Grave Visions(34)

Then my magic touched the corpse and I knew I was mistaken.

My eyes popped open, and through the rotted material of the bag, I could see what I already knew I’d find: a silver shimmering soul clinging to the now-dismembered bones. A shiver crawled down my flesh, making my hair stand on end. Her soul was still in there, trapped in the bones. Aware.

I swallowed around the sick taste that crawled up the back of my throat. I knew nothing about this fae, but I ached for her. I’d never considered the full ramifications of the fact the collectors couldn’t enter Faerie. How long had a living soul been stuck inside a dead body? How much of what happened to that shell had she been aware of? I cringed again, catching sight of how very small the bag was where her bones had been shoved.

But guilt and sympathy were not the only issues I had to deal with. Her soul presented a very big complication.

I couldn’t raise a shade while the soul was still inside the body—my magic just didn’t work that way.

As long as the soul was inside the body, it was somewhat alive and protected. I could eject the soul, but it would become a ghost and be stuck inside my circle until I broke the barrier. Ghosts couldn’t interact with the mortal world, but I was a crossover point for realities, and they were very physical to me. I didn’t know what kind of fae I was dealing with, or how well she’d cope with being dead. But even if she didn’t go all poltergeist on me, to eject her, trap her in a circle with her desecrated body, and then raise her shade in front of her would be a type of torture.

I turned to where the others waited outside my circle. “We have a problem. She’s still . . . in there,” I said and the queen raised one dark eyebrow, not understanding. “Meaning her soul hasn’t been collected and moved on yet.”

“So?”

“I can’t raise her shade unless I eject her soul and force her to become a ghost.”

Ryese scoffed under his breath. “See. I told you this would be more trouble than it’s worth.”

Lyell nodded in agreement, but the queen ignored both men. She looked more harassed than concerned. “Ghost. Shade. I don’t care what you have to raise as long as I get my answers.”

Right. I wasn’t actually suggesting questioning the ghost. “Ghosts aren’t reliable witnesses. Unlike a shade, they have an ego, their own motivations, and they can—” I cut off because I’d been about to say a ghost could lie, but fae couldn’t lie during life so it was unlikely being dead would change that fact. Besides, while a shade might be an ideal witness, a ghost was basically a person minus the fleshy bits, and most eyewitness accounts came from the living. I might value the blunt honesty of a shade, but most people were accustomed to dealing with the living, and aside from the obvious corporeal limitations, ghosts weren’t all that different personality-wise from a live witness.

So maybe questioning the ghost wouldn’t be the worst thing, if she cooperated. The problem was, I had no idea what kind of ghost would emerge from that bag. How long had she been dead? Nothing decayed in Faerie, so she might have been a savaged skeleton for centuries—and aware of it the entire time. She clearly hadn’t died of natural causes. What tortures might have been inflicted on her premortem? And speaking of torture, Falin had disassembled her skeleton and shoved her in a bag. This ghost might emerge insane.

And I’d be trapped in a circle with her.

I eyed the bag with the glowing soul trapped inside. Whether the ghost could be questioned or if I’d eject her from the body and then have to try to get her out of my circle quickly so she could wander until a collector found her, was uncertain, but I had to get the answers for the queen if I was going to get my independent status. I palmed my dagger again. If the ghost emerged enraged, the dagger was not the best of weapons, but it was better than nothing.

Taking a deep breath, I reached with my magic. I didn’t usually use magic to manipulate souls, but honestly, I was surprised it hadn’t self-ejected yet. A soul clinging to a fairly well-preserved corpse was one thing, but this one was barely a body anymore. I lifted my empty hand, and gave a small shove with my magic.

The soul moved under my magic’s touch, and it felt kind of like tugging saltwater taffy apart, as though the soul clutched to the bones with every bit of strength it had left, unwilling to give up the body that had sustained it. But it did move. I drew on more magic, and shoved harder. A shimmering shape sprang out of the bag, the glow fading as it transitioned to the land of the dead, until a pale figure stood in the grass before me.

The fae woman was shorter than I expected, at least a foot and a half smaller than me, and her frame was thin, delicate. I hadn’t noticed those details when she’d been just a skeleton sitting on the throne, but then I hadn’t been looking too hard. Her eyes were dark, with no distinction between pupil and iris, and no white areas. They were her largest feature, dominating her face and overshadowing a very small pointed nose and a thin slit of a mouth. Her hair, if you wanted to call it that, swept back from her head in long crystalline projections, like icicles exploding from her scalp. From my angle, I could just barely catch sight of wings growing from her back, but I had no idea if they’d actually carried her in life because what I could see of them had dozens of holes in the gauzy flesh, like lace. Or a snowflake.