Kelly Meding - Requiem for the Dead

Marcellus's office was four doors down from the playroom, and I walked in that direction, each step sending a spike of fear through my gut. If this didn't work, I was royally fucked and the Frosts were dead.

I stopped outside the closed office door and listened—no voices inside. I checked for my tether to the Break out of habit, in case I needed to teleport out of a bad situation in a hurry—not that I had anywhere to run to, if this did go south. The Break was a comfort, and I let its power wash over me for a moment before I knocked. Two sharp bangs of my knuckles.

"Yes?" came a deep, growly voice.

I pushed the door open, glanced around to be sure no one else was in there, then shut it behind me. Marcellus Dane sat behind his desk, his aged face lined with worry and fatigue, the very image of an older, more mature Marcus. The left wall was decorated with four Japanese swords, placed at different heights. Easy to grab. Probably sharp.

"Ms. Stone," Marcellus said. "I don't recall us having an appointment."

"We don't, Elder," I said.

His copper eyes narrowed. "Then what can I do for you?"

I took a breath that did nothing to calm my racing heart and wished for a weapon of some sort in my hands. "A simple favor."

"From me?"

"Yes, Elder."

He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the wide expanse of his desk—the only thing between us. "And what favor do you require this day?"

I mirrored his stance, placing my palms flat on the desk's smooth surface. "I need you to die."

He moved first, but I was faster.

The sucky thing about dying is that you miss everything that happens while you're out of commission. I know this well.

To be fair, I didn't actually die this time around, but a few people helped me fake it so convincingly that everyone believed I had—and that's exactly what I needed. Vale had to believe Marcellus was dead. He also had to believe I was dead. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Unconsciousness is never fun, and it's even less fun when you wake up with a stabbing headache, feeling like you're entire body has been crumpled up and left to dry like that. My abdomen was on fire. I struggled through a haze of fog and achiness, toward awareness, and blinked my eyes open in a totally unfamiliar room. It looked like an office of some kind, with a desk and chairs shoved against a wall to make room for the cot I was on. The place was impersonal, though, and it reeked of an indescribable odor—something scorched and old.

The vomit-inducing smell didn't clue me in until Tybalt walked in the door with a metal urn in his hands, and the pieces fell into place—the Therian-owned crematorium. My supposed final resting place. Because of their short life spans, Therians didn't do elaborate burials or funerals, and they didn't preserve bodies for viewing. Once someone was dead, they got cremated—which meant our deaths had been believable enough to get our "bodies" sent here.

Didn't explain Tybalt's presence, though. No one in the Watchtower except Kismet was supposed to be in on this.

Tybalt sat on the edge of the cot and handed me a glass of water. I sipped at it, glad to sooth my parched lips, but my stomach sloshed with nausea and pain. I didn't dare drink more.

"You?" I said, the first word I could manage.

"I know when Gina's lying," he replied. "We've known each other too long. Plus she was on the other side of town from the Dane mansion, and someone needed to help Demetrius get you two here."

Us two. "He's here?"

"In another room, resting comfortably."

"Thank God."

"You should be thanking God. I can't believe this worked."

"Me, too. My plans usually don't."

"You took a huge risk, Evy. Marcellus could have killed you outright."

"I know."

The look on Marcellus Dane's face when I stood in his office and said "I need you to die" would go down in history as one of the most shocked expressions ever. The shock had lasted only an instant, though, and I'd almost been too slow to knock his phone from his grasp before he could call for security. And then I'd talked faster than I had ever talked in my life, pleading from a child to a parent. He'd needed the entire story before he'd decided that I wasn't a lunatic and put me out of my misery.

Thankfully, he'd understood and agreed to help me.

"Is the Elder awake?" I asked.

"He is, indeed," Marcellus said from the office doorway. He'd changed clothes—which made sense, since the suit he'd been wearing a few hours ago was covered in blood—and seemed oddly relaxed, considering.

I sat up with Tybalt's help. The cot creaked dangerously, and I half-expected it to fold me in half as some sort of sick cosmic joke. My head still throbbed and my stomach felt woozy, but those things would fade quickly. The burning ache from my belly to my breastbone would take longer. The bandages beneath my baggy t-shirt itched where the tape pulled. "Thank you for trusting me, Elder Dane," I said.

He inclined his head in what looked like a nod. "My grandchildren trust you, Ms. Stone, and while we don't always see eye to eye, I trust their judgment."

Wow. Probably the only time I'd ever heard him praise Astrid and Marcus. God, this must be killing them right now, mourning a grandfather who wasn't actually dead, killed by a supposed friend.

"I was also impressed by your courage," Marcellus continued. "It takes a strong heart to risk what you did, not knowing my answer to your proposal."

"They're my parents." The words slipped out without conscious thought, surprising me as much as they surprised Tybalt. "I couldn't let Vale murder them."

"I understand. Family is…complicated." He glanced at Tybalt, then returned his intense gaze to me. "How long will you hide here under the guise of being deceased?"

"Depends on what's happening in the outside world." To Tybalt I said, "You wanna fill me in on what I missed?"

"So far, everyone seems to be buying the setup," Tybalt said. "It's getting out that you entered the Elder's office and stabbed him in the heart with one of his swords. Before you could escape, his guard Demetrius walked in and killed you."

My hand went to the painful wound on my stomach. "And Demetrius is keeping his mouth shut?"

"He's loyal," Marcellus said. "It's why I chose him to assist us."

The Felia don't rely on modern forensics the way humans do, which gave us an advantage in creating this illusion. The only thing I'd brought with me to the Dane compound had been two vials of a serum that I'd procured from an apothecary shop run by an actual mage. It had cost every bit of cash I had to purchase the Juliet Potion, as well as the mage's promise to tell no one I'd been there. Once Marcellus and I swallowed the serum, it only took a few minutes to slow our heart rates and breathing to almost nothing—enough to fool anyone not looking extra close.

Actually stabbing Marcellus in the chest had been harder than I expected. Measuring my stroke so it caused blood loss without permanent damage had been nerve-wracking. I didn't like wounding allies on purpose, or causing pain to someone who wasn't an enemy. Demetrius hadn't been so tentative when he sliced me open from breasts to belly, deep enough to bleed heavily, but not deep enough to hit internal organs and kill me. My healing ability had once again proved itself immensely useful—and a serious pain.

A literal fucking pain.

Tybalt finished catching us up on the events immediately after our "deaths" with a surprising, "Do you remember Aurora being there, Evy?"

I blinked, horror turning my insides to ice. "No. Fuck, tell me she didn't see me like that."

"She was still holding your hand when I got there with Astrid."