He pulled me into his arms so my face rested against his shoulder as I sobbed. His voice was rough with emotion, but thrummed inside of me like a thousand strings set vibrating. "I swear to you that you will have your soul back. I swear that on my own, Sam. You saved me when I needed you, now I will save you."

A soul means different things to different cultures. To most, it's the thing that makes us more than just sentient, the part of us that lives on when our bodies fail and turn to dust. As Paen drove me home, I came to realize another function of a soul—it connected us to humanity, made us a part of a common experience. Empty as I was inside, I watched dispassionately as people hurried through the streets of Edinburgh. I felt detached from them all, an observer who found them interesting, but not particularly of any value. I didn't care about them.

With one exception.

Looking at Paen brought tears to my eyes. Not tears of sorrow or self-pity—I had shed the last of those crouched on the floor of Mary King's Close. What made Paen different from the rest of the world was his soul—it shone so brightly around him, giving him a corona of warmth and love that drew me like a moth to flame. I wanted to be close to him just to bask in the glow of life that radiated from him. Touching him, being pressed up against him made the howling inside me die down just a little, and warmed a tiny fraction of my cold being.

"How did you live like this?" I asked him as he helped me up the stairs to my apartment. "How did you live so long without going mad?"

"I didn't know anything else," he answered, his lips brushing my temple. "Until I met you."

Paen insisted I rest and have a cup of tea. "You've lost a significant amount of blood," he said as he tucked a blanket around me where I sat curled up on the couch. "In addition, your body is using up a good deal of energy to heal your neck. You'll need fluids and sugar to help regain blood and finish the healing."

I touched my neck, pleased to see that my fingers came away without any fresh blood on them. The wound was slowly closing, the bleeding having stopped a short while before. Tea didn't sound the least bit appealing. I craved protein instead. "What I could go for is a steak. A nice big, bloody ste—" I stopped, appalled with the image in my head, my skin crawling at the thought of what I'd become. "Dear god—am I craving blood?"

"I don't know. Are you?" He plugged the electric kettle in and rustled around the kitchen, finding mugs, the milk, sugar, and tea biscuits.

"You needn't sound so unconcerned about it. This is a big deal to me," I said rather snappishly (allowable, I felt, given the situation).

He shrugged and brought the tea things out to the table next to where I sat. "It's not a big deal to me. I am and always will be a male Moravian—I must take blood from others, or I'll die."

"Well, I hope you're not peckish now, because this diner is closed for repairs."

He smiled and went to check the water. "I'm hungry, but I can wait."

"For how long?" I touched my neck again. It was hot, as if the skin was feverish.

"For however long it takes. Here." He thrust a cup of heavily sugared tea in my hands. "Drink."

"Sam? Is that you—oh, good, you came back." Clare traipsed out of her room, her long silk bathrobe almost exactly matching the shade of the pink rose she absently carried. "Finn and I were wondering when you would be ba—Goddess above! What happened to you?"

Clare stopped in front of me, striking a dramatic pose with her hand to her throat as she stared at me in horror. Behind her, Finn emerged from her room, tucking his shirttail into his pants. He, too, froze when he saw me, quickly turning his gaze to Paen.

"I turned Sam," my lover said simply, sitting down next to me. "The man who had been trying to kill her was finally successful. Or he would have been if I hadn't turned her."

I gave both startled faces in front of me a wan smile, waving Paen on when he offered to tell the recent events.

"We will find your soul," Clare promised when he was done, my hand clasped between hers as she sat at my feet, the remains of a mostly eaten rose on her lap. "I have absolutely no doubt that we'll find it. Is there a soul repository of some sort?"

That last bit was addressed to Paen. He shook his head. "Not as such. Her soul exists still, but it is held in the Akasha."

"Akasha?" Clare asked, puzzled.

"Limbo," I said, my voice still husky. "You know the Akasha—it's the place where faeries are sent as punishment."

The glare she shot me was fulminating but short-lived. "How do we find Sam's soul?" she asked Paen. "Do we just go to this Akasha limbo place?"

"You could go, but Sam couldn't, and only she or I could reclaim her soul."

"Then you go get it for her," Clare ordered, giving my hand another supportive squeeze. "We'll wait for you."

Paen rubbed a hand over his face. He was tired and hungry, facts I knew without even touching him. But his light and warmth drew me. His arm wrapped around me, holding me tight as I snuggled up against him, soaking in his heat with a relieved sigh. "It's not that easy. Beings of dark origins cannot enter the Akasha."

"Sam isn't dark—she's an elf, a sun elf," Clare pointed out.

"She was. She's Moravian now, and more importantly, soulless. All beings without a soul are by their nature dark. She can't enter the Akasha unless she has a soul, and she can't get her soul unless she can enter the Akasha."

I pushed myself tighter against him, half wishing I could crawl inside him to where that glorious soul glowed with life and love and everything that had been stripped from me.

"You can get it, then," Clare said, her face taking on a stubborn look. "You have a soul now, so you can enter this Akasha."

Paen shook his head. "I have a soul, but my origins are still dark. I was born without a soul—I will always be tainted by that, at least so far as the Akasha is concerned. I am forbidden entrance."

"Well then, what are we going to do?" she wailed, her big blue eyes swimming with tears. I felt mildly upset on her behalf. She seemed so distraught.

"Tell her about your project," Finn said, taking a seat in the chair opposite. Clare abandoned me for him, curling up in his lap with a distressed look on her face.

"I've spent the last forty or so years researching a rumor I heard long ago. It concerned a manuscript that detailed the origins of the immortal races."

I pulled back enough to look up at Paen, surprised by the words that echoed ones I'd heard not so many hours before.

"What does that have to do with recovering Sam's soul?" Clare asked.

Paen's eyes were bright with determination. "Somewhere in the information about the origins of the Dark Ones are details concerning how a soul may be restored without the means of a Beloved. What would work in that case for a Dark One should also work for Sam."

"Are you sure this is a manuscript?" I asked, a vague sense of curiosity flickering inside me. "Not a statue?"

"No, it's a manuscript. Sixteenth century. It was named Simia Gestor Coda because the mage who wrote it supposedly had a fascination with monkeys."

"But," I said, my mind grinding to a halt, "I know about the Coda."

"What?" Paen whirled around to stare at me. "How?"

"It's the manuscript Owen Race hired us to find. He said it was stolen from his house."

Paen swore passionately. "I've been searching for it for almost forty years!"

"Is anyone else curious about the coincidences here?" I asked. "The Jilin God—"

"Is a statue of a monkey, yes," Paen answered. "I noticed that as you have, but the two are separate objects, related only by the fact that both share a common theme."

"More common than you know," I said, then told him what I had learned on my first trip to Caspar's house.