Page 65 of Death and Do-Overs

I nodded. “The dead guy is the one who broke into the hotel and took Nie’s head from my nightstand.”

“You described the kidnapper as a shadowy figure. This guy looks so human,” Imogen said.

Yes, he did. It was unsettling.

“You’re sure this is the guy?” Imogen asked.

“I am,” I said.

“Unfortunate that Wendy’s not here,” Imogen said. “You sure you want to let him be carried off? We could try to hide him until she can get here and make him talk.”

That wasn’t a bad idea, but I wasn’t completely confident in Wendy’s magical ability. If she brought the dead guy back to life and his communication was as limited as Nie’s had been, it may take days for him to be able to tell us what had happened. Or, even if he was capable, he may choose not to help us at all.

Plus, we’d lose the opportunity that lay in front of us right now.

“Who’s Wendy?” Levi asked.

“She’s this really cool lych in our coven, so like this undead witch who has powers over the dead. She can make them do stuff like follow her around, though the jury’s out as to how well the reanimated can communicate. But Wendy’s getting stronger and more magically amazing every day. We all are. So she’ll get there, I just know it.”

Imogen’s words struck me like a dagger to the intestines.

Levi turned to me. “You’re a witch?”

I wanted to trust Levi. I chose to trust Levi.I repeated the words in my head a second time. Then a third.

“Fiddlesticks.” Imogen lifted her hand over her lips. “Was I not supposed to talk about witch stuff? You said he knew about magic, and I thought…I’m so sorry, Marnie.”

“It’s fine,” I said, as much to myself as to Imogen, because it was fine. She asked me on the way down here what she wasand was not allowed to say. I didn’t tell her to keep my nature a secret.

The uncertainty clenching in my guts was misguided. If I never let anyone in, I never would have become friends with Wendy and Jayden, or even Imogen. It wasn’t like she’d given him my social security number, the name of my first pet, and my mother’s maiden name.

I shook out my arms and pushed past the nerves tightening and pulsing through my limbs. “Yes, I am a witch.”

The words hung in the air between us. What they meant to Levi, I had no idea. I hardly knew what they meant to me.

“Nie wasn’t my sister,” I said, though I had already told him as much before. The next part, though, I’d held back. My hands trembled. I wove my fingers together like a basket, tight, secure, unmoving. I took a breath. “She was another version of me.”

Levi scanned my face as if there was something more to see or learn from my flat expression or maybe from my wrinkles.

I plowed ahead, putting it all out there. “I said before that I was in Nevermore to meet a friend, but that wasn’t entirely true.”

“I met you here,” Imogen said.

I nodded. “But I came to find out what happened to Nie. Her head was delivered to me in a box.”

“But without an address or gift tag on the box, it could have been for me,” Imogen said. “Or for Wendy.”

“She bought a train ticket for Nevermore before she died. She was cursed when she got here. And even though I have her memories now, I still don’t know what happened.” My pulse pounded in my ears. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The words wouldn’t stop pouring from my mouth. “The alley we found with the blood, it was a death site. That’s why Nie was chantingdie die die. It was her glove, but she wasn’t the killer. She was the victim.”

“You found where Nie died?” Imogen said softly.

“Yes,” I said, not even realizing I hadn’t told her that already. “And the kernel of truth at the midnight market wasdon’t lose your head.Which I did.”

My whole body hummed with an electricity that made me feel like I could puke at any second.

“I don’t know what this kernel of truth thing is, but it doesn’t sound like it was very helpful,” Imogen said.

I stared at Levi. It was his turn to say something, to comment, to give me any sort of reaction beyond his own flat expression and the startling spark of light behind his green eyes.

---