He moved back and was most likely about to vanish again. My hand shot out as I brought the scythe’s blade up to his throat. “You should stay for a while,” I retorted. “We need to talk.”
“You shouldn’t have that,” he said, glowering at my scythe.
“Finders keepers,” I said. “What’s going on here? Why did the ghosts disappear? Did you have something to do with this?”
He sneered. “My colleagues were right. You’re not as dumb as you look.”
“Again with the rudeness. What is wrong with you people?” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “I simply asked you a question. Why do you feel the need to insult me?”
“Because that scythe doesn’t belong to you, and it’s an insult to all of us that you get to strut around with it!” he spat.
Oh, I’d hit a nerve. “Its owner tried to kill us so he could turn into a ghoul. I think it’s fair that we keep it. Now, tell me, where are we?”
“I’m not here to answer your questions.”
“You should, though. I’m the one holding a blade to your throat.”
“You can’t kill me with it.”
I cocked my head to the side. It was time to take a gamble, since the thought had already begun worming its way through my head since I’d managed to turn invisible. “Are you sure about that? So far, this nifty little thing has helped me vanish, like you. And I’m not a Reaper. Doesn’t that concern you? Doesn’t that mean that I might be able to do more with it?”
He didn’t answer straightaway, but I could almost feel him itching to get as far away from me as possible. There was fear mingling with the stars in his eyes—an indigo night sky reflected between those eyelids, as eerie as Yamani’s and the guy who killed him.
“You give yourself a little too much credit,” he said.
“Why is it so hard to answer a simple question?” I replied.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You know, I heard all about you. Word travels fast among my people. I just can’t, for the life of me, understand why Seeley didn’t take the scythe away from you after he was done with Yamani.”
I smirked. “We were busy getting away from the Hermessi. See? I answered your question. Try answering one of mine, and you’ll see how well we get along.”
He clicked his teeth in annoyance. “Yes.”
“Yes what?” I asked.
“I’m the reason why the spirits are vanishing. It’s temporary, though. I’m just trying to herd them all back in one place,” he said.
I wanted to commend him for giving me a straight answer, but I decided to go with a follow-up, first. He clearly wouldn’t tell me where we were, but I thought I’d bombard him with location-adjacent questions until he let something useful slip.
“Herding them? They’re not cattle. Why are you… herding them?”
“Because it’s a cleanup operation!” he yelped as my scythe’s blade got dangerously closer to his skin. He was definitely and undeniably afraid of it. Of me. “I’ve got a cranky boss, and she’s making a mess, and I’m having to clean up.”
The wheels squealed in my head. “Your boss. Death.”
“Yes.”
“Is she here?” I asked.
“No.”
I persisted. “How’d she make this so-called mess, then?”
“You’re not safe here, you know,” he answered. I had a feeling he was trying to change the subject.
“Where are we, exactly?”
A twig snapped somewhere to my right. Instinctively, I gave the source of that noise a brief glance. It was enough to lose sight of the Reaper for a split second, and it helped him, for he vanished again. “Dammit!” I snarled.
A strange-looking deer had distracted me. It froze, its big black eyes fixed on me, its large ears flicking nervously. It didn’t seem to care much for my dismay. It chewed a bunch of leaves, one hoof elevated and ready to take another step.
Raphael made his way down the stream, joined by Lumi, Eira, and Amelia. They rushed to reach me. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The Reaper was gone, and I hadn’t made any strides in figuring out where we were. The frustration was building up inside me, and I worried it would only get worse while we waited for Phoenix to give us some good news.
Meanwhile, back in our worlds, more fae were falling under the Hermessi’s influence. Five million didn’t seem that far away anymore, and that terrified me the most.
“What happened?” Lumi asked me. “Did you find him?”
I nodded. “But I lost him again.”
“Did he say anything?” she pressed.
I told her about my brief encounter and the scythe’s surprising ability to turn me invisible to a Reaper, complete with my theory on planes of existence and how an agent of Death could navigate them as such. As expected, it made them wonder the same thing—what else could the scythe do in the hands of a non-Reaper, and what was this mess that he’d referred to? Had souls been dumped here arbitrarily, plucked from their planets and left to the Reapers to clean up and shuffle into the world of the dead? If so, why? What was the point? Death’s behavior was increasingly puzzling, and it didn’t promise anything even remotely optimistic for our intention of speaking to her and asking for her help.
“It makes me wonder,” Raphael said after a long pause, “what else we’ll find on this planet. More Reapers? More lost souls?”
“Probably,” Amelia replied.
“Even so, we should keep moving,” Raphael suggested. “The Hermessi are still active here, and they might sense us, eventually. Besides, we might run into chattier Reapers along the way.”
