A Book of Spirits and Thieves (Spirits and Thieves #1)(22)

“What book?” He didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t help himself.

“The book.” She gestured wildly as if this would help explain. “It was written in some sort of bizarre language I’ve never seen before. And then I felt something grab hold of me, and the next moment, I’m here. Or . . . I was outside that big house. When I went inside, I saw you. And you saw me.” She frowned. “Hello? Are you even listening to me?”

She spoke so quickly all he could do was cock his head and try his very best to follow along. She wore a necklace—a silver rose suspended on a thin silver chain—which she played with, twisting it between her index finger and thumb. Her fingernails were colored with paint, a bright rose shade like her knitted tunic.

When he realized he was staring, his gaze shot back to her face. “I’m listening.”

She studied him for a moment. “You haven’t told me your name yet.”

“It’s Maddox.” He groaned at his mistake. He hadn’t meant to tell her his real name.

“Maddox,” she repeated.

The odd whisper of pleasure he got at hearing her speak his name aloud only made him more annoyed than he already was.

“Tell me where I am, Maddox,” she said.

“This may be difficult for you to understand, but you’re a spirit. Somehow you’ve managed to escape the land beyond death and return to the mortal realm . . . where you’ve somehow maintained your mortal form. This is very rare.” In fact, it was the very first time he’d encountered such a spirit.

A man passing Maddox gave him a strange look that made him cringe. It would be better that no one listen in—otherwise, it would appear as if he were conversing with thin air.

She frowned at him. “You’re trying to tell me I’m a ghost. That I’m dead.”

“Apologies if this is a shock to you, but . . . yes.”

“I’m not dead,” she said, raising her chin. “I’d know if I were dead.”

“Would you?” He decided to be bold and waved his hand through her form. She stared down at herself with dismay as her body momentarily turned to smoke wherever he touched. “Does that seem normal to you?”

Now she looked ill. “No. Not even slightly.”

“Then I’ve proved my point.”

Slowly, she took a deep breath and regained an expression of steely resolve. “Okay, before I completely freak out, I need to make something crystal clear to you. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know I’m not dead. I’m not a ghost. I’ve been . . . zapped. By . . . magic or . . . something. I obviously don’t know exactly what happened. But the fact that you can see me, the fact that I found you again among all these people, leads me to believe that you’re the one who can help me.”

Help her? He couldn’t even help himself. “I assure you, I can’t help you.”

“You can.” Becca reached for him, but her hand passed right through his arm. She clenched her hand into a fist, her expression turning pained. “If you’d just try!”

“Listen to me, would you? I don’t need trouble. I have enough trouble as it is.”

If that was so, then why did something inside him want to help her? She must be so scared, but she was hiding it well. The girl was brave.

No, not a girl. A spirit.

Maddox sighed. She was also a girl.

A girl who was asking him to help her.

Finally he sighed. “Try how? I don’t know what you think I can do for you.”

“Before I first met you, I felt . . . weightless. I felt a terrifying nothingness. But when I’m anywhere near you, I feel something. It’s the same sort of shivery sensation I got when I touched the book. Something—I don’t know. Magical?” She tried to meet his gaze, but he looked away. “That book is the reason I’m here—I know it is.” She looked down at herself, then gave him a squeamish look. “Yes, I’m seriously going to freak out.”

He grimaced. “I don’t know what that means, exactly, but don’t do it.”

“Please,” she said, her voice now quavering. “Please, help me.”

Curse it, he swore inwardly. He did want to help her if he could.

Suddenly, he thought of that first spirit he’d ever encountered, the horrible, dark creature that had reached for him in the night.

What would have happened if he’d agreed to help it instead of hiding from it? If he’d opened his heart to something so clearly in pain, rather than cower in fear from it?

Perhaps it had been every bit as frightened as he was.

A terror-filled scream from somewhere nearby drew his attention away from the spirit girl.

“Wait here,” he told Becca.

A crowd had quickly gathered. Maddox now began to run toward the commotion to see what had caused it.

“What’s going on?” he asked a woman at the edge of the crowd with two children at her feet, clutching her skirts.

“A witch,” the woman told him. He peered over the shoulders of those in front of him to see that a young girl had been grabbed by a man wearing the uniform of Valoria’s private guard: brown leather tunic and trousers, red cape, and golden helmet. “She’s been accused of using her magic in an attempt to summon a storm to ruin the festival.”