15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Natasya

I pause, glancing up at Evengi. He is staring at something in the empty space of the tomb to his right. I don't know what he thinks he sees, but there is a look of mounting horror on his face.

I push to my feet, dusting off my skirts and stride toward him. "What are you looking at?"

Evengi startles, turning to me as if he forgot I was there. It's a little insulting actually. I'm holding him here with the bones of long dead necromancers the least he can do is not forget my presence.

"How long do you think you can keep these skeletons reanimated?" he demands instead as he turns the full force of those piercing blue eyes to me. "Maybe a few hours? A day? You'll have to sleep eventually."

"Don't you worry, Mr. Ichabod, I'm not in any danger of tiring out."

"Three skeletons are relatively impressive," he says although he doesn't sound impressed.

I bend over, bracing my hand on my knees. "I can do better," I whisper. "Oh, I've been reanimating my Papa since I was a child. It's quite literally child's play to me." I rest my hand on the skeleton's shoulder, leaning toward it. "After all these years it's nice to keep close to my father, don't you think?"

Evengi turns to that area next to him again and raises his eyebrow as if he is listening to something. He shakes his head with a snort. "You disgust me," he mutters.

I straighten. "Well, that's hardly fair. I'm actually a fairly nice person. I'm polite and unlike you I actually mind my own business. I only brought you here because you forced my hand."

Evengi turns back to me and gives his head a small shake. "Oh, I didn't actually mean you."

I pull up, glancing around in confusion. "And who exactly were you speaking to then? My father?"

Evengi's eye gets a twinkle in it as he smirks. "You could say that." I'm not sure how to respond as he folds his long legs and looks up at me. "Look, I think we got off to the wrong foot, and I'm beginning to lose feeling to my fingers."

I fold my arms as I step closer. "You're a lot less intimidated than you were before."

"I was never intimidated by you, darling," Evengi says. He tilts his head as he studies me. "Is it true that you've never actually killed anyone?"

I suck in a breath and stumble back a step, nearly tripping over the end of my dress. "Who told you that?"

"You prefer to let your father do your dirty work." He points to the skeleton. "Not that one. The living one."

I sneer as I pull back. "I don't know how you got that information, but clearly you're well informed."

"Not well informed enough to manage to avoid breaking into a necromancer's house. But I'm trying to remedy that by getting to know you now. I know now that the Natasya I met last night wasn't the real version of you, but I don't think this is you either. So why don't you put aside your ruses and we can discuss this civilly?"

I can't help but smirk at that. What a surprise that must have been for him? "You think you have me all figured out then?"

"Oh, no, I would never claim that."

I decide that it's time for a change in subject. "What were you doing in my home, planning to kidnap me in an attempt to get my father's money?"

He snorts. "As if I need your father's money."

"You're a vagabond," I point out.

"By choice." He sighs waving his fingers, I think perhaps he is just moving them to try to keep the blood pumping to them. "I was looking for evidence that you were linked to Brom's disappearance, but now…" He shakes his head. "If you didn't kill Brom, as I have been told you have never actually killed anyone, and you aren't currently holding him in this tomb, then where could he possibly be?"

I rest my hand on my hip, taking a half step back. "You say all this like you weren't the one who made Brom disappear."

"You didn't take him, did you?" he breathes.

"Did you?" I ask in return.

He flicks his gaze up at me, staring at me for a long moment as if trying to size me up. I wish him the best of luck, no one outside of my family, and perhaps Taryn, has never been able to see past the layers I have built up around myself to protect me from those who would hate me for who I am. "If I tell you the truth, will you consider actually letting me go?"

I arch my brow. It's cute that Evengi thinks he is in a position to make a deal with me, but then my father has always taught me to never underestimate a good bargain. Sometimes it's just easier than doing things the hard way.

Still, I can't just let him go, even if he has nothing to do with Brom's disappearance he knows I'm a necromancer. I need to keep him close until at least I'm able to leave town with that spellbook safely in my possession.

"If you tell me the truth, I won't harm you," I say at last. "I'll have no need to if I have the answers that I seek."

His eyes dart to the corner again. "You're not helpful," he says out of the corner of his mouth.

I feel my eyebrow rise even higher.

As he turns to me with a sigh. "I suppose that is better than nothing, and I'm just left to trust the word of a necromancer."

"If you won't trust the word of a necromancer, then trust the word of a lady," I say straightening.

Evengi's eyes flick up and down my form slowly. "All right, I guess that's the best I'm getting." He shifts his position so that he is sitting straighter. "It's true that I wasn't entirely forthright about my reasons for entering Sunder Hollow."

"I knew it," I declare smugly as I step away, I turn in a small circle and grin triumphantly at Evengi. "I knew it."

He is watching me with a somewhat amused expression on his face. As amused as anyone can be while being held in place by skeletal hands anyway. A strand of his chin length hair has escaped from its loose knot and is now falling into his face. Since his hands are otherwise occupied, I lean forward and push it out of his face.

This seems to startle him, and he looks up at me with surprise. I smirk at him. "It takes a liar to know a liar, Mr. Ichabod. And I knew you were lying almost from the start."

"To be fair, my secrets were not nearly as dark as yours, my fair Natasya." He smirks up at me. "I help people and serve the gods. You tinker with dead things."

"Are you going to get on with it or preach to me?"

"Why not a little bit of both?" He turns his hands so that they are palm up. "After all, you wanted to know who I am. Well, this is it, I am a priest of Neltruna."

I recoil at that. Evengi is a priest? Out of everything I'd expected from him this was certainly not it.

"Oh, how repulsive," I reply sticking out my tongue. "Am I going to be smote by the gods for letting you kiss me?"

"If you are to be smote for anything, it's for being a necromancer. I'm no more holy than any other person, I may serve the gods but I'm still just a man. Also, I'll remind you that you kissed me not the other way around."

I fold my arms, still not feeling comforted by this discovery. "Where are your orange robes?"

He smirks. "I thought they clashed with my complexion."

"So, you're a priest, but you're not very priestly."

Evengi shrugs. "I serve the goddess of darkness and monsters by hunting monsters with the rest of my order, not tending churches or grave sites. I, in particular specialize in ghosts."

Faintly I remember Evengi's comment during the dance about ghosts. I feel my eyebrows rise. "Ghosts?"

He grins. "I can see them better than most."

"There must be many ghosts here," I say glancing around at the shelves lined with bones.

"Indeed, and they are angry, but they won't materialize even to me." He does a double take to the corner. "Well, most of them won't."

I point to the corner. "Those comments you were making earlier when you kept saying you weren't talking to me, you were talking to a ghost, weren't you?"

Evengi hesitates for a second before he nods.

I reach up tapping my finger against my lip. If what Evengi said is true, I'm having a harder time imagining him being the one behind Brom's disappearance.

He may be a bit more blood thirsty than most priests and probably wouldn't hesitate to kill my family who are vampires, but what reason would he have to attack Brom?

"You really didn't take Brom, did you?" I ask with a sigh as I rest my hands on my hips.

He shakes his head. "And I only broke into your house because I suspected you of something nefarious. I was right, but I did misjudge just how nefarious you were."

"Flatterer," I say, waving my hand through the air. I pace to the side, pausing as I catch a glimpse into the adjoining tunnel that leads to further burial chambers. There is a flicker like torchlight within. I take a small step forward when suddenly Evengi cries out my name.

"Natasya!"

I nearly jump out of my skin as I whirl. "What?" I demand.

Evengi's eyes are wide and excited as he stares at the entrance of the burial mound. "It's Brom, I just saw him. He's all right. He just poked his head in here and then took off."

I take two steps forward, ready to race after my fiancé but draw short when Evengi clears his throat.

I pause and release a sigh. I can't very well leave him here. Necromancy only works across short distances. I could knock him unconscious, but that's an unreliable method I'd have no way of knowing how long he would remain unconscious or of making certain that he doesn't wake up before I return.

I jab a finger through the air. "Don't you dare even think about making a run for the village."

"I'm just as concerned with getting Brom back whole as you are," he assures me. "On my honor as a priest, we can have a truce for as long as it takes to ensure that."

"I hate the honor of priests," I mutter as I shake my head, but I wave my hands and the skeletons release Evengi's hands going back to being just as dead as before. I inhale deeply as it feels like a weight is lifted off my lungs. Now I just have to worry about keeping my papa reanimated.

Evengi pushes to his feet, gingerly rubbing his wrists. "All right then, let's go find Brom so that we can go back to being mortal enemies."

I give a sharp nod. "Agreed."