Page 128 of Dead Vengeance

“He can’t have stolen it!” I bluster out loud, already defending him. “Not Gerald. He’s so sweet. Kind of. He’s… He’s… He’s a business-owner!”

“You think Gerald stole this mirror?” Archer probes, keeping me on the track I don’t want to be on.

“No!” I argue, half with him, half with myself. “I mean, he has it. But he might have just bought it from a shop, or-or some dodgy guy. I bet he knows a lot of dodgy guys.”

Archer’s head tilts to the side, mouth set in a ‘really, Liam?’ kind of slant. “You don’t think Gerald’s a dodgy guy?”

“Okay, but he’s not that kind of dodgy,” I protest. “Certainly not a criminal mastermind who goes all the way up to Manchester to an archaeological dig, then steals something like this. Why would he do that? It’s not like he could have known what it can do. Or who it belongs to.”

“Hmm.” Archer’s eyes, beneath a deep frown, skitter away first, then he follows their direction. He turns to the fridge on that short sound, as if he doesn’t believe these excuses at all, which, fair. He snatches out the milk, pours it, sticks the milk back. Grabs the biscuits, walks over to the coffee table and sets them down, already artfully arranged on a plate. Gets the tea. Takes it back over. Sits. “Liam?”

“I’m sorry, Archer.” I glance over the spread with some mixture of guilt and confusion. “I don’t… I don’t think I can stay for tea. Tezcatlipoca has my brother, and he wants his mirror, and Gerald has his mirror, so I—”

“Please sit down for one minute,” he says calmly. Weirdly calmly. Like a school teacher. “We have something important to discuss, and I’m not sure how you’re going to react to my thoughts.”

I make my way over to him cautiously, settling by his side. “Archer, I need to go.”

He keeps that look of deep thought, deep concentration. “This is… some level of madness that I just didn’t see coming. I wish I’d known about this earlier.”

“Are you angry with me?” I don’t think I’d realised how close to my chest the concern was until it spilled out of me.

Archer takes my hand, kisses it, settling me immediately. “I don’t think that’s possible.” Which is super sweet, until he adds, “And that’s exactly what’s worrying me.”

“You’re worried I haven’t pissed you off?” I ask. “Because I guarantee you, I can. I piss a lot of people off. In fact, I’m not sure I’m very likeable at all. I took this job I shouldn’t have taken. I basically lied to you about my experience, through omission. I didn’t tell you any of this past of mine when I… I—”

He cuts my rambling short by placing my hand on his chest, right over his heart. “All it does is make me like you more. Because I understand you. Or I believe I do. And I believe you understand me.” He pauses a moment, worry in the deep lines between his eyebrows, then he pushes forward, slowly, too-seriously. “What I’m feeling for you, it’s… fast. It’s maybe something you don’t want to talk about right now because we have other things to discuss, and I don’t want to be weird or make you feel uncomfortable, but I’m taking this chance because…”

Archer presses his lips, then sets his clear and determined eyes on mine. “Because what are the chances that you, Liam, who has been grieving a missing brother for five years, just happened to walk into the office of the ExorSquad, find employment with a man who deals in the dead, who just happens to have stolen a mirror that belongs to a god, a god who keeps the dead, who also just happens to be haunting the home of a necromancer, who just happens to have the power to speak with the dead, and… and…”

I wait, bated breath.

He finishes with, “And who just happens to have fallen head over heels for you in a matter of days.”

“Uh…” I try to get my brain to skip over that last bit, concentrate on all the other really important stuff he’s just said. “That seems…” A lot. It’s a lot. But I only ask, “Really?”

Head over heels. Actually, really head over heels? For me?

“Yes, really,” he concurs with a frown. “It is a lot of coincidences.”

“No, I mean—”

“It’s really more like…” His knees swivel around to press against mine, then he snaffles up my other hand and holds them both in some pose that almost feels like he’s about to propose. And as mad as it is, I wonder, would I even say no? Especially when he tells me, “This—you and me—feels like fate.”

My heart skips several beats as I stare back at him.

That’s very romantic. Super romantic.

The most romantic.

But he’s right. It’s not the time for that sort of declaration. Not that I’m complaining. But I am sitting here saying absolutely nothing like a turnip, so I’m relieved when he continues with, “You in my home, by chance, when you’re the one who needs help from someone like me, doing exactly what I usually do on my own, without a god stepping in to make it happen.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “That is weird.”

“It feels exactly like that mirror belongs to the god of fate, Liam, and because Gerald unearthed it, it allowed Tezcatlipoca to move along the ley lines that surround this area, to come into reality, right here at the epicentre of it all. The widest gateway he could have found from that world into ours. Where he has what you want, and you have what he wants, and whatever is happening here between us…”

“We’re perfect.” The words are out before I can stop them. A protest and a confirmation. And I wish I could cram them back in. It’s too soon, too open.

But Archer says, “We’re perfect. Like two perfectly fated people. Fated to meet, fated to have these puzzle pieces slide into place. Primed and ready to do exactly what he wants, because he knows I’d do just about anything for you. Already. Because he orchestrated this.”