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“I have to shift, and then all I do is place my hand on your shoulder, my magic will help you to stay present long enough to do the drawing,” Raiden explains. “There is really no pressure though, Ransom is better at drawing than he made out he was, and with your help he should be able to do a pretty good rendition of the necklace.”

Ribit smiles, “I’m happy to have you use your magic, it would be so much quicker than trying to explain it and making sure that I remember every little detail. If I’m completely honest, I have never been good at describing things. Plus, it will take me ten minutes maximum to draw it if I’m not interrupted, and you guys really do need to get some sleep before tomorrow.”

“All very good points,” Van agrees, glancing at Raiden.

“You’re sure?” Raiden checks one last time.

Ribit smiles, “Let’s do this.”

Raiden nods and points to a desk near the window. Ribit makes her way over to it and takes a seat, although she’s not actually sitting on it, and Reed rummages through the drawers, pulling out a pen and a piece of paper, laying them in front of her.

“Ready?” Raiden asks, and Ribit nods.

Her eyes widen as he drops his human form, and I have to admit that mine do too, because I swear that last time I saw him in this form, he was shorter, his robes were grey, and he didn’t have wings. His gorgeous wings are folded neatly on his back, as he towers over even Reed.

“Well shit dude, you’re even fucking bigger,” River exclaims.

Raiden chuckles, but the sound is deeper than his usual voice, and it does something to me that has my thighs clenching, well damn.

“So fucking hot,” I mutter and Raiden’s hooded head turns in my direction, all I can see is his eyes, a constant swirl of stars watching me with surprise.

Reed chuckles, clearly amused by my reaction, and then gets us, or well, Raiden, back on track because I’m still watching him, waiting for him to speak again. “Let’s get this done as quickly as we can, then.”

Raiden nods and places his hand on Ribit’s shoulder.

“Wow, you’re crazy powerful,” she mutters. “Not really surprising though.”

Before any of us can question her, even though we know that she most likely won’t answer, she ducks her head over the piece of paper and picks up the pen. At first, her hand flies over the page, but as she adds more details, she slows down, clearly making sure that she is getting every part of it right. I have to admit that it’s impressive to watch, and while I was expecting her to be able to draw to some extent, since she was the one who suggested that she could draw it, I didn’t expect her to be able to draw as well as she is.

Her expression is so peaceful, making it obvious that this is something that she really loves to do, and maybe even hasn’t been able to for a long time. Can the dead draw? Like by using things from their plane of existence rather than ours? She’s mentioned that the dead are gossips, so that means that she can at least talk to the other dead, even if she doesn’t actually want to cross over. I suppose it would be a question to either ask her or ask Winston, because he should know.

I am really missing my sarcastic little friend, and I hope that he makes a reappearance soon. I haven’t even seen Wallace, or the fox that was beginning to make a regular appearance at the house.

“Can spirit guides not come here?” I ask suddenly in the silence of the room, without meaning to.

Ribit looks up at me, “Spirit guides are allowed in the realm, but they aren’t allowed to be a part of the Choosing. Any participant of the Choosing who has a spirit guide won’t be able to get in contact with them because it is seen as an unfair advantage. The Choosing is incredibly powerful and actually blocks the spirit guides, so they couldn’t get through even if they wanted to.”

“Oh, we never knew that,” River says with a frown.

Ribit shrugs and goes back to her drawing as she answers, “It’s not common knowledge since very few supes actually have a spirit guide. No one knows who you are, so no one would have thought to tell you about it.”

“Who I am?” I ask with a smile.

She rolls her eyes, “Oh come on, you know I know who your parents are,” she pauses and then smiles and adds, “and a couple of other things that I won’t be sharing. Now hush, I’m concentrating.”

I share a smile with Doc, who happens to catch my eye, and no one dares to say anything else.

It only takes her five more minutes, and then she leans back in her seat and smiles down at the drawing, “Done.”

Raiden immediately lets go of her shoulder and shifts back to his human form. I must not keep my disappointment off my face because he immediately strides over to me, and kisses me deeply, his hand threading through my hair and holding me in place.

Resting his head against mine, he says barely above a whisper, “I love your reaction to me in my shifted form.”

I grin, “That’s good because I’m going to need you to at least use that voice more often.”

His eyebrows rise in surprise, “Oh really.”

I nod.