“Her spirit is gone. There’s nothing we can do.” Taryn knelt next to him. “I’m sorry.”

  I hung back, awkwardly holding the bag of charms.

  “She wouldn’t leave.” The fey poured his power into her. Under his hands, her neck straightened, and color returned to her cheeks.

  The necromancy in my leg stilled, as if watching to see which way it would go.

  I hadn’t delved into the theories of necromancy. There were several. One said only the shell ever came back, while another maintained the spirit had to be there for the memories and action to happen.

  “Come back to me! Moira, come back!” He brushed road grit off her cheek. “Please come back.”

  My necromancy warmed.

  The bag of charms fell from my hand. My necromancy had never warmed.

  Hoping I wasn’t making a colossal mistake, I grabbed a greater healing charm and pushed through the crowd and knelt next to Moria. Using a drop of my warm necromancy, I activated the healing charm and set it on the hollow of her throat. “Moria, rise and be healed. Eair Deyr, Moria. Eair.”

  I said the words as softly as I could. If it worked, I didn’t want credit. If she rose and was undead, I wanted to slay her with as little notice and fuss as possible.

  Moria’s lips parted, and she inhaled roughly. Her eyes opened, the clouding fading away, and she coughed.

  My necromancy went cold again, but this time, it didn’t reach for her. Instead, it settled back into its spot and quieted.

  Moria groaned. “I don’t feel well.”

  “Get her on a gurney and to the hospital for testing.” Syd shoved Lance out of the way to make room for the EMT.

  Lance struggled, but Taryn grabbed his arm. “Let them load her up, then you can go with her. Everyone else, we have a dragon to move.”

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  I moved back, collecting my charms with trembling hands. Nothing I’d read had given me any idea I could use my necromancy like that. If it had been my necromancy at all. Maybe she’d just needed a bit more healing, and she would’ve come back.

  Maybe, but I didn’t believe it. Trouble was, I didn’t know how I’d put her back together, so I wouldn’t be able to repeat it. Not that I could even attempt such a thing without someone who could do the physical healing. Of my many witch and necromancer talents, healing like that wasn’t on the list.

  I collected my charms and went to examine the silver box with the red flashes of magic. Regular magic I knew how to use, not the weird confusing necromancy stuff.

  A probe confirmed magic but couldn’t detect what was inside the case. The probe didn’t identify a shield, but rather… nothing, as if the inside of the case wasn’t there.

  Odd, but not the weirdest thing I’d seen magic do.

  However, I didn’t like the patterns I could sense inside the spell. They were reaching, hunting for something. It wasn’t like a tracking spell. No, this one wanted something from its target.

  I’d never seen a good spell hunt like this.

  I didn’t even want to pick up the case until I’d had more time to examine it, but I had to follow Jolly to the hospital, and no one wanted the highway closed for long. Since time wasn’t on my side, I went back to my car to swap the bag of charms for a containment bag and protective gloves.

  On my way over, the ambulance took off. Moria would be taken downtown to the trauma hospital. They were better for humanoids. The hospital we were taking Jolly to was outside of town, with more room for larger humanoids and non-humans.

  “I want to be out of here in three minutes!” Taryn bellowed.

  Oversized containment bag and gloves in hand, I jogged back over to the box. Smith helped me shove the rubble off and held open the bag. I brushed the last little bits of concrete off the silver case. Other than the giant nylon loops dangling off, it could’ve been any protective case. I placed it into the containment bag, careful not to let it touch Smith, and then sealed the bag and activated the spell.

  Smith dusted off his hands. “Pine, about the message I left you.”

  “One minute, people! I want this dragon on the road,” Taryn yelled as she climbed on the flatbed with another giant syringe.

  “Can it wait?” I asked as I carried the case to my car.

  He tensed but nodded. “This afternoon.”

  “Done.”

  I stored the case in the trunk while Taryn gave Jolly another dose of sedatives. Then we were ready for transport. Taryn and Syd strapped themselves into a seat roughly lashed to the flatbed, right in front of Jolly. I followed behind in my car. My instructions had consisted of, “You’ll know when you need to get involved.”

  Thankfully, the trip to the hospital passed uneventfully, because I had a hard time keeping my mind on the dragon in front of me. My mind kept going to back my warm necromancy.

  Moria hadn’t been undead when she came back, that much I was sure. That left me with lots of questions. Tonight, I could hunt through the family book, but I’d memorized the table of contents, and there wasn’t a section on bringing people back from the dead. Not alive, anyway. Like really, truly alive.