My eyes narrowed on his bowed head. “So I can go anywhere?”
Nyktos nodded.
I moved quietly toward him. “Even here? Your office?”
“I’m sure there are more interesting places to be.”
“I’m beginning to doubt you actually live here if you think that.”
“I live here, Sera.”
“Well, you said anywhere. And I choose here.” I paused by the chair. “With you.”
The breath he exhaled practically rattled the walls as he looked up at me.
Fighting a grin, I tilted my chin at the tome. “What’s that?”
“One of the Books of the Dead.”
My heartbeat tripped as I eyed the book as if it would leap from his desk and choke the life from me. “The book that lists those who will die the day it’s opened?” I whispered. “I was never sure it was real.”
“It’s real.”
“Is no one going to die today? The page is blank.”
“For now. I have yet to write the names.”
“Do you need something to write with?” I glanced at his otherwise bare desk. “I’m sure I can get you something. I wouldn’t want to delay you from ripping people away from their loved ones.”
“I’m not killing people when I write their names,” he replied dryly. “They would die with or without me doing so.”
“Then what’s the purpose of writing their names?” I picked up several curls and began twisting the strands together as I edged around the chair.
“Their souls cannot cross through the Pillars until I write their names.”
“You left that part out when you told me that bodies do not need to be burned for their souls to leave them.”
“I didn’t think it was something you needed to know.” His attention dropped and lingered where my fingers toyed with my hair.
I drifted closer. “Do you need me…” His gaze flew to mine. “To retrieve something for you to write with?”
“I have what I need.”
“Is it invisible?”
“No. I haven’t summoned it yet.” He lifted his hand. A slender, shimmering swirl of silver-white energy appeared, and asecond later, a thin black stylus lay in his once-empty palm.
My lips parted. “Did you…just summon a stylus from thin air?”
“I did.”
That was somehow more mystifying than watching him conjure Odin from his cuff. “What about ink?”
“The names of the dead are not written in ink. They’re written in blood.”
“Your blood?”
Nyktos nodded.