He took a step closer. “Touch me, Amara. Touch me.”
“Turn around.” Crack. There went the last piece of my mind.
“Why?”
“If you’re real, then you’ll have a gash between your shoulder blades, the same way I have cuts everywhere.”
Remo’s gaze stroked up my face as though just noticing the assortment of wounds I sported. A groove appeared between his brows. Skies, even his frown looked real. Slowly, he pivoted around. So much mud cloaked his back that I couldn’t see the cut, but his tunic bore a rip.
Why was I checking for a wound anyway? Like bodiless Unseelies, ghosts were phantoms, the molecules of their flesh and bones as slack as air.
I huffed an annoyed breath and shook my head, trying to clear it of what was evidently a vision.
“What?” asked Remo’s ghost.
“I’m chatting with spirits, that’s what.”
The specter glanced over his shoulder, eyes the same mossy green as his real ones had been. “Why are you chatting with spirits?”
I cocked an eyebrow, then poked the air, expecting my finger to slide right through Remo’s ghost, but it bumped against something solid. I reeled my hand back, the blood draining from my cheeks. “You’re not . . . you’re not . . . but—”
Remo pivoted to face me.
“How?” I whispered. “How are you not dead? You exploded into ashes. I saw you explode.”
“Either you can’t die in this place, or like I said, my death was an illusion.”
“The mud on your tunic. It was on your front. Now it’s . . . now it’s only on your back. Why? How?”
Remo glanced sideways at the cliff topped with the ice garden. “When I came to, I was lying in the field of mud again.”
My forehead grooved, which made the gazillion cuts on it sting. “The one under the portal?”
“Yes.”
“Was the portal there?”
He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed sharply. “It was.”
“And was it still . . . far?” I wasn’t sure why I asked. He’d made it clear earlier that if the portal was within reach, he wouldn’t hang around. I was such a glutton for punishment. “You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
His silence heightened the intensity of his scrutiny.
“We’re never getting out of here, are we? At least not without some divine or royal intervention.” I sighed, and then I did something so uncharacteristic that Gregor’s grandson grew stiff as a calimbor . . . I gave the faerie a one-armed hug. “You might not believe this”—I inhaled the musky, mineral scent at the hollow of his collarbone—“but I’m glad you’re alive.”
He didn’t hug me back. Didn’t even pat my shoulder. “That is . . . hard to believe.”
I absorbed his body’s heat a moment longer before paring myself away. “Just as hard to believe as you saving my life.”
“How is that difficult to comprehend?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I obviously would rather be in bad company than alone.”
Ouch. Supporting my aching arm with my gloved hand, I turned away from him and stepped back into the train. “We should get going,” I said coolly.
He didn’t move off the platform, and although I kept my gaze affixed to the CLOSE button, I sensed his eyes scraping across my profile.
Bad company. Because his company was oh-so-awesome. “In one second, your bad company will be on her way someplace else.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw his brow twitch.
“Now or never.” I rested the tip of my index finger atop the button.
Eyes still duct-taped to my face, he climbed aboard. “Amara . . .”
I pressed the button, and the doors snapped shut. His mouth, too. And then I pressed the second button and sat on the bench before the rattling carriage could break or dislocate another part of my beat-up body.
15
The Inn
During the entire magical train ride, I kept my lids cinched tight in exhaustion, in pain, and in annoyance. My bones rattled, awakening bruises I didn’t even know I had—in my ankles, thighs, and abdomen. As for my elbow . . . the pain there was so raw it made sweat bead along my hairline and drip down the column of my neck.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” Remo asked once the train stilled. “Is it broken?”
I tried to see if we were back in Frontier Land, but the windows were still obscured. “It feels like it might be.”
He held out of his palm. “Let me see it.”
When I made no move to show him my arm, he sighed and hoisted it up. I winced and tried to pull it