Georgie lunged across the table, clearly angling for Nour. With a cry, Nour leaned back, easily avoiding Georgie’s fist.

“Fuck!” Georgie cursed, still scrambling on the table, looking for purchase to try and get at least one good punch in.

Bell hummed in surprise. “Her form isn’t all that bad, actually!” Devorah saw John nod in agreement. She didn’t personally know much about fighting, but a little afterlife entertainment never hurt anyone. Well, aside from maybe Georgie and Nour, of course.

“Georgie! No!” Jacob yelled, grabbing onto Georgie’s dominant hand. She started pinwheeling that arm, and Jacob was barely able to keep hanging on.

Lupe pinched her brow. Tiberius looked more amused than Devorah had ever seen him.

“Georgie, please see sense! We don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Budi pleaded.

Georgie bared her teeth. “I’m not just going to take that accusation lying down like a whore!”

Budi gasped.

“Hey, hey,” Gabriel moved around to Georgie’s other side and was making soft sounds, as if he wanted to soothe a rabid animal and not a small woman. “Georgie, what the doctor said wasn’t right, but I’ll be darned if they haven’t been good to you, treating you with their fancy elixirs.” Gabriel put his hand on Georgie’s shoulder and pushed down. While Jacob was clearly still struggling to suppress Georgie, it seemed that she couldn’t compete with the bare strength of a man used to nineteenth century farm work.

Her shoulder sagged under the grip, then her whole person sagged as she was pressed back into the chair.

Once Georgie was restrained, Nour settled back into their seat. “I was not accusing you of anything, Georgie. I was merely proposing some possible ways Mathilde may have been hurt. I apologize for offending you so deeply.”

“Watch yourself,” Georgie said, eyes narrowed.

“Or what?” Nour challenged.

There was another scrambling of limbs as Gabriel and Jacob pressed Georgie back into her chair.

“Maybe you could stop antagonizing Georgie?” Budi suggested.

“No, no.” Faith said. “Keep going, it’s just getting good.” Devorah laughed. Faith certainly was a character.

Once order returned to the court, Lupe sighed and said, “this is going nowhere. But I think finding out what the poison was could be a great starting place.”

“I do not believe there is any way to discern what the poison was,” Nour said. “And in searching the kitchen, we found no evidence of any containers that may have held poison.”

And from the doorway, a new voice said, “I think I may have an answer to that.” Devorah turned to look, and there were three new people at the edge of the room. The first, the speaker, was a small woman with short hair and a side shave. She wore a loose tank top and cargo shorts, revealing that both her left arm and leg were clunky prosthetics. The other side of her body was decorated in geometric tattoos.

The next person was the catgirl, the one from the ouija board incident. She looked exactly as she had in her profile, with one difference- her body was outlined in a bright red line. Just like an item left in the game as product placement.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She was the product.

Normally, this revelation would have sickened Devorah. But Devorah couldn’t think about that. Devorah couldn’t think about anything.

Everything Devorah was melted and reformed again at the sight of the final woman in the doorway.

Anna.

It was Anna, her Anna.

Anna, no longer in the costume she had worn for all of the time Devorah had known her. No longer was her hair down, nor was she in trousers. They had been exchanged for clothes that looked much more like what Anna would have worn in her real life, and had worn in the pictures Devorah had seen of her- a high necked blouse and a long skirt. Her beautiful dark blond hair was up in a neat bun, bangs framing her beloved face. She was just as Devorah remembered her. Button nose, oval face. Clever blue eyes.

Anna looked comfortable. She looked confident. But when didn’t she look confident? Devorah knew she had probably already solved the case. Surely, that was why she hadn’t been present during most of the investigation. She knew everyone would be congregated here and that it would be the perfect time to look into something. It was a tactic Anna had pulled twice before, both to easy success.

And for all that Devorah wanted to watch Anna tear this room apart, something more selfish in her called out for Anna to look her way. To see her.

Almost without thinking, Devorah stepped forward from her place behind Jacob’s chair. She stood before Anna. The woman next to her, the one with the prosthetics, was talking but Devorah heard nothing.

Anna was a scant few feet away. But she was looking at her new companion, not Devorah.

“Anna?” Devorah breathed out, tone reverent. It was closer to a prayer than a name.

And then by coincidence, she looked Devorah’s way. Likely through her to whoever was behind her. Anna’s blue eyes did not meet Devorah’s.

How could they?

Devorah was just a ghost. She was just as dead as Mathilde laying in the other room, quiet in her funerary shroud. No matter what happened, she could never again be Anna’s equal, if she ever had been in the first place. How readily Devorah had been replaced! How quickly Anna found a new… Whatever they had been on the verge of being.

For all that she did not have a real body, Devorah shook. The back of her throat and her eyes itched.

“Xiao Li,” Anna said, giving a name to the other woman. Jealousy burned in the pit of her chest. “Show them what we found.”

Xiao Li pulled out a series of broken shards glued together to form a bottle.

That must have been one of the reasons they hadn’t joined up with the others as quickly. But Devorah wondered- had it really taken so much time simply to put a glass bottle back together? How long would something like that really take?

Had they been doing something else? Looking for other clues, pieces of evidence?

Anna looked at Xiao Li and smiled.

Or had they been enjoying the emptiness of the house, with everyone else secluded in one room? This wouldn’t be a betrayal. For one, Devorah was dead. Death had parted them. Plus, Anna and Devorah had never been in an actual relationship. Devorah knew her own feelings, practically clung to them. It was the only truly strong emotion she had left. But that didn’t mean Anna had loved her too. It didn’t even mean Anna knew that she had been loved by Devorah.

But Anna had always been able to see through Devorah.

“See me,” Devorah said. “I need you to see me.” A tumultuous, horrible thing was building within her. Beginning in her gut it spread out, engulfing Devorah. It was so many emotions, every emotion at once. Anger, relief, fear, joy, sadness.

Love.

There was a flash, for just one second. Just one, small second, barely even there. In the back of her mind, Devorah registered that a charge had been used. She hadn’t consciously activated it, and it hadn’t sustained itself for its promised amount of time.

For one second, Devorah had existed. The tingling in her fingers had true sensation, the words she spoke had reverberated through the space, no matter how quiet. Devorah had felt whole. Almost human.

Yet Devorah barely even acknowledged this. Anna had been Anna- cool and confident. Clever and knowing more than anyone else in the room. But in that second, something had changed. Her already pale skin took on a pallor. Her eyes were wide and searching. And her pink lips had opened and she whispered one word.

“Devorah?”

Devorah threw herself at Anna, only to immediately disperse and reform again, away from her. Anna visibly shivered and only looked more unnerved.

She looked around the room, a strangely vulnerable look set on her face. For a moment, just a moment, it had been possible that she saw Devorah. But there was no real way for Devorah to confirm this.

Devorah hadn’t wanted to make her uncomfortable. Not really. So she took a step back. Devorah raised her hand and let it sit in the air, just a few inches away from Anna’s cheek. And then she put her hand back down.

Reaching deep inside herself, Devorah looked for the energy to summon her other charge. Just for a second. One more blessed second. If there was a chance to confirm what she thought Anna might have been thinking, that Devorah was there? That they shared a space again, and that death hadn’t permanently parted them?

But she couldn’t. The only thing Devorah felt was exhaustion.

Anna closed her eyes. Breathed in, out. And clearly came to some kind of conclusion. Her face had hardened, eyes going glassy and dull. Then she walked through Devorah and took a seat at the head of the table.