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"You are mistaken," was all she said

I looked back at Davide He squinted back at"For the love of--"

"Silence"

At Tallulah’s softly spoken colance at Ben out of the corner of my eye He had adopted a mildly interested expression as Tallulah invoked a trance, but as I watched, one corner of his ood How a to spend the rest of my life with you if all you have to do is quirk one side of your s?

You will enjoy yourself greatly, both in chastising me forpleasured as only a Beloved can be pleasured Yes, including h I object to you including in your fantasies that object, and I would like to know, since you’ve had no othererections?

The Internet, baby, the Internet

"Sir Edward is with us," Tallulah said, interrupting ht be fun to use on Ben She sounded brisk and businesslike as usual, not at all adopting the dreaoddess "I have told hireed to help you, although he warns that he is li the session with Tallulah to take a long ti around Sir Edward had to do from the Akashic Plain, referred to by people in the Otherworld as Akasha, and by normal people as limbo But to my surprise, it took Tallulah and Sir Edward only three minutes to tell us anted to know

"There is aintently into her scrying bowl "I see hih he disguises it well He was a servant, but has been freed It is he who holds your lanced at Ben

"De Marco," he said

"That’s what I was thinking But why? Because he knew Mom in the past?"

"Perhaps the issues of their relationship were not resolved in the past"

"Possibly But that doesn’t sound like her"

Ben admitted it didn’t

"And is she really in love with de Marco, or did he ic her somehow?"

Ben asked Tallulah, "Is he nearby? Is Miranda with hiaze still locked on the smooth surface of the water in the bowl She was silent for aher head, "He has too much power for Sir Edward to seeforces to him, dark forces"

The therions? His experiments, do you think?

It’s possible, but therions are not beings of dark power

Tallulah suddenly took a big gasp of air, then sat back, her eyes once again on us "That is all we could see The man sensed Sir Edward’s interest, and would have attacked him had Sir Edward not retreated back to the Akasha"

"De Marco can attack ghosts?" I asked, incredulous at the idea I knew ghosts in corporeal forrounded, could be interacted with physically, but Sir Edward had never, in the time I had known Tallulah, had a solid fori, a reaper of souls" Her eyes held sympathy as she reached across the table and tapped Ben on his wrist "You uard well, Benedikt He desires to add you to his forces"

"Well, he can just desire all he wants, Ben isthe show of possession

Why? I enjoyed it, Ben said with a s to be absolutely unbearable after a few years of that, and I have to spendwhat, a thousand years with you?

Possibly Possibly o now, before it’s too late

Ben laughed in my head, and took my hand We thanked Tallulah and Sir Edward for their time, after which I took Davide back to Tallulah’s trailer,sure to pat the cat on his head since I knew he disliked it Kindlier instincts prompted me to pull out a little bowl of chopped chicken that Tallulah said she was saving for hiave it to hinant expression s," I said some twenty minutes later, as I arrived at where Ben sat on the corner of a portable picnic table in the coht just before the food stall closed down, adding, "Nor down early for the big finale of the opera shindig in town, I suspect they’ve gone in to pick up woet hold of David?"

"Yes" Ben put his phone away in an inner pocket of his leather jacket and slipped on the latter "He says he’ll meet us at de Marco’s house as soon as he can Do you have your valknut?"

I touched ahärta is Loki’s valknut Why do you think it will help us with de Marco?"