The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(79)

Mourning, however, did not come easily. The sight was relentless. All around me, the air was filled with lights and colors and smells and tastes more intense than I could handle. It was as though I had wandered into the middle of a mad parade and could not get out again. The world as I had always known it was there, but it lay perpetually underneath a wild nightmare. When I closed my eyes it was worse; only the mundane blinked away, leaving nothing but the fantastical. The whole experience was overwhelming and exhausting.

We arrived at Jackaby’s house, and I had to stop at the front walk to take it all in.

“Miss Rook?” Jackaby said, a hand at my elbow.

“I-it’s just too much,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “The salt and sage, the knots and carvings. This house must be aglow for you with all the protective charms. I’ll miss that.”

I nodded. “It’s all that and more. It’s like the color of a worried father’s hug mixed with a mother cat’s bite. It’s other things, too. Flowing all through the house and down the walk is a river of lighter auras. It’s a kaleidoscope of feelings and intentions and potentials.”

“Our recent guests,” Jackaby confirmed. “Their presence will take time to fade. You will grow accustomed to it over time.”

All of this had been easier when we had been on the battlefield. There, at the end of the war, on the threshold between realms, the visions had seemed almost normal. Now that we were at home, they felt like an assault. I tried to breathe evenly as we walked up the step. At the front door, the magic of the transom window swirled.

“Huh,” said Jackaby.

“Oh my,” said Jenny.

I glanced up.

abigail rook:

private detective



“What?” I said. “I’m not—”

“Makes sense,” Jackaby said in a tone I found offensively rational and even. “I hadn’t even thought about that. I’ll stay on, of course, if you like.”

“What? ” I said. “You’ll stay on? I’m not the investigator here! I’m your assistant. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know what I’m seeing.”

“You’ll be marvelous,” Jackaby said earnestly. “You’re already more keen than I ever was about putting together clues and looking in dustbins and questioning people and all that. Besides, you have something I never had when I was first starting out.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Me!” His smile was incorrigible.

“It would be really wonderful if all this could be a dream,” I said.

“Come now, you’ll get there. Focus on one aura at a time; that helps. What do you see when you look at me?”

I took a breath. “A kind of idiosyncratic bluish with a happy patch of crimson right around your middle. You’re a bit dark—but also very light in funny little ways.” I blinked. “There are also notes of a sort of rosy color hanging all around both you and Jenny. No, not rosy, exactly. How would you describe it—a buoyant sort of flush?”

“Buoyant is not a color,” said Jackaby. “You sound ridiculous. But an excellent start! The sight will take time to understand. I’m here to help.”

“I’m here for you, too, Abigail,” Jenny assured me, putting a hand on Jackaby’s shoulder as she glided forward to join us. “We can practice together and take it slow. It’s the least I could do after everything you’ve done to help me figure out my own abilities.”

I nodded. “It’s nice to see that you’re not having any more trouble in that area,” I said. Jenny’s hand was still on Jackaby’s shoulder. The flush around their auras increased when I mentioned it.

“I’m not even sure how it happened,” Jenny said. “I just needed it to happen, and it did.”

“Not surprised about it at all,” said Jackaby.

“Not surprised?” Jenny said. “Yesterday I couldn’t so much as brush a hair out of your eyes, but today I reached inside your chest and held your heart in my hands—and you’re not surprised?”

“Not at all. My heart was always yours,” said Jackaby.

Jenny leaned back and looked at him, startled. “That is about the sweetest thing I think you’ve ever said.”

“Was it good?” He gave her a goofy grin. “I was trying to work out how to phrase it the whole ride over.”

“Not good at all, no,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to keep a smile off her face. “It was sappy and maudlin and positively terrible. Sweet, though. Excellent effort.”

“You’re just jealous because we’re both technically undead now, and I’m clearly so much better at it.”

“Jealous? I’m not jealous. For the first time since I’ve known you, I have the power to shut you up.” She leaned in and kissed him right on the lips.





Chapter Thirty-Four Jackaby slept. It was the first time I had ever seen him do so. He nodded off in the library’s comfortable armchair while we were talking. He looked peaceful, so I let him rest as I gazed around the room.

Sleep would not come so easily to me. I tried to settle my nerves. I slipped out and made myself a cup of chamomile, only I couldn’t tell if I had used the wrong tin, or if now that I was the Seer, chamomile really did taste like riding a hot air balloon in the mist on a nondescript Saturday afternoon. I was plagued by visions and sensations and emotions I could not put into words, and worse, looming right behind all of this was a cold, swelling ache.