Page 124 of Death and Do-Overs

I wanted to. I did. But I couldn’t move from this spot until I could bring Levi with me.

Eyes still closed, Levi moved his lips, but I heard no words come out.

I leaned in to better listen.

It was an inaudible whisper, nothing I could make out. He slipped something into my hand, a piece of paper.

In a glow of golden light, he transformed.

He shrunk so small he could fit into my lap. He no longer had hair for me to pet, but soft black feathers.

Levi was a raven.

His wounds appeared to be gone, but his eyes were closed like he required rest to heal. This was good. Everything was going to be okay.

Otis promised that Levi would live. I’d protect him and make sure he did.

I unfolded the piece of paper Levi had given me. It was a paper cone, I immediately recognized from the popcorn stand at the midnight market.

Inside was Levi’s kernel of truth.

He wanted me to see what it said or he wouldn’t have given me the paper. Fingers trembling, I opened it.

You’ll find your mate reflected in the glass eye of a taxidermied fox.

A fox like we’d seen at the midnight market, the one he’d told me to buy.

Levi had known this whole time. He’d known before we even met.

Levi had no home. He considered a constable of ravens his family, and their hidden community his hometown. He was a raven shifter. And I was his mate.

Thunderous stomps echoed down the hall.

Otis and I looked at each other in understanding.

We had to move,now.

When I was halfway to my feet, the third surviving contestant turned the final corner and came to a stop. It was the man with a shark’s head and torso. His legs remained human-looking, as did his arms. All the better for chasing prey and shoving them into his gullet.

I held Levi protectively in one arm, while I gripped tightly to my pirate cutlass with my other fist.

Shark Man smiled a wide and toothy grin. Then he waved. “Hey, guys!”

I knew that grin.

It was my favorite one of Imogen’s expressions—unbridled enthusiasm, honest in its joy. It was strange seeing it on a shark man, but I couldn’t be happier.

“I am so glad you’re here,” I said.

“Me, too. I wassoscared when I came back from peeing and you were gone.”

I’d been pretty scared myself.

“Vent Marnie found something. I have to help her,” the Imogen-controlled shark man said. “BRB!”

He ran off.

Otis’s brows furrowed in confusion, which was a fair reaction.

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