Kelara smirked. “That’ll teach you to strike a fellow Reaper over something so petty and insignificant. Now, leave the girl and her father be. They have five minutes. Don’t waste this precious time for them.”
Malleus cursed under his breath but didn’t get involved again. Instead, he stood begrudgingly back, glowering at us. Excited and relieved, I rushed toward the casing, my life-chain jingling merrily. “Honey, are you okay? Oh, I wish your mother could see you now.”
“I’m fine, Dad. Just lingering here, like the others, from what I’m told,” Grace replied, carefully moving around her crystal casing to reach me. The life-chain protruding from her chest had only five links left glowing now, the others black and grimly signaling her impending death. It tore me apart to see her like this, but it was better than not seeing her at all, so I sucked it up and smiled, so my baby wouldn’t feel scared anymore.
“What has he told you so far?” I asked, nodding at Malleus.
“Not much. I didn’t know I could see you, for example,” she replied. “I knew the others were like me. And he said I’m dying. Everything else I picked up from Lawrence, from Mom, from Aunt Rose and Grandpa Derek and Grandma Sofia… It’s not looking good for us, is it?”
I shook my head slowly. “For now, no. But I haven’t lost hope yet, and neither should you, honey.”
“Dad. I hurt you. I made you sick like me,” she remembered, her eyes wide with horror.
“It wasn’t your fault. That cut-and-spell trick that the Hermessi cultists did, it’s… it’s damn tricky,” I said, in a bid to comfort her.
“I’m so sorry,” she replied.
I wondered if I could feel her, in this spirit state of ours. Two physical bodies could touch, so why wouldn’t two spiritual forms touch, too? It didn’t take long for me to remember my previous experience as a ghost. I hadn’t been able to feel anything then. However, something was different here. I wasn’t entirely dead. My soul was still tethered to my body. Maybe the conditions were different this time. Maybe I could feel something in this state. Before I could try it, Grace closed the distance between us and hugged me. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Dad,” she mumbled, hiding her face in my chest.
I stilled, overwhelmed by the tactile sensations. Yes, I could feel her, like one felt the sun on his face, or the warmth of a fire crackling in the fireplace on a cold winter night. I could feel my daughter’s spirit in my arms, and I was beside myself. She giggled with delight, realizing this, as well.
“That’s not a good idea,” Kelara cut in, arms crossed and frowning at us.
“I told you!” Malleus hissed at her, but she ignored him, fixated on Grace and me.
But my daughter and I… we didn’t care. We could hold each other, and we could feel it. I couldn’t ask for anything more right now.
A peculiar brightness expanded between us, and I sensed a white-hot rush blazing through me. It seemed… right. Grace and I looked down, curiously, and jumped back with surprise when we saw the source of that light. A black link on each of our life-chains had begun to glow again, first white and pure, then golden amber, like the others.
“Whoa…” Kelara managed, taking the interjection right out of my mouth on this one.
“Whoa, indeed,” I mumbled, staring at my rejuvenated chain link. “I… Is this supposed to happen?”
Grace shrugged, looking at me with wide, ecstatic blue eyes. “I don’t know…”
The blackness that had covered the two links was shed like ashes, dark gray flakes settling on the marbled floor. Kelara and Malleus were both stunned.
“I’ve never heard of this happening anywhere else,” Malleus replied, his voice now soft, equally baffled. “Then again, no two fae spirits in the sanctuaries have touched before.”
“And neither of us was a Reaper during the first ritual to remember such an incident, either. Our elder colleagues didn’t mention it,” Kelara added.
“So, in short, no one knew or thought this might happen,” I concluded. “Do you know what this means?”
“We can slow the Hermessi’s influence,” Grace said, a broad smile forming on her sweet and darling face. I couldn’t even find the words that could accurately describe the happiness bursting through me like wildfire. “One chain link… maybe more… maybe one at a time.”
An unknown male voice interjected, somewhere to my right. “Okay, that’s weird,” he said, and both Grace and I turned to see who’d spoken.
It was another Reaper, judging by his eyes and his suit, but he was likely in charge of another fae in this place. I wasn’t sure what to make of his presence, or why he’d chosen to reveal himself.
“Who are you?” I asked. He just stared at my life-chain.
“Seeley, what in the world—” Malleus replied, but the new Reaper cut him off.
“Shut up for a second. This is amazing.”
“I agree,” Kelara said. “Would the others react the same, if they could see each other? Or is this solely a proprietary feature of the Novaks? They’ve defied the norms of nature and physics before, after all.”
She meant my resurrection, along with Lucas’s, among other past adventures. But it was a good question to ask. “We could try,” I said.
“I admit, I’m curious,” Seeley replied.
“We wouldn’t be allowed,” Malleus interjected, like soggy rain on a perfectly good parade. I hated his guts by now. “We’d be interfering in the natural order of things. Kelara interfered now by allowing Ben to see Grace. It’s not right. Death won’t like it.”
“How do you know?” I shot back, understandably irritated.
“Because I represent her, like all my colleagues here. And whether Seeley and Kelara want to admit it or not, the rules don’t lie. We’re not allowed to interfere and help you evade death, okay? It’s forbidden, and the punishments are, I’m told, quite severe. Now, please, Seeley, go mind your fae and leave us alone.”
Seeley scoffed, running a hand through his thick black hair. “None of this is natural, if you ask me, starting with what the Hermessi are doing to these people.”
“Even so, we were summoned here to do our jobs, not help them,” Malleus replied tersely.
“He’s right, Seeley.” Kelara sighed, her shoulders dropping. I was losing her, too, dammit. Grace and I exchanged worried looks, as we both realized what was coming next. “Your five minutes are up,” Kelara announced, and the urgency rammed into me like a battering ram.
“No, no, wait, I need to—”
“Dad!” Grace’s voice faded as she disappeared, along with a sullen Malleus and a pissed-off Seeley. I breathed out, my shoulders dropping and my core aching. I couldn’t see Grace anymore. And there was so much we’d yet to talk about, including this life-chain development. It was so important, yet the Reapers worried more about their rules than about doing the right thing.
“I’m sorry, Ben,” Kelara said to me. It sounded genuine, but it didn’t do anything to comfort me. “It’s the rules. I can’t break them further than this. Malleus will likely file a complaint about what I just did, anyway.”
