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she won’t let anything hurt me.” Though, if metal went berserk, she was just as capable of bringing it down as Finley, perhaps more so.
    “I can’t tell you what to do,” he said in a soft tone. “I don’t want to boss you around. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
    She brushed a thick lock of hair back from his brow and lightly touched the furrow there. It dissolved almost immediately. There he was. There was her Sam. “Sometimes people get hurt,” she told him. She’d been hurt before, but she was still alive. She was still able to feel love and physical attraction despite what had been done to her.
    “But I can’t put you back together,” he whispered. Mary and Joseph, but he broke her heart. “You already have, Sam.” And it was true. “I can’t begin to count the ways you’ve mended me.”
    He kissed her then. Her heart leaped—not in fear but in joy. Butterflies tangled their wings in her stomach. Sam’s kiss and touch made her feel things she thought had been taken away from her by rough, cruel forces.
    Sam cupped her face as he pulled back just enough to look her in the eye. “I don’t want to lose you.”
    “You won’t. You won’t ever lose me, I promise.” And she meant it. “And someday, I’m going to make it so that all you want to do is smile.”
    He kissed her again, and it was a long time before either one of them spoke.

    * * *
    Emily caught her skulking around outside the blue parlor, the horn of an ornophone against the door as she tried to listen to the conversation taking place on the other side.
    Mr. Isley and Griffin were discussing ghosts, but she was having the devil of a time hearing the full extent of their conversation. Something they were doing created a low-grade noise that partially drowned out their voices. Blast it all. How was she ever to know what was going on?
    “What are you doing?”
    Finley jumped. Fortunately she did so quietly. She could only hope the device made it just as difficult to hear what was going on in the corridor. She tiptoed toward her friend, her finger to her lips so Emily would shush. If Griffin caught her it was going to make it that much more difficult to find out what he was keeping from her.
    The library wasn’t far, so Finley gestured the other girl inside and then closed the door.
    “I was trying to eavesdrop on Griffin’s meeting.”
    “That much was obvious,” Emily replied disapprovingly. “Why?”
    The redhead’s wariness was to be expected. As good friends as the two of them had become, Emily’s loyalty belonged to Griffin first. And Emily favored a more direct approach than Finley did.
    “Because the bloke he’s talking to says he saw Lord Felix’s murder when he touched my hand.” She folded her arms over her chest. “And I want to know if he is what he seems, or if he’s a charlatan.”
    “A male medium? How interesting. Woman tends to be the more sensitive sex when dealing with the spirit realm.”
    Finley shrugged. “He seemed to find Jasper quite attractive.”
    Emily shot her a censorious look. “That doesn’t make him any less male.”
    Not physically obviously, but perhaps his preference gave him more of a feminine sensibility where the dead were concerned. Or maybe the whole thing was bollocks. “I don’t care what he is. I just want to know if I killed the bastard!” She slapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late; she’d said too much.
    The color drained from Emily’s already pale face. Just as quickly her expression went from surprise to annoyance. “Of course you didn’t kill him. Scotland Yard said you were no longer a suspect. You could never kill anyone.”
    “Your confidence is appreciated, but you don’t know that. I don’t know that. I have no memory of that night, and it was before Griffin started helping me amalgamate my two selves.” Plus, Scotland Yard thought a man had done it, but only because an “ordinary” girl wouldn’t have been physically strong