Page 120 of Change

Instead of fleeing at the subtle dismissal as he might have in the past, Miles’s curiosity seemed to grow stronger. He glanced between Damen and I—focusing on the onmyoji’s outstretched arm. His lighthearted expression fell, and a steady seriousness fell over him.

“Now I’m definitely intrigued.” He casually strolled into the room. “Why are you jumping into Damen’s memories?”

The stuffy, leather-scented room grew more suffocating.

All I’d wanted was a nice, drama-free evening where I could languish and worry about Bianca in silent unrest. Now my whole plan was ruined.

Besides, Miles didn’t need to knowwhy.Especiallynot when it came to some of the more questionable aspects of my abilities. There was a very moral reason why the priest had never been told about these things. “None of your—”

“He can create human bodies,” Damen blurted out, lowering his arm. He was addressing Miles now. “And he never told us.”

Miles’s brows drew together in confusion. “Like…” he paused, hesitant. “Alive ones?”

“No! Don’t be stupid,” I snapped, crossing my arms and turning from them both. “You can’t create a life where there is none. That’s not how it works.”

The only way to bring a body to life was to capture a departing soul before the spirit escaped. But it was never a pleasant process, and involved the necromancer temporarily tying their life-force to their target until they were stable enough to survive on their own.

“Oh.” Miles perked. “Like your zombies then, just deader.”

“Zombiesaredead,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. Of course he’d try to find a way to correlate this with what he believed to be the most fascinating aspect of my abilities.

The man was scared of ghosts but still had the strangest fascination with zombies.

It was literally the reason he carried a machete in his vehicle.

“Semantics.” Miles shrugged, dropping heavily into the remaining armchair. The witch was taking this revelation surprisingly well. Or maybe ethics didn’t go against his moral compass.

“Why do we care again?” he asked.

Okay, so obviously he hadn’t thought this entirely through.

Well, I wasn’t about to bring it up first.

“So what are we doing?” Miles leaned back in his seat, throwing his leg over the arm of the chair. “Why are we looking at Damen’s memories?”

I opened my mouth to respond when a particular part of his question registered. “We?”

Damen, too, was watching Miles in question.

Miles rolled his eyes, swinging both legs back to the floor as he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs. “Oh, come on, you hate going into his memories,” he said accusingly, nodding pointedly at Damen. “And this can give us a chance to practice.”

I wrinkled my nose as an odd sense of doom filled me. “Practice… what?” I said, even though I knew the answer.

“Taking me with you, of course!” He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “We’ve done it once, with Bianca, remember? This way you’re not stuck rummaging around in Damen’s head when you don’t want to be, and we can see what we can do. Plus, it’ll be faster.”

It was a good idea, and wehaddone it once before.

But things were different now. Miles was stronger, more intuitive. And he was more connected with Tu to help him.

If I wasn’t careful, they’d know everything that I’d been trying to hide—the aspects of my abilities I’d been trying to, quietly, change.

“I like that.” The onmyoji was stroking his chin, scratching at the subtle stubble he hadn’t yet shaved today, as he mused. “It’ll give you another perspective. Miles also wasn’t there that day, maybe he’ll see something we’ve missed. Besides, we shouldn’t let him roam free. I don’t think Julian would like some of my memories with Bianca,” he said, completely unashamed.

I blanched.

It wasn’t like I was innocent or even harbored any delusions that Damen wasn’t deranged. I was sure he’d envisioned her in many different scenarios already—we all had. Thankfully, though, he wassomewhatable to hide his depravities.

But I would rather suffer with Miles than witness one of Damen’s wannabe daddy scenarios playing out in my head.