“Thank you.” She had given him the creeps. Dori wasn’t the best with social cues but she had seen that look a few times. A small smile, which might have passed for gratitude, softened the severity of her face. No matter how long this human life lasted, she wouldn’t blend the way that James could; she was anathema and people couldn’t explain why, even if they felt terrible for thinking so.

“I said what I did because he’s not there,” she said with a light shrug. “In the ground, in the wind,” her fingers flitted, “The body is only a vessel, and his is empty now. He’ll be somewhere else.”