Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade Read Free Book Online Page A

after me. “Not like he is. And being his guide doesn’t make you any closer to it. You need to stop pretending. It’s pathetic.”
    I stopped dead and spun to face her again. “I’m sorry?” She was baiting me, I knew that, and yet I could not stop myself. She didn’t know anything; she was just lashing out at what she thought might be a weak spot. And yet, tonight, that one particular area just happened to be larger and more vulnerable than usual.
    She moved closer, her dress rustling loudly in the quiet summer night air. “You’re no different from the rest of us, except you think letting the medium use you makes you something special.”
    “Any using going on is mutual, I assure you,” I said tightly.
    She rolled her eyes. “Really? You think he’s going to want you around forever? Someone no one else can see? You work for him. The rest of it is temporary. You’re just conven—”
    I suspected that would have been “convenient,” but I launched myself at her before she could finish. We went down in a tangle of tulle in Will’s neighbor’s yard. God, I hoped Will wasn’t watching. But even if he was, I couldn’t let this go.
    “Don’t you see? It’s not right what he’s doing,” she insisted, even as we struggled and rolled in the grass.
    “I’m not doing it for him. I was sent back from the light to—”
    “You mean, you got kicked out!”
    I reached for her throat, to shut off her words and her air. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really hurt each other.
    “Hey, cut it out!” Eric reached between us and pulled us apart, one hand on the back of Liesel’s dress and the other on the collar of my shirt. “You’re disappearing.”
    We both looked down at ourselves. Whole sections of Liesel’s torso were see-through, and my legs were gone from the knee down. Damn it.
    “You seem very determined to make up for your mistake, which I admire,” I offered begrudgingly.
    “I like your hair,” she said with equal disdain.
    But it must have been genuine, on both of our parts, because the fading out stopped.
    “Look, we don’t want Claire to be unhappy. Just the opposite,” Liesel said quickly as if she thought—correctly—I’d start walking again now that I had my legs back. “We have a very limited window here. She doesn’t date very often, and when she does, it hardly ever goes this well. Right now, she’s happy and excited about Todd. So, she might be more open, more—”
    “Forgiving?”
    “Exactly.” Liesel nodded like her head was loose on her neck.
    Just considering this was breaking about every rule I had about the list of the dead who needed our help—it was totally first come, first served, unless you pissed me off and I sent you to the end, or extenuating circumstances bumped you to the top. No playing favorites.
    I had to maintain strong, unbiased order, or they’d be walking all over me to get to Will, and I didn’t have the time or energy, literally, to fight them all off.
    But Liesel maybe had a point—this time—about Mrs. Pederson’s potentially more optimistic mood.
    The pissy part of me wanted to tell her to forget it, but the truth was, if I wasn’t a little flexible when needed, I’d lose control just as fast as if I were too relaxed about it. Besides, Daddy always said, the well-timed favor earned more respect than yet another example of being a hard-ass.
    Plus, she’d said she’d liked my hair and meant it.
    “I’ll think about it and let you know,” I said. Of course, inthe end, it wasn’t my decision at all, but I sure as hell was notgoing to say that now. I knew Will would be twitchy aboutthis one, as he always was when it came to dealing withliving people he knew. But he’d graduated. As his former teacher, Mrs. Pederson was no longer really in a position togive him trouble. I might be able to talk him into this one.
    “Tonight,” Liesel said.
    I glared at her. “Don’t push your luck. Tomorrow.”
    She opened her mouth to object and seemed