"Oh, delightful."
He gave the bedroom doors a somewhat dubious look. He wouldn't have seen anything more than I did – an innocuous, unpainted double entrance into another room. But the more I looked at those doors, the more the sensation of danger crawled through me.
"You know," he added, "common wisdom would suggest walking away from trouble rather than into it."
I half snorted and glanced up at him. "Seriously? You're actually suggesting we turn around and walk away?"
"You know me better than that." His grin flashed. "I was merely pointing out what the wise would do."
"I don't suppose suggesting you at least wait here would do any good?"
"No. Besides, you're armed and I daresay your reaper is near."
"I daresay a reaper is near," I commented, voice a little harsher than necessary. "Whether they'll come to our assistance should we land in trouble is anyone's guess."
I forced my feet forward. Jak fell in step beside me. "I take it from that there's been a lover's quarrel?"
"It means exactly what it says. A reaper is near, just not Azriel. More than that you need not know."
"Which, of course, just fuels the fire," he murmured. "This case gets more interesting by the day."
"And more dangerous." I slowed as I neared the double doors, scanning them quickly and still seeing nothing. Yet that niggling sense of wrongness was growing.
Amaya? Can you feel anything? I twitched my fingers but resisted the urge to reach for her. Not every problem could be solved by her presence, however much she might believe otherwise.
Not, she replied, and sounded a little miffed. I wasn't entirely sure whether it was over my thought that she couldn't solve every problem, or the fact that there didn't seem to be a problem.
"So what lies beyond the doors you're giving the evil eye to?" Jak asked.