file six-ninety-two: The Mystery of the Slaughtered Starlet.”
Nell and Tyler fell into a companionable silence, leaning on each other as the show unfolded. Sometimes Nell would offer a choice bit of commentary, Tyler would respond with his dead-on Brock Steel impression, and they’d share a giggle.
She shifted on the futon, getting closer to him. He stretched, yawning. When his arm came down again, it slid around her shoulders. Warm. Protective. On the screen, Brock—wearing a flapping trench coat and a fedora—was leading a team of investigators down into a maze of storm tunnels deep beneath the city streets.
“Ty?”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Why didn’t we ever hook up?”
She felt him move against her, a little jolt of surprise.
“What brought that on?” he asked.
“Curiosity.” She turned her head and looked him in the eye. “There was that night in Trenton—”
“Nothing happened in Trenton.”
“No, beyond us both getting blitzed on cheap tequila.”
“God, the hangover,” he said. “All I remember from that entire convention is the mother of all hangovers.”
“You don’t remember the talk we had? About us?”
His arm tightened around her shoulders.
“I remember that too,” he said.
“The only reason you didn’t take me to bed was because you said we were both too drunk to make that kind of decision, and you didn’t want me to have any regrets in the morning.”
“I wasn’t wrong.”
“No,” she said. “But then we came back to the city and just…never talked about it again.”
He fell silent. Thinking. She gave him time.
“You and me,” he said. “The timing’s always been complicated. I mean, you were single, I was married.”
“That was way before Trenton.”
“Then I was single, and you were dating Harrelson. So naturally I had all kinds of questions about your capacity for good judgment.”
She poked him in the ribs. “Don’t rub it in.”
“Hey, I warned you about that guy.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You did. And now?”
A longer silence this time. She searched for an answer in his eyes. He looked lost, stumbling in the wilderness of his own tangled mind. And when he finally spoke, she already knew what he was going to say.
“I’m just not ready yet. It’s not you. It’s me.”
You’re still married to her, Nell thought. She died five years ago, and you’re still married to her.
“That’s okay.” She found his hand, squeezed it tight. “But you need to talk to someone.”
He forced a smile. “I talk to you. Every day.”
“You know what I mean. It’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. Not when you really need it.”
Tyler shrugged. She could feel him shifting, dodging, looking for an answer he didn’t have. His walls rose up, thick and stone and built to last forever. She stood in their shadow.
“C’mon,” he said with a nod at the screen, “let’s watch this. I want to figure out who slaughtered the starlet.”
Nell bit back a sigh. She knew this conversation by heart. Pushing harder would just add another couple of feet to the wall.
“The producer did it,” she said. “Obviously.”
“I think it’s the ex-boyfriend.”
She gave him the side-eye. “Seriously? Total red herring. Five bucks says it’s the producer.”
“You’re on.”
They didn’t say much after that. They leaned on one another, and watched the show, and waited for Seelie to come home.
* * *
Seelie fell to her knees in the empty coffin. The shovel slipped from her bloody, blistered hand, clattering against wood the color of cigarette ash. Frozen sweat caked her skin and every muscle in her body was on fire.
She had nothing left. And nothing to show for it. The relics were gone.
The last of her strength ebbed away. She felt something lift from her and peel free, feather-light, like a silken veil she hadn’t known she was wearing.
Her knees couldn’t hold her up. She pitched forward, keeling over onto her side, lying down in the coffin like it belonged to her. This was Seelie’s grave, and she slept like the dead.
* * *
Faint, flickering light roused Seelie. Sepia-tinted fire, in a sepia-tinted world, crackling in a stone hearth. She smelled hickory smoke and rich, hearty spice, like a thick stew.
“Well,” Aislin Kendricks said, “this is a pleasure.”
The witch sat in a tall leather chair beside the fire, tilted at an angle. One pale hand gestured to a second empty chair at her side. Shadows swallowed the edges of this tiny world: there was nothing but the hearth fire, the chairs, and a circle of flagstone floor.
“Sit,” Aislin said. “Warm your bones. You’ve had a long night.”
Seelie dropped into the second chair. The plush leather was soft,