magic to find Alexis or die trying. Which, by the way, I would have done for free, if your boss had asked politely.”
His shoulders shifted as if he were trying to ease an itch of guilt. It was a small movement, but I was used to reading the slightest inflection in a remnant. Reading this Carson guy was sort of the same. “Then what’s the problem?” he asked.
“The problem,” I said, “is I don’t know what problems this will make. Is it going to cloud my judgment? What if I can’t find her? What if I die—”
Oh God.
It was a prayer, not a curse. If I died, would I still be bound to Devlin Maguire? If I got stuck here because of the oath, who would cut my spirit free? I didn’t know anyone else who could do what I did.
Carson had reached out like he wanted to steady me, but I leveled a glare that made him wisely draw his hand back.
“If I die and get stuck here,” I swore coldly, “I’m going to chew myself loose from your boss and make your life a living hell until you find someone to free me.”
If I hadn’t been glaring at him, I would have missed his flinch, a neuron flash of pain like the dart of a fish beneath a sheet of ice. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “Lauren said the spell is harmless in the long term, and I’m not going to let you get hurt in the meantime.”
“Dude.” I rolled my eyes. “Did you tell yourself that before or after you kidnapped me from the back of the police station?” Without waiting for an answer, I set off purposefully after Lauren—or rather, the corner she’d disappeared around.
“Trust me,” Carson said, easily matching my pace. “I wasn’t nuts about doing that even before I knew what a pain in the butt you were going to be.”
Weirdly, I sort of believed he hadn’t thought I’d come to harm. Not that it let him off the hook. “Did you dump me in the trunk, or just toss me in the backseat with a blanket over my head?”
“You should thank me for springing you from testosterone central.” He defrosted a little as the argument turned superficial. “Your junior G-man must be half dead not to realize how short that skirt is.”
I refused to blush, even though my strides down the hall sort of emphasized his point. “The skirt is standard issue. My legs are too long.”
“Oh, I disagree,” he said, in a matter-of-fact way that wasn’t matter-of-fact at all. It sounded like approval. Young, handsome Mr. Carson approval. I suspected he was just trading one mask for another, but even I’m susceptible to flattery.
Then he added in a bland tone, “Your knees are a little bony, though.”
They absolutely were not. Unless, I guess, they were making an impact on a delicate area.
I pursed my lips to hold back a vengeful smile. That was mere prudence. The geas had nothing to say about inappropriate banter with the enemy.
Lauren waited for Carson and me at an open door, arms folded, brows pitched at a scornful angle. “Don’t let the mortal peril of our friend hurry you kids up or anything.”
As much as I disliked Lauren—which was a lot—I still felt a little guilty for wasting time on a purely selfish freak-out. Duress or not, the important thing was finding the girl. Okay, maybe this was anything but a normal day. But it was my job to put my psyche on the line for a lost soul. Alexis was no different just because she still had a body attached to hers.
So I squared my shoulders and blew past Lauren into Alexis’s room. It was actually more of a suite, professionally decorated in the violet and green of a pansy patch, but other than the size of the room—and the flat-screen TV on the wall—it wasn’t ostentatious. Maybe because there were so many books.
Lauren and Carson came in and closed the door. They were an odd pair—the witch, with her vintage punk clothes, and the … whatever Carson was, with his stoic face and haunted eyes. They conferred in soft voices while I made a circuit of the room, running my hand over dustless tables and fluffed pillows. Picking up traces of the living was like getting a radio station at the very edge of my reception, but sometimes it was easier when the signal was boosted by a big event or strong emotion—the