Page 39 of Death and Do-Overs

“What sister?” I asked.

“I know you’d prefer not to share anything about yourself with me, Marshmallow, but you can’t expect me to pretend you weren’t carrying your sister’s head in your bag yesterday.”

Marshmallow.

He’d called me Marshmallow again with a straight face. Between exhaustion and the absurdity of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I almost cracked a smile.

Levi knew about magic. He’d known about Nie, having heard herdie die diechants in the alleyway when I’d first arrived in Nevermore. He hadn’t reacted then, but he’d heard and he knew everything.

I stared at him, ignoring the pain in my feet and having absolutely no idea what to say.

“Why don’t you let me help you with your injuries,” Levi said, “and you can tell me why your sister so adamantly cheers for my demise.”

Absurdity bubbled up through my chest, because apparently I’d lost it. I pressed my lips together to suppress the irrational laughter that poised itself to escape.

It took me a moment to get it together and respond. “Nie wasn’t talking to you.”

In an instant, he was on me. He moved so fast I didn’t see him coming. He scooped me up into his arms like I weighed nothing, like touching me didn’t overwhelm every one of his systems.

My composure didn’t fare so well.

One of his arms curled around my back, the other tucked in the crook of my knees, so his bare forearm was pressed against my bare thigh. It was a gentle embrace. It caring almost, even though he had no reason to be caring.

He smelled like freshly fallen rain. He felt warm and firm. He felt safe.

Alarm bells went off in my head as he carried me back into my room. I needed to make a break for it, or there would be no catching up with Bernadette and Nie. But I couldn’t convince my body to move.

Levi set me on the edge of the mattress and knelt to examine my foot. All I could do was stare.

“Don’t move,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument. Then he rose to his feet and disappeared through the hole in the wall, only to reappear a moment later with a first aid kit.

Once again, he knelt down in front of me.

And I still wasn’t wearing any pants.

As he opened his kit and searched through its contents, he said, “I’ll assume you don’t want to tell me what Nie is short for.”

“Is your name really Levi?”

“Yes.”

I believed him. “Why can’t I find you online?”

“You’re not looking in the right place,” he said.

Like The Library or the dark web?

I asked, “What is the right place?”

“You’d have to search for my stage name. Mr. Feathers.”

“Seriously?” I stared at him.

He didn’t crack a smile or show any sign that he was joking. “Go ahead and look me up.”

I snatched my phone from the nightstand and typed inMr. Feathers. Tons of images and Levi on stage came up, along with a bunch of photos with children. Given the props in the pics… “You’re a magician.”

“A traveling one.”

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