. And when you’re not, you’re quite lovely . . . in your own odd little way.”

“Uh, thank you?”

Radu patted my arm. “You’re welcome.”