Cormack’s expression never shifted. “Oh, I don’t mind being here. Given what happened with the gate a few weeks ago, I have a vested interest in making sure things return to normal as quickly as possible.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that things aren’t normal?”
“Just the revenant that tried to jump through five minutes after we got the gate up and running again yesterday.”
“Oh, right.” Renley bobbed his head. “There wasn’t much information on that attack in your report. All I know is that it took the cleaning crew a full six hours to disinfect this place.”
“You can thank Izzy for that.” Cormack shot me a fond smile. “She took out the revenant once it hit this side. I mean, it was literally here only a few seconds.”
“So I heard.” Renley switched his attention to me, amusement evident. “How did you manage that again?”
“Honestly, it was a reflex.” I was prepared for the question so I knew exactly how to respond. “I was startled when it happened and I just kind of ... reacted. I’m not even sure what I did.”
“It’s still quite impressive.” Renley’s smile never wavered. “Now that we know what you’re capable of, we’ll be less worried about encroaching revenants.”
“Hopefully,” I agreed, not missing a beat. “Right now I don’t know what I did, so I have no idea if I can repeat it. Still, it’s good to know I have it in my arsenal ... somewhere.”
“Yes, well ... .” Renley held my gaze a beat longer, to the point where I wondered if he would ever turn away, and then he focused on the gate. “How are things going?”
“All of the readouts are normal,” Oliver answered. “There hasn’t been so much as a blip since we rebooted.”
“But?”
“But nothing. Things are normal as of right now. However, we all know that things change quickly in this business. Currently we are watching ... and waiting.”
“Fair enough.” Renley flicked his eyes to the man with him, who had yet to say a word and instead remained focused on the glittering surface of the gate. “I’m sure you remember Adam Grimaldi, Cormack. He’s rejoined the team and will be leading the revenant task force.”
“I remember.” Cormack’s smile was cordial but chilly. “I know it’s not my place — and forgive me if I’ve missed a few nuances in this particular story — but what about the reasons Adam left the council in the first place?”
I had to swallow a gasp at his boldness and immediately made a show of staring at my computer. I felt like an intruder in my own department.
Grimaldi’s expression as he turned was calmer than I expected. “I figured you would bring that up.”
“I think it’s important to talk about,” Cormack insisted. “We all know the home office is full of rumors but the ones I heard on this front were distressing.”
“And what did the rumors say?” Grimaldi queried.
“That you were caught removing artifacts from a storage room.”
“Artifacts?”
“A book.”
“A history book,” Grimaldi confirmed. “The rumors are true. I did remove a book. In my defense, I thought it was important at the time.”
Cormack folded his arms across his chest. “I’m going to need more than that.”
“I told you,” Renley said on a laugh, shaking his head. “He’s not going to accept anything without an explanation.”
“That’s how I’ve lived so long,” Cormack agreed.
“It’s fine.” Grimaldi offered up a haphazard wave. “If our positions were reversed, I would expect an explanation, too. Basically, in a nutshell, the book I tried to take was one of the hidden history texts.”
Cormack straightened. “I thought those tomes were removed from the premises more than a decade ago.”
From my spot next to the computer, I was practically salivating at the thought of hidden history texts but I knew better than to insert myself into the conversation. I filed away the tidbit to ask Cormack about later and remained on task.
“I thought they were, too,” Grimaldi said. “Then I happened to find one when I was grabbing runes for another assignment. I took a moment to look over the book but I wasn’t cognizant of what I was looking at. I was in a time crunch so I left it, but went back a few days later to have another look.”
“Which in and of itself sounds weird,” Cormack noted.
“Maybe, but I couldn’t get the book out of my mind. It was covered in what I thought was leather — although I’ve since learned that the skin it was encased in wasn’t from an animal — and there were intricate carvings on the cover. I simply couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
Paris was the one who asked the obvious question. “If it wasn’t encased in animal skin, what sort of skin was it?”
Grimaldi’s smile was rueful. “Apparently it was revenant skin.”
My heart skipped a beat. “What?”
He ignored me and remained focused on Cormack. “The book was about the revenants, Cormack, a history of their time on this side of the gate. I don’t know why I was so attracted to it. I just know that I wanted to read it. I tried to get into the storage room to go through it there, but it wasn’t always easy. I thought if I could take the book home for a weekend I could read it and then bring it back. I was caught, though.”
“Why not tell them what you just told me?” Cormack pressed. “That seems like something that would be easy enough to explain away.”
“It would have been ... if the book hadn’t gone missing out of the room the same day I was caught with it.”
“That’s quite the coincidence,” Cormack noted. “How did that happen?”
“We don’t know,” Renley replied. “Adam denied taking the book but at the time we thought he was lying. We believed that the book had been somehow misplaced during inventory — otherwise it would’ve been moved with the other texts — but it was far
