She tried to return the smile but couldn't. "My patience is running thin."
"Join the club, sister!" Soul said, visibly irritated. "I don't know why my tracking spell isn't working. Or maybe Death is just really far away from our entry point! I know she's here because my scythe wouldn't react this way if she weren't."
"I suppose we should just keep moving," Widow suggested, trying to maintain a neutral stance. Phantom was more on the impatient side, with the rest of us, as she scowled at Soul and his glowing scythe.
Soul, in turn, was not willing to take the hit. "I'm doing the best I can! Pardon me for not having a fix-all solution."
"Out of all that death magic in your arsenal, you really don't?" Varga asked him.
Around us, gnarly old trees twisted toward the sky, their blue bark making them look as though they'd been painted as scenery in a children's fantasy movie. The leaves were long and purple, velvety to the touch. They formed thick enough crowns to allow our vampires to move freely, without hoods or masks—which was nice, for a change, because I could see exactly how frustrated they were with this situation, too.
"No, I don't, Prince Snarky,' Soul replied. "I told you before. Stop relying on magic to fix everything. Hell, stop relying on your abilities to do everything. Look at Taeral. The poor lad's out of breath from walking!"
"You're exaggerating," I muttered.
"Am I, though?"
"You're incorrigible," Nethissis grumbled, giving Lumi a pleading look. "Can we help Soul in any way to maybe… I don't know, speed things up a bit?"
Back on our home planets, the number of affected fae had not stopped rising. Every hour, another fae would fall. Our time was running out—the irony in the Time Master going missing along with Death did not escape me. I'd simply chosen to look past it, because despair had already been gnawing at my insides.
"Our magic is of the living. The Word does not work with the dead," Lumi replied. "You must keep that in mind when speaking to Reapers. We deal in life. They deal in death. It's how it's always been. How it always will be."
The Soul Crusher gasped. "Hold on, I got something! I got something!" He squealed like a teenage girl who'd just gotten asked out to prom by her crush. It was hard not to laugh at him, sometimes. A nice contrast, I thought, to the usual psychopath he chose to manifest as.
But he was right about one thing. His scythe was glowing brighter than usual. Glancing down at Zetos and Eirexis strapped to my thigh, I noticed a faint shimmer dancing across the blade, as if it had been touched by moonlight.
"I think Soul isn't the only one with a lead," I said, drawing attention to Zetos. "It's reacting."
"Good. Then we're headed in the right direction," Raphael replied.
We resumed our walk through the thick woods, mindful of the many creatures living here. Most of them were furry predators with long claws and massive fangs, but with the Reapers visible, none dared to get close. I felt them watching us, moving slowly through the underbrush along with us. They were harmless compared to the enemies who were looking forward to tearing through us.
The velvety leaves rustled as the wind brushed through them, its wings riddled with whispers. Kabbah was the first to notice. "The locals know we're here," he said.
"Great. Not only are we still tracking Death with hours left on the clock, the Hermessi have also decided to join us," Eva said.
Phantom walked by Soul and Widow's side. She glanced at us over her shoulder.
"Death is here. I can already feel her," the childlike Reaper said.
"I second that," Widow added.
Now it was only a matter of getting to Death first, before Brendel or her loyalists had any shot at stopping us. With the Spirit Bender by her side, there was no telling what she was capable of, or how devastating the methods she would employ to make sure the ritual was completed would be.
Amelia
A couple of hours passed in dead silence, with no other sign from Kelara. Seeley had tried to reach out to her, but he'd yet to get an answer. We knew she'd be in touch as soon as she could, but we couldn't help our concern, after the dead Reapers we'd found on Mortis.
We left the woods behind as evening settled over this strange realm. There were two moons in the sky, two pearls that cast their white light over the purplish grass and the tall mountain ahead.
It was a massive peak, with stony ridges and rose-colored forests, white streams that burst from the rocks, and a single, solitary beaten path, which others had clearly taken before us, many times over the years. Wildflowers blossomed on both sides, with tall blue stems and yellow petals. I felt as though I'd been treading a dreamworld, where my subconscious had spilled watercolors in all the wrong places.
There was beauty in this strangeness, but I could also sense the danger looming over our heads. Raphael took my hand in his, squeezing gently as we smiled at one another. No matter what, with no words needed, we both knew we were together in this, all the way to the end.
"She's up there," Soul said, raising his scythe. Its glow intensified, confirming his assessment.
Phantom and Widow agreed, as well. Seeley, however, didn't seem convinced, and it worried me. In certain respects, I trusted him more than any other Reaper we'd come across.
"I’m not feeling her so far," he murmured. "It's not right. I'd have sensed her if she were here."
"Then explain this," Soul replied, nodding at his incandescent blade.
"Let's just go up there and find out," Lumi said, more impatient than all of us put together.
We'd started this mission with good intentions, but the pressure and the urgency of it all was already clamping down on us, making it difficult to concentrate. I could almost hear the clock ticking in the back of my head, getting louder with every hour that passed. This sort of anxiety was bound to cause friction among us, and not because we were prone to it, but rather because we simply couldn't help it.
Even so, none of us dared contemplate the prospect of failure. Despite the occasional snarking and eye-rolling, we pushed through. In this instance, we worked our way up the mountain, carefully following Soul's scythe. I, for one, found an ounce of comfort in knowing that, while the local Hermessi had caught wind of our presence, they couldn't find us straightaway, thanks to our Devil's Weed.
"It's at the top," Soul declared, and vanished into thin air.
"Son of a… Now he zaps out of here!" Riza gasped.
We linked hands, and she teleported us to the mountain's peak. We appeared next to Soul on what looked like a carved platform. It had been sculpted into the mountain peak, hidden between thick, white clouds. The cold air made my lungs tickle, but I loved it. This was freshness like nothing I'd experienced before. The low temperature was a welcome change, as well, compared to the first half of our trip in this world. The ground level was much warmer and significantly more humid. Up here, however, it was cooler, and it gave me a strong sense of clarity.
Soul's scythe hummed with delight, as if Death was literally within our reach, but she was still nowhere to be found. The platform was empty.
"Okay, smartass, riddle me this, then," I said, my tone clipped, motioning around us. "Where is she?"
