cry signals death,” Alex explains, watching me with concern. “She’s also the spirit who carries the lost souls to the queen.”
I blow out a breath, wishing I could just go home and sleep for like a week. “So we have to find a Banshee who’ll be willing to help us.”
Alex’s forehead creases. “That’s what we need?”
I nod and give Alex a quick recap of everything Nicholas just told me.
“You wouldn’t happen to know any Banshee’s just hanging around that might be nice enough to help us out?” I ask Alex with hope.
“Actually, I do.” Snow falls from the sky as he stands up, frowning. “My mother.”
My head whips in his direction. “Your mother’s a Banshee? How did you . . . ? What?”
Nicholas snorts. “Oh, this is so fucking funny.”
“There’s nothing funny about his mom being dead,” I snap at him, my emotions all over the place as the reality of what I have to do really, really sinks in.
My spirit has to leave my body.
“Oh, I’m not laughing because his mother’s dead,” he replies, grinning. “I’m laughing because she’s a Banshee.”
“I still don’t get it,” I admit.
“Banshee’s are from the faerie realm,” Alex says as if he knows exactly what Nicholas is saying. “I’m sure he thinks it’s funny because I haven’t been very nice when it comes to the fey I know.”
“Oh.” I frown. “But how did it happen? Has she always been one?”
He shrugs, scuffing his boot against the now. “Those journals of my mom’s we found the night we snuck into my house, they talked about her fearing she was going to die. My mom worried my father was going to kill her if he learned her secret. She wrote something about finding a way to cross into the Afterlife if that did happen and becoming one of the queen’s Soul Collectors, a Banshee. That way, she could still have a connection to earth and help us when the time is right. So I started poking around, asking some people, and I found out it’s true. She’s a Banshee.” He shrugs like that’s that, but his eyes look a little watery.
I can’t help myself. I want to kiss away his pain, so I stand up and press my lips to his. He seems surprised at first, but then he slips his tongue into my mouth, tasting me, feeling me, making me want so much more. I let myself get carried away for a second, not caring about the star or the world or anything, even the fact that Nicholas is watching us like a pervert.
When I start to want too much—feel too much—I break away, gasping for air, noting we have somehow melted the snow around us.
Alex’s eyes are filled with untamed desire. He wants more and so do I. God, so do I.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” Nicholas mumbles, looking royally pissed off.
“Then throw up.” I raise my eyebrows at him, challenging him. “If it is that bad to watch, then you should’ve turned your head.”
He sticks out his tongue. “Then you should have turned your head,” he mimics.
Alex turns in a circle, looking for something. “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you shut it?” he says, searching for Nicholas.
When I nod my head, mouthing, behind you, he takes a swing, but ends up tripping and hitting air. Nicholas laughs, hunching over and cradling his stomach.
I sigh while Alex gets even more riled up. Then he stuffs his hand into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper.
“This guy named Draven—the Lord of the Afterlife—he gave me this address. Supposedly, it’s where my mom is.”
I take the paper from him. “Reykjavik?” My eyes elevate to him. “Iceland? Your mother’s in Iceland. God, it's good the snow's starting to grow on me.”
“Actually, it’s colder here than it is there,” Alex explains, wiping a few snowflakes from his forehead.
I fold the paper back up and hand it to him. “It’s good you have an address, but how are we supposed to get to Iceland without flying or something, since I’ve never actually seen the place?”
He cracks his knuckles, considering what I said. “Your Foreseeing thing only works if you can visualize where you’re going, so maybe if you had a mental picture of how it looked, we could get there.”
“But how do I create a mental picture? Because all I see when I think of Iceland is a big chunk of ice.”
“Maybe if you had a picture, you could look at it then