I nodded, saying, “It was.” His fingers went to my forehead and he exhaled softly.

“Barely warm.”

“It was a quick one.” I pulled up and looked at the lamia, dead on the chaise lounge. “Her name was Damara. There was a boy. Human. Toby. That’s who …”

I trailed off, seeing Gabriel’s expression of barely concealed impatience, and I gave a small, wry smile. I might hear that story and grieve for the girl who’d found a boy, found the best part of a very long and not very happy life, the girl who’d pulled forth that memory to comfort her as she died. Gabriel heard it and thought, Yes, yes, let’s get to the important part.

“She knew her killer. It was a girl or a woman. Someone who knew what she was.”

“Aunika?”

“It didn’t sound like her voice or anyone I recognized. Damara was summoned to meet her attacker. She thought it was about moving to Cainsville. That was the entire conversation. She didn’t see her killer. It was dark and the attack came from nowhere and—No, wait. Her killer said she was supposed to do more, but she decided that was enough.”

“Complete the ritual.”

I nodded. “In my first vision, the lamia was … sliced open. This killer skipped that, which is how Damara survived to get here. She played dead.”

But now she was dead, her glamour faded but not gone, leaving a girl covered in scales, a girl with a half-dozen stab wounds in her chest, a girl who’d used the last of her energy, not to get home for a final moment with her lover, but to cover her injuries with a glamour and get here to speak to us. Only we were too far away, and when we arrived, she only had energy left for those few final clues.

“We need to …”

I gazed at the body. We need to what? What do we do with a dead fae girl?

“I-I’ll call Veronica,” I said.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“She will fade,” Veronica said after I explained. “If you leave her where she is, the glamour will dissolve and eventually so will she.”

“Which is why the other lamiae victims weren’t found.” I thought of the bodies in the tunnel. I still needed to move them. As for why they hadn’t faded, I’d ask about that, too, later.

“I would presume she doesn’t look nearly as human now?” Veronica said.

I glanced over. I’d put my jacket over her, but could see her features changing, becoming more serpentine.

“No,” I said. “She doesn’t.”

“That will last only an hour or so before she’s gone.”

“Where does she go? I mean, her spirit. To the afterlife?”

Silence.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not trying to break our agreement. I’m just a little … shaken up.”

“We don’t go anywhere, Olivia,” she said softly. “That is one part of the human lore that’s true, which is why I hesitated. I thought you knew.”

“You don’t go …”

“We have no afterlife. We aren’t mortal.”

“But you’re not immortal.”

“Not invulnerable, but most of us can live until we are killed or until we no longer wish to live.”

“Oh.” I looked at Damara. I thought of a girl whose best moment in life—her most treasured moment—was cuddling up with a boy and feeling loved. That was all she got. All she’d ever get.

“Is there … Is there anything I can …” I glanced at Damara. “No, I guess if she doesn’t go anywhere, there isn’t anything more I can do.”

“There is, but you do not need to feel obligated—”

“What is it?”

“Take her someplace wild before she fades. Forest, meadow, even a farmer’s field or a park in the city. We don’t pass into another life, but there is something left, an energy, some small awareness, and if she’s in a natural place, that remains.”

“We’ll do that.”

We took Damara to Jackson Park. It was past midnight now, and Gabriel was able to find a spot to park, if not quite legally, and we carried her covered body inside the grounds. Damara hadn’t reverted any further. This was her true form—human and serpent combined.

By the time we got her there, she was already fading. We found a spot and stayed until she was gone, and Gabriel managed, with some difficulty I suspect, not to check his messages until we were back at the car.

I slept at Gabriel’s. It wasn’t too late to go back to Cainsville, but I didn’t want to spend my first night in the Carew house feeling like this, and if I stayed at my apartment, I’d only think of the house, of a magical evening gone so horribly wrong.

Come morning, we did go to Cainsville. We got there early, and we walked Melanie and Pepper to the diner, knowing it’d be almost empty. Veronica went with us, and a few of the elders showed up, and I could say they went to eavesdrop, but they seemed to be there as protection, taking tables around us, so we could speak in private.

We could, of course, have spoken even more privately at Veronica’s house, but I remembered how much Pepper had liked her hot breakfast, and I thought that might cushion the news. She seemed a little better in Cainsville. Melanie claimed she’d spoken yesterday, and I hated to hurt her now. But they had to know.

I told Melanie and Pepper what had happened.

Pepper let out a whimper and said, in a breathy voice, “Damara?”