Chapter 17 #2
“I don’t think this journal belonged to a human,” Raum said, setting the parchment down on the table.
“They way they speak of magic and handling the skull—it’s mournful and sad, and there’s anger at the humans who had it, and they wrote about where they buried it like they were planning on returning for it. ”
Raum eyed Ezra carefully and continued. “You’re a necromancer, too. Dual-affinity sorcerer.”
“Um, yeah. Yes.” He took a second. Sometimes people had negative opinions about necromancers. “Is that a problem?”
Raum shook his head. “No, not a problem at all. I’ve known since I met you. I’m just not sure if you’re okay to talk about it. I haven’t heard of a dual-affinity necromancer before.”
“As far as I know, I’m the only one. I don’t like advertising it because of people’s reaction to necromancers as a whole.
I’m not after world domination or raising zombie armies.
” Ezra shrugged. “My affinity kept the skull from draining me, too. I interrupted the cycle of magic long enough for Grendel to get the skull in a reliquary.”
“I bet that comes in handy, a death and fire affinity. Especially for a curse-breaker.”
“Made it feel like Fate, going into curse-breaking as a career choice.”
Raum looked at the charcoal sketch of the skull, and Ezra could practically see him thinking hard about the situation.
“Is there a name given to the journal owner?” Ezra asked. He gently flipped through more plastic sleeves containing more pages of what must have been the same journal, as the handwriting appeared to be the same. There were about half a dozen pages, dated in the same year as the original expedition.
“No, there’s no name,” Raum said after he flipped through the binder as well.
“With the pages like this I think the original journal is no longer around. These pages might be the only surviving pieces.” Raum gently closed the binder.
“Would knowing who the journal author is help you destroy the skull?”
Ezra bit his lip, thinking hard. “Whoever the journal author is, they didn’t destroy the skull—they merely returned it to its reliquary and buried it.
They may not have known how to free the living soul and destroy the skull.
You said they sounded sad about it—I think they might have destroyed it if they could have. ”
“Another dead end, then?” Raum asked, regret heavy in his tone.
“Set the issue aside for another time, more like,” Ezra shrugged one shoulder. “Something to puzzle over after the skull is stopped and the soul is freed.”
Ezra stared at the vellum drawing of the skull, and he remembered the sketch he took from the table at the MERS camp out in the wild.
He figured it had been drawn by Monica Blevins’ boyfriend, the mistroke happening at the time of his death.
It was still tucked in the pocket of Lilith’s carrier back in his room at Sacred Threshold.
“Raum?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve got a charcoal drawing by one of the deceased graduate students, drawn just prior to his death. Should I give it to Monica Blevins, his girlfriend? I’m not the best at deciphering emotional cues of other people. Is that something she might want? I forgot I had it.”
“I’d very gently ask her if she wanted it before just handing it over.”
“Gently?” He stopped, trying to figure out how to be gentle to someone who’d just suffered a devastating emotional loss and traumatizing experience, when he hadn’t been gentle yet in his interactions with her so far. “Oh.”
“Maybe make the connection through the sergeants or Major Grendel, so you don’t need to do it?” Raum suggested.
Ezra grabbed his phone and sent an email to Chase asking him to make the connection to Monica, and telling him about the drawing.
He didn’t receive a response right away, so he set his phone aside.
“I sent an email to Chase asking for his help.” His phone dinged a second later, and he checked his email to see Chase agreeing to contact Monica and ask about the drawing.
“That’s good,” Raum said. “At least we got an answer to one problem, no matter how small.”
“We’ve got more problems though, and no answers.”
Raum gently pushed away the binder and closed and stacked some books, clearing space on the table in front of him and Ezra. He watched in open curiosity and waited for Raum to finish clearing the head of the table where they sat.
Raum turned toward Ezra and put his hands flat on the table.
“Usually whenever research comes to a dead end, I like to reevaluate the goal. It’s been a couple days since we sat down and started, and we’ve learned some things, but we’ve got some heavy questions still, and the dire state of what we do know lends some urgency to your mission.
Let’s talk about your goals, and what do we need to do to get you there? ”
“Okay,” Ezra said, a bit startled but willing to make a fresh start on everything.
Too many tangents of what-ifs and the unknown were pulling him this way and that.
“Goal—free the living soul, essentially nullifying the magic cycle of the skull without causing a catastrophic explosion of Elder fae aspectral magic.”
“Good, we’ve got a solid goal,” Raum grabbed a blank pad of paper and a pen and began writing, making a short note at the top and circling it. “As concisely as possible, what do you need right now to get you closer to this goal?”
“An Elder fae expert. Maybe even an Elder fae of the same species as the skull who can give me actionable steps to help the soul wake and then fade. If the living soul fades, then the skull will probably fade as well; it’ll take care of itself.”
“Right. Elder fae expert.” Raum wrote that down, then made another note beside it. “That’s where my grandfather comes in. He can find you another Elder fae expert, if they exist. He’s an Elder fae, a High Court Sidhe, but he needs time to source some contacts and speak to other Elder peoples.”
Ezra nodded, breathing easier. Things were simpler now. “I need to give your grandfather the time he needs to find someone to help, or to learn what he needs to help the spirit fade.”
Raum nodded and wrote TIME in big letters at the bottom of the paper, circling it several times.
He turned the pad and slid it across the table to Ezra, who caught it and looked down at it, glad he met Raum.
He’d made the entire mess in Ezra’s head calm down and see that there was something he could do—wait.
There was nothing he could do at the moment except wait.
Ezra wasn’t so good at waiting, but if he had something to distract him…
“Want to go on a date while we wait?” he blurted out, freezing. Oh, shit, he said that out loud.
Raum gave him a beautiful smile. “I would love to.”