soul and bring it before my employer, who asks you what afterlife you wish to patronize and then sends you to that place. I do not have your soul; therefore you still owe it to me.”
“Yes, but I’m already in Anwyn, which is where I would have gone—” A thought struck me. “Wait a minute. When I was killed a few days ago, I woke up here, in Anwyn. How could I do that if I have to see Death in order to be sent here?”
Astrid inhaled loudly through her nose. “You violated the rules, that’s how! And let me tell you, we reclamation agents take a very dim view of people who just simply up and go to whatever afterlife they like without having the common decency to let us do our job!”
“So Gwen doesn’t have to see your boss before she picks an afterlife?” Gregory asked. I slid a glance his way. He had an air of being up to something. I sure hoped he was—I had no clue how I was going to get out of handing over my soul to this pushy woman, short of physical violence, and I hated to use that. She was, after all, just doing her job.
“The reclamation rules say that—”
“I’m not asking about your rules. I’m asking whether or not she has to give you her soul and see your boss.”
Astrid squared her shoulders, a pugnacious expression on her face. “I would like to point out that my job is not to claim her soul for myself but to escort it to Death, at which point it is reunited with her body and both are sent on to the afterlife of her choice.”
“I think that answers my question.” Gregory wrapped his arm around my waist. “She doesn’t have to do either. She can bypass you and your boss and go straight to the afterlife she’s most comfortable with, which is, in fact, what she did almost a week ago. Therefore, you have no job to perform, and you can leave without bothering her anymore.”
“She owes me her soul, and she’s going to give it to me!” Astrid screamed, and for a second I thought she was going to attack me.
“Seith!” I yelled, looking around frantically. “Seith! Blast the boy, where is he?”
“Aye, my lady?” A head bobbed up at the back of a large stretch of warriors, only to disappear a moment later.
“Get me the Nightingale!” I bellowed.
SEVENTEEN
“Aaron, might I have a word?”
I stuck like glue to Gregory’s side when he, with blithe disregard of Astrid’s fuming stare, walked nonchalantly over to where Aaron was now physically trying to wrest the screwdriver away from Holly. I felt somewhat naked without my sword, and I didn’t trust Astrid not to pull out some trick that would enable her to run away with my soul.
“Give it . . . to . . . me . . .” Aaron panted in his struggle with the wily Holly.
“Not until you hand Anwyn over to me!”
“Never! I’m the king. You are merely a usurper. Now give me my damned screwdriver so I can tighten up the screws around the loose bolt, and then my beloved Piranha shall mow you and all your leafy friends down!”
“He really doesn’t have a clue as to how a proper threat works, does he?” I whispered to Gregory.
“Not really. But he does have an ability that I believe will solve a big problem. Your Majesty, might I have a moment of your valuable time?”
“You!” Aaron said, still struggling. “You’re a thief—get me back my screwdriver.”
“Easy peasy,” I said, and while Holly was distracted by Gregory turning to her, I slipped behind her, kicked her in the back of the leg, and snatched the screwdriver when she staggered forward. I handed it to Aaron with a flourish. “Here you go.”
“Excellent work. Excellent.” He beamed at the screwdriver and was about to turn back to his machine when Gregory stopped him.
“Would you mind banishing that woman from Anwyn?”
Astrid, on the receiving end of Gregory’s pointed finger, gasped. “You can’t do that!”
“Actually, I can. I’m the king and rightful ruler of this realm.” Aaron cast a disparaging glance at Holly, who was getting to her feet with a furious look in her eye, one that was aimed at Gregory and me. “I’m not going to banish you, but I could if I so desired.”
“Why not?” I asked, my sudden hopes dying a cruel death.
“Because I asked him”—he pointed at Gregory—“to do one simple thing, and he has failed to do it.”
“I have the roebuck in my possession,” Gregory said, a little frown pulling his brows together.
“And I can get you the descendant of the dog that was stolen from you. The dog itself has been dead for centuries, but one of her direct descendants should fulfill that requirement.”
Aaron gestured with the screwdriver. “I suppose it would. She was a damned good bitch, though. But my bird, man—where’s my Vanellus?”
“You call your bird Vanellus?” I couldn’t help but ask.
He gave me an impatient look. “That’s her name.
There was a faint murmur behind me, I half turned, catching my mother’s eye as she mouthed that she’d be right back. She and Mom Two melted into the crowd, leaving me to debate whether or not I should follow them, but I assumed anyone who was a threat would be right here.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t locate the bird,” Gregory was saying when I turned back. “But we will make every effort to find her. I’ll put the full resources of the Watch—assuming I’m still employed by them after they find out about my time here—into finding out what happened to your bird and locating her or her descendants.”
“I don’t want her descendants,” Aaron snarled. “I want my bird.”
At his raised voice, Constance twirled around, one of her hands in the process of stroking Ethan’s head. Holly hissed something quite rude and strode over to them. Constance, her gaze locked on Aaron’s, asked shrilly, “Did you say something about a bird? What bird?”
“My bird, my beloved Vanellus who you drove away, you she-devil!” Aaron stabbed the screwdriver into the air at her and she recoiled and backed up a step, bumping into Holly, who promptly shoved her forward. Ethan bore the look of a man being harangued by a sharp, pointy bit of foliage in human form.
“Aha!” Aaron continued, narrowing his eyes as Constance and her cats tripped lightly forward. “You didn’t know I knew the truth about that, did you? Why do you think I divorced you all those hundreds of years ago?”
Constance’s long, gorgeous hair moved in the breeze, making her appear larger than she was. “We are still married—” she started to say through clenched teeth, but she was interrupted by Aaron shouting at the top of his lungs. “Get out of my sight before I banish you and all of your kinsmen once and for all! I have important work to do, and no one is going to stop me! The Piranha must be fed!”
Several pennies dropped at that moment, enough that it had me staring in stupefaction at Constance, who was hissing and shying away to the side. “She’s a cat?”
Gregory looked nonplussed. “Evidently so. It would explain her perpetual guard of honor.”
“And a lot of other things.” Quickly, in a low voice, I told him about my discussion with the apothecary.
“So Constance got rid of the bird before she was queen,” Gregory said in a thoughtful tone. “Interesting. Do you know, I have an idea about that—”
“Hello, all,” said a voice with a heavy Australian accent. “Am I late for the party? Astrid, luv, mind fetching me a cocktail? I’m as parched as a skin flake in the middle of the Great Victoria Desert. Aaron, you bastard, long time no see. Constance, you’re looking rather rumpled, but still beautiful. Ethan, you great bushranger! How is Diego doing? I can’t say how much I’ve enjoyed your recent Facebook posts about your upcoming book. I do hope you’ve worked out your problem with the angsty teen poetry.”
