serious damage if Stiofan hadn’t already been dead. Beside me, Falin discreetly lifted one shoulder, cocking his head ever so slightly in what I could only interpret as a sort of expression. Apparently he didn’t disagree with Stiofan’s assessment.
Maybe Falin’s motions were not quite as discreet as I’d thought, because Dugan all but growled out the words, “There has been some turnover of late. And I will look into who might have constructed our interloping shadow, but in the meantime, perhaps we should wrap up your interview?”
He wasn’t wrong about that.
I glanced at Stiofan and Falin, both trapped in my circle with me. I didn’t really want to drop my barrier again. Not because I thought another shadow would attempt to ambush me but because I didn’t want to expend the energy. I’d given Stiofan a chance to leave already; he’d missed it. He was going to have to deal with the consequences.
Reaching with my grave magic, I let it slide into the corpse at the ghost’s feet. The shade sat up, bloody and disheveled. Stiofan screamed.
“What is this? Is that me? This is dark magic.” He scrambled to the edge of my circle, but he could get no farther.
I ignored him.
“What is your name?” I asked the shade.
“Stiofan Greenmeadows.”
I lifted an eyebrow. Last names were rather rare in Faerie, but more than that, “Greenmeadows” didn’t exactly sound like it should belong to a winter courtier.
“You weren’t born to the winter court?” I asked.
“How is that relevant?” the ghost of Stiofan snapped, but his shade merely answered, “no.”
“How did you die?”
Ghost Stiofan glared at me. “Didn’t we cover that already? I—you don’t have to answer that.”
His shade didn’t notice the protests of the soul that had once resided in his body. “I was sleeping when pain woke me. I was pinned and stabbed repeatedly. I heard things breaking. Hands reached inside me and I lost consciousness.”
The shade said it with no emotion, no fear or hesitation. Stiofan clearly felt the horror at the words, though, based on the way wounds opened on the ghost once again. He swayed, the front of his nightshirt filling with blood.
“Stop it,” he whispered. But I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or his shade.
“Did you see any of your attackers?”
“No.”
“Could you tell how many attackers were present?”
“No,” the shade said, and I grimaced. He had answered the question I’d asked, just not the one I’d meant to ask.
“Can you guess how many attackers there were?” Falin asked, and I repeated the question, even though I knew it was unlikely to be answered.
The shade remained silent. He wasn’t cognizant. He couldn’t guess anything, couldn’t draw any conclusions Stiofan hadn’t considered or concluded before his death. For his part, the ghost shook, blood pooling around him as he watched his shade.
“Did you hear or smell anything out of place? Did any of your attackers speak?”
“Yes. A female. She said, ‘Don’t make it too fast. He should suffer.’”
The ghost stared at his shade. “That . . . I do remember that. It sounded like . . .” He trailed off, sliding down the edge of my circle until he was sitting in the ephemeral pool of blood spreading around him.
“Who did it sound like?” I asked.
“Lunabella Blossommist,” both the shade and ghost said at the same time. Without looking up, Stiofan added, “My onetime wife.”
Well, that was a start. It wasn’t a definite ID, or the shade would have identified her as an attacker, but it was a name.
Chapter 7
The shade didn’t have much more information. Dugan and Falin both pelted me with questions to ask, but Stiofan hadn’t seen, heard, or in any other way sensed anything else about his attackers. Stiofan’s ghost hadn’t said anything after identifying Lunabella. He had simply curled in on himself at the edge of my circle and stared at some point of nothingness.
He still hadn’t moved by the time I wrapped up the ritual, put the shade back into his body, and released my circle. Ghostly blood dripped from the many wounds covering his spectral body, so I guessed he was still caught in the details of his own death. I wondered if he would make it out again or if this experience had broken him completely.
For my part, the ritual had cost me some sight and warmth, but while I’d kept my shields open for an extended period, the time I’d actually raised the shades wasn’t long, so I still had some of my vision. I