By the time he fell silent, it wasn’t just his snobbish attitude that had vanished, but the court finery was gone as well. He now wore bloody nightclothes, the slashes wet and seeping. His death had become his reality, warping him until he was stuck in the terror of those moments, at least temporarily. I’d never seen it happen before, but then ghosts weren’t exactly common.
“Could you tell how many people were present?” Falin asked, and thankfully his voice was soft. I’d heard him use the tone with victims before. Stiofan was an entitled ass, but he was also a victim, and he was vulnerable right now.
The ghost frowned, wrapping his arms tighter around himself. Half-transparent blood streamed down the front of his nightclothes and dripped on the floor below. “Two at least. Maybe three. Maybe more?”
“Could you identify anyone?” Falin asked.
Stiofan shook his head.
“Was there a goblin with three arms?” This question from Dugan. I frowned at him. Hadn’t we already determined Kordon had been dropped in Stiofan’s room postmortem?
Stiofan’s head shot up and he glared at Dugan. “I don’t know. I had a pillow over my head! Is that who did this to me? One of your dirty goblins?”
I answered before Dugan got a chance. “Your murderers wanted us to think so. A goblin was found a few feet from your body with your sword driven through his back. Considering you said your arms were pinned, I’m assuming . . . ?”
He gave a mournful shake of his head. “I wish I could say I struck down one of my attackers, but I struggled, never freeing myself before I . . .” He hesitated. “. . . Died.” He sank to the ground, a dejected, nihilistic figure abjectly accepting the idea of nonexistence.
“Is there anything you can tell us about your attackers?” Falin asked, clearly trying to get the ghost talking again before he sank so far into despondency that he ceased to hear us.
The ghost sneered, his face torn between melancholy and rage. “They are cowardly scum and I hope you kill them as surely as I was killed.”
Not exactly a helpful clue we can use to find them.
“Did any of your attackers say anything?” Falin asked.
Stiofan closed his eyes, as if concentrating hard. New wounds appeared on the ghost, translucent blood pooling at his feet. His eyes sprang open, wide, haunted, and he hugged himself.
“I . . . I don’t think so.” His words came out hoarse, tinged with panic.
Falin continued to press him for useful clues. “Could you smell anything out of place? Hear anything odd?”
The ghost rocked back on his heels as his shoulders rolled inward, like he could curl into himself for protection. A wound opened near his collarbone, ghostly blood spraying outward and missing me by mere inches. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”
Dugan stepped close to the edge of my circle. “I’m not sure he is our best witness,” he said, his voice low—though, as small as my circle was, Stiofan could surely hear. Dugan shot a meaningful glance to the body bag near the ghost’s feet.
I had to give the Shadow Prince credit; for someone who had—presumably—seen his first shade only today, he understood the principles of the magic pretty well. Stiofan was caught in the trauma of his death, and it was clouding the details of the event. His shade wouldn’t suffer the same issue. Of course, raising his shade in front of him might very well expand on his trauma.
“Stiofan, I think you’ve done enough. I’m going to open my circle and let you leave, okay?”
The ghost’s head snapped up. “Leave? Where am I supposed to go? I’m dead! You deal with ghosts. I demand you find a place for me where I will be comfortable and happy. And certainly somewhere less run-down than this hovel you call an office.”
Now that he was temporarily distracted from the details of his murder, the wounds vanished from the ghost, his court frippery appearing once again, and he sneered at me, seeming to look down his nose even from his lower vantage of the floor. I frowned at him. My office was actually fairly nice now that Ms. B had decorated it. Of course, he was viewing it in the land of the dead, which was pretty much a disintegrating purgatory landscape, so it probably did look pretty shabby, especially when compared to the grandeur of Faerie. But he wasn’t going to escape