Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
Hemmen’s ghost reaches out and touches my left hand in what feels like the barest of whispers.
Yes.
I want to weep with relief, but I need to concentrate. His touch is unpleasant, skittering over my skin like insect legs and filling me with revulsion. I fight the urge to shake my hand to flick away his touch and concentrate.
“The guild suspects that there is a ring of thieves working with repeaters to steal artifacts. Were you part of this?”
He touches my hand again. Yes.
A wave of sadness rushes over me. “Oh, Hemmen, why?”
He hesitates, his spirit fluctuating wildly. One of the other spirits tries to push in, touching my hand, and I shake it off. “Wait your turn.” I turn back to Hemmen’s ghost. “I’m not judging you. I just wish I understood. Were they blackmailing you? The people you were working with?”
More sadness ripples through the room, and I realize it’s coming from him. He touches my right hand. No.
“But they offered you something you wanted…?”
Yes.
“Books? Riches?”
Yes.
His hand lingers on mine, and a new image flashes through my mind. Hemmen, delirious with joy at the thought of having his own personal library, of all the books he could buy and the leisure time he would have to enjoy them. This is what they offered him, I realize. This is a fragment of his memory, being sent over to me.
“You stole for them?”
Hemmen touches my left hand again. Yes.
“What did you take? Artifacts? Books? Or something else?”
He hesitates, then drifts backward slightly, unsure how to answer.
Right. I purse my lips, focusing. I want to ask him how he got in to steal from the archives, but something tells me that he won’t have the answers I need, not with being constricted to yes or no. There are still more people at work, though, and I need to find out who else could be in danger. “Do you know who it was that killed you?”
He hesitates again, and then drifts his hand over mine. No.
I frown at that. “Did you see their face?”
Yes.
“But you don’t know who it is?”
No.
It makes no sense to me. I stab at an answer. “Do you think they hired someone to kill you, then?”
Yes.
Oh. Now we’re getting somewhere. “Do you know who it was who might have sent that person?”
Again, he taps my hand. Yes.
“And do I know this person?”
Yes.
A chill goes down my spine. “Am I their next target?”
He hesitates, then taps no. He gestures at himself, and then at me. Then at himself again.
“You were the one targeting me?”
Yes.
I’m confused. “Why would you do that? I was in your Five. My future was tied to yours.”
Hemmen’s ghost reaches out and, to my surprise, caresses my breast.
I rear back. “What are you doing?”
The spirit becomes agitated, and he gestures at the right hand that I’ve pulled away. He’s trying to say no. When I put my right hand out again, he taps it. No. No.
Then he reaches for me again, my skin shivering as he tugs at my bun of hair. I don’t understand…. “Wait. Because I’m a woman? That’s why you targeted me?”
Yes.
“So I was an easy target, then. You…wanted us to fail? Our Five?”
He taps my hand. Yes.
I’m starting to figure this out. “Because the thieves needed you as a repeater? Is that why you’ve repeated so many times?”
Yes.
So Hemmen was working with them for a long time. I ponder this, even as another ghost tries to push its way forward, his touch sending ice down my spine. “Stop it,” I tell the other ghost. “You won’t get your turn if you keep harassing me.”
It prattles frantically at me but retreats backward, going to hover close to the bier at the farthest side of the room. I can feel its agitation in the air, and it makes me want to leave. I want to flee, but I force myself to stay behind, to calmly get answers from poor Hemmen, who only wanted to be lazy and read books all day and ended up in over his head. “Can you help me find the person who did this to you? The one you say I know?”
Yes.
I try to think how to approach this next. He can’t tell me the name. “Maybe a word game? Does the name begin with an ‘A’?”
No.
“A ‘B’?”
No.
I continue down the alphabet until I get to the letter where he says Yes.
Instead of brushing his fingers over my skin, he sinks them into my palm. Images flash through my mind, bleeding over from Hemmen into me. Frost coats me from inside, and I feel like I’m drowning. I make a choked sound, falling backward off the bench as Hemmen’s flurry of memories pushes through my head, one after the other. Suddenly, I know exactly who it is and how they’re working. I know how they’re slipping through the cracks and moving about unnoticed.