A knot formed in my stomach, tightening with each second that passed. “Nothing,” Kalon replied. “I’m just looking forward to getting out of here. This whole Darkling incident has really botched my mood.”

“Speaking of, I’ve instructed the cleaners on my way in. The hallway outside the vampires’ quarters has been cleaned,” Petra said. “It’s the most unfortunate time for our guests to be creeped out.”

“Yes, the last thing we need is for them to go away because of this,” Valaine replied. “I’m confident they can help us with a cure.”

Petra scoffed, but she didn’t respond. Kalon, however, didn’t let go right away. “What’s wrong, Mother? Don’t you trust the vampires to finally end the Black Fever, once and for all?”

“If only it were that easy, my dear,” Petra said, as they walked out and left us behind.

Acheron and Danika retreated to their chambers through a side door. Soon enough, the lights were blown out, and the room succumbed to darkness. Tristan and I stood there, trying to process everything we’d just heard.

Minutes flowed slowly. I welcomed the night’s embrace, closing my eyes for a moment. I caught a whiff of Kalon’s scent—crisp and masculine, with an inkling of leather and spiced vanilla. Had he sensed us earlier? After all, an Aeternae’s hearing was much like a vampire’s. Maybe he’d heard my heart beating…

Shaking the suspicions away, I looked at Tristan. “You know we need to tell Sofia and Derek, right?”

He nodded slowly. “We’ll do it in the morning,” he said. “The danger has passed, for now, and I doubt the Darklings will be back again anytime soon. I don’t want anyone hearing voices and talking in our rooms, this late in the night… if that makes sense.”

“Oh, it makes all the sense in the world,” I replied. “It can wait until the break of dawn, for sure.”

“We’ll have to alert the rest of GASP, as well.”

“Hold on. Let’s talk to Derek and Sofia first. Remember the core of our mission, okay?” I reminded him, though I didn’t like this any more than he did.

“It’s weird,” he muttered.

“Yeah, well, if we were expecting everything to go smooth and peachy, then we’re the ultimate idiots,” I said, chuckling bitterly. “Come on, let’s head back and get some shut-eye. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

As we snuck out and returned to our rooms, I realized that our morals would soon be tested. Something was plaguing the Aeternae, and it wasn’t necessarily the Black Fever. We didn’t have all the pieces in the puzzle, but we had enough to understand that something dark and dangerous lurked beneath the surface.

My only concern was whether it would engulf us as well.

Nethissis

As soon as I came to, a crippling ache burst through me, as the reality quickly set in. I’d died. A ghoul had killed me, and I was staring down at my body, a limp and crooked copperhead, as the fiend poked it with its claw.

Horror swiftly took over. I covered my mouth, remembering that the ghoul might notice me any moment, now. A thousand thoughts darted through my mind, but none made sense. I simply had no time to adjust to this situation, to fully comprehend how this had all come to pass, and what I’d have to do, going forward.

“What did you do?” Zoltan snapped, spotting the ghoul as it fiddled with my lifeless snake form. It felt as though I was watching Tejus’s Lucifer with a dead bird he’d just come across, back in The Shade. The ghoul’s instincts were offensively similar. He’d just killed something he didn’t need to kill, and now he was… playing with my friggin’ corpse!

Zoltan came closer, frowning at the sight of it. I slowly moved back, hoping the ghoul wouldn’t see me just yet. The others were too busy devouring the screaming souls of the Rimians. Just my luck, I thought, to witness both their physical and spiritual deaths.

“Where did this come from?” Zoltan wondered aloud, while the guards watched from a safe distance. The ghoul sat on its hind legs, its beady eyes following its master as he picked up a cane that had been used to torture the Rimians, long before I got here.

He poked my serpentine body with its slim end and gasped when it shifted back into my humanoid form. My heart broke, over and over, as I saw myself for one last time. My eyes closed. My neck bruised, bones pushing against the skin at an unnatural angle. My skin pale. The luster of my copper scales gone, reduced to a faint reddish brown. That was what happened to a Lamia if death caught her in snake form. The body returned to its original form…

“Oh, dear…” Zoltan mumbled. “This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.” He turned to look at the ghoul. “What the hell did you do?! Where’s her soul? Did you eat it?!”

The creature seemed confused, until the mention of my soul seemed to activate its hunger, nostrils flaring as it turned its deformed head and finally saw me. The horror I’d felt before amplified to the point where every thread of my spirit froze, stiffened by the realization of what would come next.

The ghoul had seen me, now, and it was hungry for my soul. A delicacy for its defected species.

“No… No, you don’t get to treat me like one of those Rimians,” I hissed.

Snarling, the ghoul lunged at me, and I didn’t have the speed to move back before he caught me. His claw came down and struck me hard. It hurt profoundly, in ways I’d never imagined before, as I found myself on the cold, hard floor, pinned and unable to get away.

“No!” I screamed, though Zoltan and the guards couldn’t hear me. I was dead, after all. I’d only be deader, if the ghoul had his way.

“Eat it and let’s get this over with,” Zoltan said. “We have a body to dispose of.”

“Wait, why don’t you let the ghoul eat that, too?” one of the guards asked.

“A disappearing swamp witch who can turn into a snake invites her colleagues poking around. A swamp witch found dead outside the palace will keep them away from the basements. Obviously,” Zoltan replied.

The ghoul’s fangs were huge, its jaw gaping as it came down to eat me. For a moment, I thought this was it. This was my end. This was how I’d go out, without anyone knowing what really happened to me. And it tore me worse than anything the ghoul would do to me…

Something flashed between us. The glint of silvery steel caught my eye.

A scythe’s blade swept through and decapitated the ghoul, instantly turning it into a shapeless mass of glimmering ashes. The other fiends yelped at the sight of Seeley, standing above me.

“What in the living hell…” My voice trailed off. I’d just survived the ultimate death. Powered by that unexpected concept, I scrambled back farther away from Zoltan and the loose pile of ashes that the ghoul had left behind.

Zoltan frowned and quickly whispered a spell. Its words sounded familiar. His eyes lit up as he revealed Seeley to the living. Like me, the Reaper was shocked beyond repair.

“Ah, there you are,” Zoltan said, beaming with delight. “I haven’t seen one of you in a very long time!”

“Seeley…” I managed.

He looked at me, and, for the longest of seconds, time stood still. We knew each other. There had been something between us, a fleeting thought. A distant “what if” that had never come to fruition. I hadn’t seen him since we’d defeated the Hermessi’s ritual, and yet here he was, standing here in his black suit, with his galaxy eyes focused on me, grief twinkling inside.

“Nethissis,” he whispered. “I’m… I’m sorry. I’m too late.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

He briefly glanced at Zoltan, who seemed confused but immediately realized the ghoul had failed to eat me. “We still have a loose soul, fellas,” Zoltan said.

“I’m not sure,” Seeley replied, looking at me again. “But I need you to get out of here.”

“No, I can’t leave you—”

“Run and don’t look back!” Seeley snapped, raising his weapon.

Despair took over at the sight of another scythe coming out from between the dark blue folds of Zoltan’s coat. Seeley didn’t see it coming, either.

“You’re not the only one with nifty toys,” Zoltan hissed and uttered another string of Reaper magic words.

Seeley reached out and pushed me so hard, I flew back through the narrow corridor, then the door. Ghouls snarled and thumped into it, but they couldn’t get through. They’d been limited to that room, so all they could do was angrily scratch at the black iron, unable to reach me.

My breathing was ragged, fire burning in my chest, as I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened. Seeley had somehow come here, and he’d saved me from a ghoulish death. He’d said he’d been too late, which meant… he knew I was here?