Ghost Silk (Ghost Perfume, Book 2) | ✔

Prologue - Give us a song, Ursula - Part 2

Kiki opens his mouth but closes it again.

"Was that it, then?" Adelaide asks in her bored, haughty way. "Goodbye."

She turns away.

"Adelaide. What happened? You went over to the living world, didn't you? Why did you come back?"

Thelma's face goes comically slack-jawed.

Adelaide glowers. "Of all ... if I could have gone over to the living world, why would I have come back to this place?"

Kiki looks suspicious.

"I know you went back," he starts.

"I don't think I did."

"I heard you went back."

"I heard you went back," Adelaide repeats in a high, mocking voice.

"Are you calling your sister a liar?" Kiki asks pleasantly.

I enjoy the look on Adelaide's face – like she's realizing that' food she's swallowed has gone bad. To her credit, she recovers her composure quickly, and her face goes as sweet as Kiki's.

"Which sister was that?" she asks.

"Your really beautiful one," Kiki says, which I can only imagine he does to needle her; all the Beldam sisters are beautiful. "She said you two crossed over to take a walk on the wild side, and that was the last she saw of you. Now fuck off, Kiki, god." He makes that innocent and believable face where he presses his lips inwards and raises his brows. "Her words."

Adelaide props her chin on her hand. "I wonder how my sister would justify coming back here herself, if she allegedly managed to go into the living world?"

It's like she genuinely wants to know the answer.

"I wonder too," Kiki says. "She didn't stick around long to talk with me. She's so beautiful, your sister, but she's not as nice as you."

"So she didn't tell you, did she?" Adelaide presses.

"No, but it's obvious, isn't it?"

Adelaide arches her brow again. "What's obvious?"

"Why you two went over in the first place."

"Do enlighten me."

Kiki's big conspiracy is about to make a grand entrance, I can tell; and though I think the theory is ridiculous, I can't help but hope, with a secret thrill, that Adelaide will somehow confirm it.

"You don't have to pretend, Adelaide, I know what you are," Kiki says.

Her eyes dart very quickly around. People are listening intently.

The rugrats who were playing thumb wars, they've got their mouths open as they stare at Adelaide with utterly riveted attention.

Well, if she wants privacy, she could leave Taverna.

"Alright, then, what am I?" she asks.

"I know about your cult," Kiki says.

She stiffens. "And what cult is that?"

"Your necromancer cult," Kiki spits. I sense the collectively shallower breathing of the audience round us. "I know the gist. You hear things over the years, it's not hard to put together ... you have a cute little system set up. Once you die, your living confederates have a way to call you back over to the living world. They sacrifice the souls of an unsuspecting living, so you can take the body over and force a kind of reincarnation for yourself. And again and again ... when any of your confederates die, you find new bodies for them, and call them back again ... that's where you and your sister went; back to the cult. That's why you all, all the Beldams, and that Ilium, and fucking Jackal, all your piece of work friends – that's why you know so much more than the rest of us. You've been around a few times. Around and around." Kiki finally sucks in a breath. "And here's my only question. What went wrong? What failed that you're back so quickly?"