While I cradled Cass, I attempted to get a better idea of what he was doing, but he was too sheltered for me to see. “Ready?”
“Ready.” He got to his feet, wavering. “I’ll help.” He swallowed a few times. “Just give me a second.”
“Took…too much.” Cass wedged her feet under her and staggered toward him with my assistance. “Didn’t mean…”
“It’s not your fault.” He gave up and sat down before he fell down. “I don’t have much magic. Using it drained me, not you.”
When we got near enough, I could see he had created a perfect grave. The hole in the ground had precise square corners, and it must have measured eight feet by three feet. It was flawless, and, I say this as a necromancer, creepy as heck he could do that on a whim.
“Give me your hands.” I seized her wrists. “I’ll lower you down.”
Cass mumbled, fighting me, and tipped backward. She fell onto her back in the hole with an undignified, “Oomph.”
“I’ll be right here until dusk,” I promised her. “Don’t breathe and don’t struggle.”
Curling onto her side, Cass shut her eyes and fell into the deep sleep only achieved by vampires.
“We’ll have to fill in the hole.” Boaz groaned as he reached for the mound to haul handfuls of dirt into the hole. “I was only half telling the truth when I blamed magic.”
That he didn’t want to burden Cass’s conscience, even at a time like this, endeared him to me.
Together, we buried my friend in a grave.
Weirdest couples’ activity ever.
Twenty-One
The sentinels found Ari in the basement of Cass’s house. She was as close to true dead as it got, but she hadn’t given up on her second chance at life yet. The reason for the delay in the sentinels locating us was the rescue op they organized on the house. They thought, and rightly so, that I would have bulled in to find Cass. They expected to discover Boaz’s and my charred remains. Instead, they located Ari in the nick of time.
Abernathy told us all about it when he brought Boaz and me sleeping bags for the day. I had made a promise not to leave Cass, and I meant it. Boaz meant his vow too, and he refused to leave me. Honey brought us fast food that tasted better than the signature dish at any three-starred Michelin restaurant in my current state, and we passed out in the shade of the trees.
“Will your magic trick work with Cass in the grave?”
Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Boaz, we watched the moonrise together.
“I’m not sure.” He scratched his jaw. “I’ve never done it with a live person. There was never a reason.”
“How did you learn to dig insta-graves?” I stared up at him. “That’s a very specific magic.”
“You know I’m an Elite, but before I was a sentinel, I was in the army.” He gazed across the gorge. “War is ugly. The winners and losers all look the same when they’re dead.” He frowned. “I got a High Society friend to teach me the sigil so my unit could bury enemies and friendlies alike. It wasn’t much, but it was the least we could do.”
“I’m sorry.” I touched his arm. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
“Life never is,” he breathed. “The gravedigger is the only sigil that works for me every time.”
From his story, he’d had cause to use it until he must have perfected it, even with his weakened magic.
“Can you do any other magic?” High Society necromancers had all the good tricks. “Or is that classified?”
A snort ripped out of him, which made me feel good for brightening his mood. “I learned three total. The other two almost never work. I don’t have enough juice for them unless I’m desperate.”
“What are they, if you don’t mind sharing?”
“I can start a fire that takes ten times as long with magic as it does to strike a flint, and I can sanitize water with magic in three hours, as opposed to the fifteen minutes it takes it boil it.” A smile tugged at his lips. “The guys mock me about it, but hey. I can do more than most. I’m not going to knock it.” The corners of his eyes twinkled. “I’m also never traveling without a lighter or water purification tablets.”
A smidge of envy had me agreeing with him. I wished I could do even one trick. One small thing.
“It’s time.” He threw off his sleeping bag. “Be ready to help me restrain her if she’s got the munchies.”
“Okay.” I tossed my bag aside and scooted close to him. “I’m ready.”
With a grimace, Boaz slid a knife across his palm then used the blood to ink the sigil on the dirt.
This time, I got a front row seat when the dirt simply vanished from in front of us and appeared in a pile beside us. I was so distracted, it took me a second to notice the problem.
“She’s not in there.” I leaned over the edge. “Cass? Can you hear me?”
The mound of dirt beside us shifted, and Cass’s neon-yellow hair poked through the dirt.
“Never,” she spat. “I am never letting you bury me again. I would rather die.” She paused. “Again.”
Rushing over, I helped dig her out and then tackled her with a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Okay would require fewer worms and beetles.” She got to her feet. “What did I miss?”
Unsure how much Serena had told her, I explained the whole sordid mess while she gazed up at the moon. Much of it, she must have already known, based on her lack of response. Or maybe she was numb from shock.
“I had no idea,” she said at last. “I thought she was dead. I mourned her. I killed him for
