Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
I woke up in a box that felt like a terrarium, all glass, but the really magical thing was that I was absolutely without pain when Mercury opened the lid and stared down at me. He’d never looked at me like that before, cautious, like I really might be a danger to him.
I sat up quickly, then grabbed the sides of the box so I wouldn’t fall back down when the black and silver laboratory spun alarmingly. “What is it? What did you find out? Am I a ghoul?”
He offered me a placating smile. He was going to lie to me, so I didn’t feel bad about the kind of monster I was. He worried about the feelings of the dead. “Nothing like that. I’d like to see an associate about your condition. Do you remember the nature of your blood? Do you have infernal or heaven-touched parents?” He asked so gently, like it might be offensive to suggest one or the other, but as an infernal creature, he wasn’t sure which.
I shook my head. “Human. My family prided themselves on not mingling with either.” And now their daughter was undead.
His forehead wrinkled, like that was bad news. “You’re certain?”
“Can’t you tell? You took my samples and analyzed them with dark magic and more scientific methods, didn’t you?”
He tilted his head slowly as he studied me, then slowly shook his head. “I used the ordinary methods to measure the rate and speed of your decomposition as well as regeneration, but what I’m finding doesn’t track with anything else I’ve seen before.”
I hesitated while my stomach turned over in a weird way, like it didn’t know how to flop, but it wanted to. “You think that I’m something new? How exciting. For a serious necromantic sorcerer like yourself, you must be thrilled to have such a rarity in your lab. I should charge you to test me. You could get a Nobel Prize for your research.”
His lips tilted into an almost-smile. “I will have to investigate what the going rate is for test subjects, Miss Nativitae.”
“Call me Nova.”
He gave me a slight nod. “Very well. Have you been sleeping well?”
I nodded, and that time my head didn’t hurt at all. “I feel much better, thank you.” Truly, I was so incredibly grateful that he’d found me and taken me out of that awful sewer so I could get warm and regenerate. Who knows how long I would have stayed there, miserable, dying without ever being dead if he hadn’t saved me?
He glanced away, like he was embarrassed by my gratitude. “Pity you don’t have blood that I can draw. Do you mind if I hook you to some tubes? It may hurt at first, but lead to better recovery in the long run. You’re getting thinner.”
My whole life, being perfectly lean was the goal, a challenge when my bone structure wasn’t as fine as some people’s. Now I was losing weight without trying, but I was too dead to appreciate it. I wasn’t too dead to appreciate being clean and warm.
“You’re going to put puréed brains in my vein?” I asked lightly.
“IV with various supplements,” he said like I hadn’t been joking. Maybe I hadn’t been. Being undead shouldn’t be so serious. I mean, he had a sense of humor, so he should use it.
“I’ll only take the brains of intelligent donors. You know, you are what you eat.” I smiled at him brightly, knowing I probably looked like a ghoulish monster, but he wouldn’t mind.
He frowned at me, but his lips twitched. “Yes, well, I’ll take that into consideration. There tends to be a shortage of donors, so I might have to use other methods to meet your startling demands.”
I smiled and patted his shoulder with my stubby fingers. They didn’t hurt, so I wouldn’t worry about how much losing my hands’ fingers would affect my ability to work. “I have complete confidence in you. Do you want me to lie back down before you go?”
He blinked and caught my hand in his, running over these new dimensions. It made me self-conscious, but when I tried to subtly pull away, his hand encased mine like iron. Gentle iron, but still. His voice was a murmur. “No. I have a bed where you’ll be more comfortable.” He frowned at me, still holding my amputated fingers in his grasp. I stared back, uncertain what he wanted.
“Do you want to tell me where it is? I’m not familiar with all your beds yet.”
“Yet?” He raised a brow and looked slightly scandalized.
“Ah…” I would have blushed if I had blood. As it was, I shrugged and tugged on my hand again. “You know, I have this thing about falling over. Beds are the best things to fall on. That’s practically what they were made for.”
“Practically? I see. You must be extremely practical.”
“Absolutely. I mean, I’m joking with you so I don’t burst into waterless tears, but underneath all of that is a cold and heartless workaholic that you can rely on.”
“To fall on all the beds.” He shook his head slightly then picked me up with his careful hands, holding his breath while he carried me across the room, around a star burned into the black wooden floor, to a narrow hospital bed that was swallowed by a cloud of dust when he pulled back the sheet. Clearly, no one had used this bed for a long time. Of course not. Why would he even have a hospital bed for the living when he was set up to care for the dead? He clearly needed to hire someone to dust. The trouble with nominating myself for the task is that I’d always been busy with things other than housekeeping and not even allowed to make up my own bed. The few times I’d tried, the maid had scowled at me for a week. She’d also had to fix the horrible job I’d done and muttered the entire time not-very under her breath.
The dark sorcerer carefully lowered me onto the bed between the sheets and then pulled the top one up, tucking it under my arm so my inner elbow was turned up. He looked at me, the familiar compassion tinged with uncertainty. He didn’t know what I was, needed to do some more tests, and I might be something so unbelievably vile and dangerous that I couldn’t be allowed to live.
I grabbed his wrist as he started to turn away. “If I’m a danger to you and the world, it’s okay to end me, to protect yourself first. I absolve you of any and all guilt.” He was the type of dark sorcerer who would feel guilty.
His concern faded into a slight smile as he brushed my cheek with his fingers. “You are not and will never be a physical danger to me, Miss Nova. My safety is the last thing you need to worry about.” After that, he slipped a thin needle into my elbow, glancing at me, checking to see if he’d hurt me. I’d had more than my share of needles, thanks to all the surgeries and injections, and he had the gentlest, most knowledgeable needlework I’d ever experienced.
“I didn’t feel a thing,” I reassured him, offering a smile that he wouldn’t find slightly horrifying. It was hard to remember how hideous I was, when he never acted like it, but he didn’t act like I was the most beautiful woman in the world, either. He acted like… How did he act? Like a vet who had found a run-over puppy, probably. He would take me in, patch me up, and then try to rehome me. I would be the comic relief in this dramedy.
He spoke with an edge to his low voice. “I’m afraid that your regeneration may get more painful before you are fully healed, but I will do my best to assist you. For now, rest, and I will return soon.”
I nodded. “I understand pain before healing. Do the dead heal? I suppose they must regenerate to one degree or another. How long will it take? I feel so much better, but I suppose it takes time to thoroughly transition. I’m sorry for the questions. Go ahead and visit your associate.” I was rambling, when I had always been so careful what came out of my mouth. But as long as he didn’t know who I’d been, I was just another dead girl, and he was safe. I knew with every fiber of my unbeating heart that he wouldn’t hurt me.
He hesitated, then nodded and turned, striding out of the room with conviction. Why did the bad guys always look so much better than the good ones? My former fiancé hadn’t had conviction. Grace, yes, confidence, absolutely, but not conviction. Did Philip have anything to do with my murder? Of course not. He wouldn’t get his hands dirty, and whoever had killed me had very, very dirty hands.
I lay on the hospital bed, staring up at my clear plastic IV bag on its metal rod, the room dimly lit by the large lamp with a green shade sitting on his desk. The desk was hidden beneath papers and diagrams, a mess, but a comfortable disorder, like he really lived here and wasn’t trying to impress anyone. It wasn’t like any other doctor’s office I’d ever been in, and I’d been to hundreds. There were so many interesting things lining the shelves, bottles of strange body parts, bones, skulls, boxes and jars, with books, so many old leather books with infernal writing and Latin etched into the spines. I should have been horrified, but I wasn’t. It felt like my dad’s study where he kept all his gardening books and seed starting supplies. It was a place where you didn’t have to be perfect, where things were expected to topple and it didn’t matter at all.
My chest ached, panging for my dad, for his dogs, for the breakfasts we had on the weekends now that I’d moved out of the townhouse and lived in my own apartment. It used to be every morning, him and the mutts, while my mother organized his kingdom, but now… Not now. Now I was an undead who might become like the vile and vicious monster that had murdered me. There was a sobering thought.
I shook my head and focused on the room. I didn’t have time to panic today.
The three human-sized boxes along the walls were familiar, at least two were, the terrarium and the tanning bed. The third looked like a solid lead box. Maybe there was something truly terrifying inside. Vilus had a demon rat-man kept in a box who would do his evil bidding. The makeup wasn’t any better than the special effects, but the rat-man was a pretty convincing actor.
There were two doors in the Necromancer’s laboratory, one that we’d come in and he’d gone out of, and another with a frame made out of some kind of unearthly black metal surrounded by another layer of stone. The door itself looked like black ink, its shiny surface rippling every now and then. It no doubt led to somewhere truly deadly dangerous, but I wouldn’t ever have to worry about it, because I had no intention of opening that door.
I was very comfortable, safe, and with the bubbling of one of his vials over an open flame among the many twisting tangled tubes creating ambient sound, I drifted off, sleeping like the dead.
I woke up to pain. My lungs burned like I’d run a thousand miles, my stomach cramped and twisted, and my chest throbbed with every agonizing slow beat of my heart. My heart was beating? Why? And my breath. I was breathing. Breathing hurt so much. My mouth was dry. My head pounded. All of me hurt, but different from before. This was the pain of all the times I’d woken up from surgery, compounded by a million, without the residue of drugs to dull the ache.
I whimpered and tried not to breathe, but then my lungs hurt and black spots swam across my vision from not getting enough oxygen.
“Doctor Mercury?” I whispered, pressing my hand to my chest, trying to displace some of the pain. Tears welled up in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks, hot and heavy. Why was I crying liquid? Did the dead do that? It must have been something he put in the IV. He’d warned me that it would hurt before it got better, but I hadn’t thought it would hurt like this.
The door creaked open, and I breathed shallowly, hoping that the dark sorcerer’s gentle hands would inject something to deaden the pain. A gaunt face peered in, black eyes dull like coal, and then in shuffled a man dressed in a dusty pink tuxedo, with red splatters along his cuffs and hem. Was the suit velvet? The sight of his outfit almost distracted me from the pain, but then I accidentally breathed and wanted to die. Except that I was already dead. Regeneration shouldn’t hurt so much.
“Miss Nova,” he said ponderously, carrying a tray towards me, walking carefully around the star burned into the floor. “I brought you a glass of water and an aspirin for your headache.”
“My headache?” I wheezed. Yes, I had a throbbing headache, but it was nothing compared to my various organs screaming at me like I was responsible for any of this.
He nodded and then leaned over me, holding the tray. I eyed that tiny white pill. Was that really an aspirin? Would something so small help with anything? I grabbed the glass of water and then froze when I saw my hand, specifically the fingers that had been chopped off and were now knuckle-length. My fingers were regrowing.
A wave of pain went through me that had me tossing back the pill. I drank the water, spilling because my hands were shaking so much. I gulped and swallowed water that shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. So much. Everything hurt, breathing, not breathing, swallowing, not swallowing, just everything. But once the glass was empty, the walking corpse beamed at me, showing his narrow, chipped teeth.
“Very good. Is there anything else I can get for you?”
I panted, trying to hold back tears. “When will Mr. Mercury come home?”
He frowned, every expression exaggerated on his lean, gaunt face. “Master comes soon. Shall I put you to sleep?”
I nodded. If he had drugs better than aspirin…
He moved much faster than I expected, striking me across the temple and knocking me out cold.
The next time I woke up, the pain was a dull throb, but my headache wasn’t any better. I took my time to open my eyes, mostly because they were sticky. After I pried my eyes open, I looked around the lab, relieved to see the necromancer seated behind his desk, studying a chart he held with one hand, and with the other made arcane marks in the air that hung there, black, shivering before they disappeared into nothing. Arcane arts were terrifying, absolutely, but at the same time, there was something beautiful about the effortless way he created something so complex. He controlled so many things that I couldn’t begin to understand, but he took the time to rescue dead girls from the dark and the cold.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said, keeping his focus on the work, but still noticing me.
I self-consciously rubbed my face, adjusted my robe, and checked my hand. The damaged fingers were an inch shorter than they’d been before they got cut off, but they’d regrown miraculously. I stretched and curled my fingers, aware of the ache in them because most of my body had settled down to a dull throb instead of screaming agony. I was regenerating very well.
Mercury finally put down his paper and stood, waving a hand to banish all the marks that had remained in the air. He adjusted his cuffs before he walked around his desk, avoiding the star in the center of the room as he approached me. Was he nervous? He wasn’t looking at me. Did something happen to make me even more hideous? Had my eyeballs fallen out of my skull or something even more grotesque?
When he reached the side of my bed, he finally looked at me with resolve, like it was difficult for him to meet my eyes. I wanted to check to make sure they were still okay, but I’d been taught not to fidget or show any self-consciousness when you were being judged. I only stared back at him, noticing his close shave, his fresh haircut that left it falling across his forehead in an elegant sweep while his immaculate suit was tailored perfectly to showcase his broad shoulders. He must have gone to an important dark sorcerer’s meeting while he’d been out. He even smelled nice, like a spicy aftershave with complicated notes that must have come from France.
“Miss Nativitae,” he began.
“I thought we agreed that you’d call me Nova.” He was going to get rid of me because I was something that not even the masterful necromancer could control, but he’d be polite about it.
His brows furrowed slightly before he forced an even expression as he met my gaze. “You aren’t dead.” He offered me a slight bow. “Congratulations on your full recovery.”
I stared at him. This was his bad news? It felt like bad news. I’d just gotten used to the idea of being dead, but now I was alive? “How is that possible? Was I not really dead?”
“No, you were dead, but you regenerated back to a fully living, operational state. You must be thirsty. I’ll send for something for you to eat as well. What would you like? I can get anything from Singsong or Apple City.”
I held out my hand to him so he could see, both of us staring at my fingers that were growing back. “It’s not possible for people to regrow their fingers.” I looked up at him for validation.
He hesitated, then shrugged. “Not ordinarily, no.”
“Why are my fingers growing back? Why did I come back from the dead? Is it a miracle? It didn’t feel like a miracle, although my mother does say a lot of prayers.”
He exhaled and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Your mother? I will take you to her. She will be relieved to see you again.”
Ah. He wanted to get rid of me now that I wasn’t dead. Was being alive such a threat? When I was dead, he was all compassion and patience, and now that I was alive, he couldn’t wait to get rid of me. No, I’d always been a puppy that he was going to rehome.
My head was spinning. I grabbed onto his hand, my heart racing faster, aching while I started to panic. My fingers were growing back. No one’s fingers grew back. I’d been dead and was now alive. My mother might look at my resurrection as a miracle, but she was suspicious of miracles as well as curses. And if my fingers had grown back, what about my nose? What about the rest of my face and body?
I’d been sculpted into perfection, but if I regrew fingers, how could surgery work on me? Wouldn’t my original nose just come back after all the enhancements oozed out? I carefully touched it and flinched when I felt the dimensions. It was small, pointed, nowhere near the perfect slope it used to be.
I was hyperventilating, hanging onto Mercury’s hand as tight as I could when he sighed heavily and put a hand on my back, patting it awkwardly.
“There is nothing to fear, Miss Nativitae. Your mother will welcome you home with joy.”
I laughed. I laughed and laughed and laughed until I was crying, holding onto his hand like it was the only thing keeping me sane. I wasn’t dead, but I still wasn’t Cassandra Clarence. I wasn’t anyone at all.
His low murmur was concerned as he rubbed my back. “You adjusted better to being dead than being alive. It must be the shock of changing states too many times.”
I bit my bottom lip and forced myself to breathe evenly. This wasn’t the time to have hysterics. Why not? I was alive, but nothing close to who I’d been. What would my mother do if I went home? She’d make the most of it, never waste an opportunity, and if anyone could turn this situation into gains, it was her. She’d use this face somehow, or she’d retire me pleasantly far away from the family and use me for my mind. I wasn’t sure which would be worse. Both options were unbearable. “I can’t go home,” I whispered, finally looking up at him, willing to beg, but not sure if that would work on a dark sorcerer, however compassionate he was. He didn’t have countless other people in his office recovering, so he got rid of them somehow.
I wouldn’t be someone he had to work to get rid of. He deserved better than that after he rescued me from the sewer, ruining his gorgeous jacket for the cause. I raised my chin and smiled a no-doubt creepy smile. “Thank you for all of your efforts on my behalf. If I’m alive and well, you don’t want me around. Your conscience is safe since you don’t need to kill me.”
I pulled the tape off my inner elbow and would have yanked out the tube if he hadn’t covered my hand and elbow with his large palm.
His eyes were cold and hard. “Didn’t I mention that you’re my prisoner? You aren’t leaving without somewhere else to go. If your family is not an option, we’ll find something else.”
He was serious about rehoming his strays. I covered his hand with mine, holding him tight. “But I’m a hugger when I’m alive. I’ll be a serious nuisance to you and your dead employees. I’ll drive Bones crazy, chasing him around for hugs as well as you. I’ll need five hugs a day or will slowly spiral into melancholy. Long squishy hugs. You may have a terrarium and a spa, but you’re not prepared for the likes of me. It’s okay. I mean, if I was able to randomly come back from the dead, there’s nothing to worry about. Seriously, Monsieur Mercury, you’ve already saved me. I don’t want to bother you any more than I already have. I’ll have to pay you back for everything as it is. Don’t put me into eternal slavery.”
His dark brows came together in an ominous frown before it melted away into a pleasant smile that he didn’t try to make look authentic. “Excellent. I have been meaning to try hug therapy, but it’s so rare for me to run into live girls in sewers these days. It used to be all the rave, literally, but now all the raves are up in the vampire clubs. Miss Nova, I hope that we understand each other.” His eyes were hard, determined, like his grasp on my arm.
His attention was like a live wire, shocking me awake in all kinds of places. I licked my lips. “You consider me yours to protect.” I couldn’t believe I’d said that out loud. I always kept my analysis of people to myself, but when he looked at me like that, it was impossible not to be honest with him.
He nodded shortly. “I do.”
“But I’m not dead.”
“You were dead when I found you. The experience will stay with you forever.”
“Forever?” I frowned at him. “Forever because…”
“You’ll likely never die, or if you do, you’ll come back. And I will be here to give you a spa when you do.” He said it like a declaration.
My heart fluttered as I studied the impossible dark sorcerer, who was nothing I could ever control or contain. “You’re stubborn.”
“I did mention the hardness of my skull. It’s just as well that you’ll be staying my prisoner as there’s a murderer running around that I am determined to find. As you can’t remember the particulars, it’s best if you remain safely in my care.” His smile became slightly malicious as he picked me up and into his arms.
Was he going to crush me to death?
He cradled me close and nuzzled my cheek with his nose. It was the oddest sensation to have such a large, dangerous, powerful person acting like a puppy. Or I was a puppy, and he was the person who was snuggling it.
I didn’t hug. My dad sometimes pulled me in for a quick side-hug, but I took after my mother, or I’d been trained by her to look at close physical proximity as something of an insult.
“Nova, I believe that hugs are supposed to be reciprocated,” he murmured in my ear, his low voice positively delicious.
A ripple of something went through me that I’d never felt before, pleasant warmth and comfort that had me relaxing against him until I slowly wrapped my arms around him and clung to him like I was back in the sewer. Hm. I suppose that had been a kind of hug. Was this torturing him? It didn’t seem like it. He held me against his body until we were molded together, hearts beating, breaths mingling, his strength and warmth flowing into me until I pulled away abruptly, feeling so strange. It felt good to be held, particularly when I was not the sort of package that would fly off the shelves, but at the same time, it made me want to be desirable to this strange and compelling man. My whole life I’d been pushed to be the most beautiful, the most pleasant, the most capable, but I’d never wanted it for me personally. What an idiotic time to find some value in being attractive to the opposite sex to actually, you know, attract the opposite sex.
He let me pull away, placing me down on the edge of the bed, but his expression was unreadable as he studied me. He definitely was more amused than tortured. “Are there any other requirements you have as my prisoner?” he asked with those amused eyes.
I rubbed my arms as I sat on the edge of the bed and tried not to show how ruffled I was. I cleared my throat. “Actually, there is. I need some woman’s clothing in my size.”
He glanced down at my robe, then back up at my face, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I think that’s exactly the kind of clothing you should have while you rest and recover, as you will have to do for at least a month.”
I raised my chin and narrowed my eyes at him. “You expect me to lounge around in a robe for a month?”
“At least.”
I sputtered, speechless at the idea of doing nothing for an entire month. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had to stay overnight in a hospital. This was impossible.
He flashed a dangerous smile at me. “That is, perhaps I can be persuaded to clothe you and allow you well-guarded access to the outside world if you give me what I want in return.”
I stared at him. A week ago, I would have known exactly what a virile man would want from me. Now, I had no idea. “More hugs?”
His smile sharpened. “More details, Miss Nova. Tell me more about your death, the train ride, what train, what time it left, where it came from, what your eventual destination was in Singsong City, every little detail you can remember. Also, who you were is an essential detail that will make or break the case.”
I stared at him while anger and helplessness mixed with this weird desire to laugh at the ludicrousness of everything. “You want to find my killer?”
He waved a powerful hand gracefully. “I wouldn’t say that, no. I need to find and return the pain he gave you with interest. Need, not want.” His eyes burned with malevolence that I found more fascinating than terrifying. It brought the silver to life in his eyes like a real electric current was running through those dark strands.
“Because you worked so hard to put me back together?”
“Because…” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re evading.”
I smiled brightly at him, not trying to look subtle and demure. “I’m moving on from my past. Yes, I need to bring the murderer to justice, but I’m not handing my life over to a complete stranger. No offense. After twenty-four hours together, I’m not ready to share my deepest, darkest secrets.”
His gaze was flat, calculating. “A name would suffice.”
“What’s in a name?”
“Or an address.”
“I have no idea where I’m living.”
He gestured at me. “And there you are. Living in denial. Miss Nova, I am the best chance you have of finding this killer before he finds you. Your life is at risk as long as the killer is at large.”
“The only life not at risk is the one that’s already over. I won’t tell you who I was, but I will tell you what I remember about the day. We were on the three o’clock train from Apple City to go to The Detective Warlock con.”
He jerked back like I’d just flung acid in his face.
I studied his reaction, partially amused but mostly depressed. This was something that had been a deep, dark secret in my last life, but now was probably the most normal part of me. I shrugged. “I’m a fan. It’s not just a drama, it’s real art, particularly when Winston the Warlock takes off his shirt. Too bad Vilus doesn’t run around shirtless. Probably because, as a tall and lurking evil guy, he lacks Winston’s musculature. Still, I’d pay good money to see whatever he’s got under that button-up.”
“You came to Singsong City with your friends to fawn over some pretentious actors ?” He couldn’t be more scathing if he tried. He looked so absolutely appalled at the entire thing, dark eyes flashing while that silver roiled.
“You know, if you helped them a little, they could probably have much better special effects. I bet they’d pay well.”
He blinked at me, then shook his head slightly as he reined in all of his emotions behind his impassive mask. “Not at all, Miss Nova. Not at all. Now that you’ve revealed your deepest, darkest, most shameful secret, I must offer you something in return.”
“How lovely. I suppose you have a dungeon for me.”
“No. You’ll have to settle for a dusty bedroom. I believe the house feels if a place is too clean, it lacks atmosphere.”
“The house, not the butler?”
“Bones wouldn’t notice dust until it smothered him to death.”
“Or life since he’s already dead. Bones the butler.” I touched my temple where he’d hit me to put me to sleep. “His suit was lovely.”
“Was it? Did he put on his yellow suit for you?”
“He has yellow? No, it was pink velvet with bloodstained cuffs. Now that’s a look that could go right in a Detective Warlock episode. The butler always did it.”
He shuddered and shook his head slightly. “You will have to endure Bones and his unique fashion choices. Don’t tell him that you like his clothing, or he might find something for you.”
“Doesn’t this old place have an attic with old clothes I can wear?” I asked.
He crossed his arms, his own suit coat pulling at the immaculate cuffs. “I built this house myself. There are no ancestors who left trunks behind, and if they had, they would no doubt be cursed or haunted.”
“You built this house?” I looked up at the beams that ran across the ceiling. “With an army of dead?”
“Naturally. I am a notorious necromancer.”
“Of course you are.”
He raised a brow, then returned to his carefully guarded expression. “I had a bodyguard who left her trunks behind some years ago. She wasn’t human, but you wouldn’t mind dressing in something goblin-owned, would you?”
Ah. He was giving me clothes since I’d given him some information, but he was doing it as well as I’d done. I shook my head. “I’d be delighted. Thank you so very much.” My mother would faint if she knew I was wearing something goblins had touched, much less worn.
I hesitated, then slid my legs down to the floor. I looked down at my bare feet, bruised but not terrible, and without a single cut or visible scar. I was alive, but had become unrecognizable to everyone I’d known. Funny how that made me wonder if anyone had ever known me at all.
“Thank you, Mercury. I’m more grateful than I can say that you saved me.”
“Mm.” He held out his arm for me and I took it, because my legs were unsteady. “Miss Nova, there’s something else that may be relevant to your future life and happiness. You mentioned that you have strictly human blood, but when I tested your cell tissue, it is definite that you are at least an eight of something else.”
I stared at him, gripping his arm unconsciously. “Something else? Angelic? Elven?”
His smile turned positively sweet. “Why no, Miss Nova. Goblin. You’re at least one eighth goblin. Surprise!”