Maya stared at me, curiosity glimmering in her dark eyes. Her canines poked out between her small, thin lips, the essence of Bym’s soul still smeared at the corner of her mouth. Only then did I notice that she still had her old Reaper uniform on, though it was tattered and torn. It covered most of her torso and upper legs as she crouched behind Sidyan.

“With a catastrophe like this? No,” Sidyan replied. “No one truly checks these things. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have risked doing it in the first place.”

“And you’ve never considered… you know, putting her out of her misery?” I murmured. Maya could understand me. I could tell. My words frightened her, as she clutched the bottom of Sidyan’s tunic.

“Never. I would never,” Sidyan said firmly. “She’s safer with me. She’s loyal. She keeps her distance when she has to, and I make sure she doesn’t go hungry for more than a year or so. We have control over her condition. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it was the only way I could protect her.”

Taeral nodded and looked at me. “And here comes the proposition,” he whispered. Shifting his focus back to Sidyan, he laid out the terms of the deal. “I know you want to protect Maya. That much I’ve figured out from watching you sneak souls out to feed her. Which is also why I know you won’t say no to helping Lumi, here.”

Sidyan took a couple of steps back, already troubled. Maya moved with him, increasingly agitated and scared, trembling and growling at us. He motioned for her to stop, and she did. But her emotions were getting the better of her, and she squirmed and whimpered anxiously.

“What are you talking about?” Sidyan asked.

“Lumi needs to get to Visio undetected by the living and the dead alike,” Taeral said. “She needs a Reaper’s traveling assistance. I think you can guess why I thought of you.”

“No. Are you crazy? It’s against the rules!” Sidyan replied.

“Really? Now we’re talking about rules?” Taeral chuckled. “Dude. You’re raising a friggin’ ghoul. I’m pretty sure you can mule my friend over to Visio, and I promise I’ll keep quiet about your extracurricular activities.” He paused, since Sidyan didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Forever. I’ll keep quiet forever,” Taeral added.

“You’re insane. Why don’t you take her?”

“With Thieron? You must be joking. The few minutes I’m spending here are the only ones with complete privacy,” Taeral said. “Most of the time, I can feel Reapers watching me. Death keeps tabs on me, and I can’t risk it. Besides, I don’t have the knowledge to take Lumi so far away. I’m not a Reaper yet, and Thieron isn’t exactly the easiest object to work with, either.”

I took a step forward, hoping to persuade Sidyan with my personal truth. “I suppose you’ve heard about Visio and the Aeternae?” I asked.

“Some rumors here and there about your people finding that place,” Sidyan replied. I had a feeling he knew more but wasn’t ready to share. Yet.

“Have you heard about what happened to Nethissis? One of my people who went there…”

Sidyan nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss. Word travels fast among the Reapers.”

“Well, I need to find out what happened to her, and I can’t do it with others knowing I’m there. The Aeternae are adamant that no other GASP member should enter their world. Especially not someone like me, who’s investigating foul play on their turf.”

Sidyan didn’t say anything, so I moved another inch or so, slipping my arm from around Taeral’s and catching his hand instead to keep physical contact. My approach startled Maya, though it wasn’t my intention. She yelped and vanished into thin air, prompting Sidyan to curse in a language I’d never even heard before.

“Shakri’lis fen!” he spat, then scowled at me. “You scared her away, swamp witch!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

He cut me off. “I’ll help you. I’ll take you to Visio, as long as Prince Numbskull here keeps his trap shut! But first, you’re coming with me so I can find Maya. I can’t leave her on her own.”

It took me a moment to process the situation, but I ended up nodding in agreement. Looking at Taeral, I noticed he was still smiling. “I don’t know what it is you find funny,” I grumbled.

“With all the crap that’s been happening? I will take a little bit of humor wherever I can find it, and a Reaper losing his pet ghoul is funny as hell,” Taeral said, stifling a chortle.

Sidyan came up, closing the distance between us, and offered his hand. “Come on. There’s no time to waste,” he said. Reaching out, I quivered from his touch, which sent trillions of tiny electrical pulses through my body. I wasn’t sure what part of me was reacting—the physical, the soul, or the Word itself—but there was something about Sidyan that ignited unknown fires inside me.

He gripped my hand firmly and yanked me toward him. I glanced back to say goodbye to Taeral, but he was already gone. The entire planet had vanished, in fact, with its red sands and lava and broken lives.

It was just Sidyan and me, wandering through the depths of space, looking for a runaway teenage ghoul. Hopefully, we’d find her soon, so I’d get to Visio sooner, rather than later. In hindsight, if anyone had ever told me that I would end up in such a peculiar scenario, I would’ve laughed in their face.

But it was the best way of getting to the truth behind Nethissis’s death. So I took it and mentally prepared for the many unknowns ahead—including this unexpected journey beside a surly Reaper who did not take kindly to blackmail. Not that he’d had a better choice.

Amal

The atmosphere of the quarantine area sent shivers through my body. A weight persisted in my chest as I measured the vitals of the infected Aeternae. There were five of them now. The first three were in worse shape than the others, their fevers running high and their veins swollen and black. A thin sheet of sweat covered them from head to toe, seeping into their white linen infirmary gowns.

Petra stayed back, leaning against one of the thick support pillars that held up the ceiling, wearing gloves and a mask over her nose and mouth. The nurses watched me, also masked and gloved, as I checked the patients’ temperatures next. I took copious notes on my tablet, registering every single figure I’d collected from these people.

The recent arrivals were awake, more alert than their fellow Aeternae, their gazes following me around as I took out several glass vials from my kit bag, along with slender catheters and sterilized needles. One of them frowned as I approached her.

“It won’t hurt a bit,” I said, smiling softly. “They’re hypodermic needles. Chances are you won’t even feel a pinch.”

“What are you doing now?” one of the nurses asked.

“I’ve got their heartrate, blood pressure, and temperature, so I’m moving on to blood samples,” I replied, without even looking at her as I prepared the catheter and vials for extraction. “I will need blood from all the Rimians and Naloreans who worked with these Aeternae in close quarters. One or more of them might be carriers and not even know it. Based on your accounts of the disease, of course.”

Petra nodded at the nurses. “You should bring the samples out,” she said, then looked at me. “We collected them earlier, like you advised, Amal.”

“Thank you.” I gave the first Aeternae patient another reassuring smile. “Okay, now hold out your arm with your palm up and make a fist, squeezing as tightly as you can.” She sighed and did as I asked. The needle pierced her skin, and she barely flinched, quickly surprised by the minimal discomfort that I had caused her. We both watched as the blood was drawn through the catheter and into the vial, which I sealed with its rubbery cap. “There we go… all done!”

“It didn’t hurt,” she whispered.

“I told you it wouldn’t,” I replied with a friendly wink. “How are you feeling?”

The girl shrugged. “Like my whole body is made of molasses. Soft. Heavy. I don’t really feel like moving.”

“Permanent exhaustion, huh?” I asked.

“Yes. And whenever I move, I get nauseated. My head hurts. I can’t take two steps without everything spinning around me.”

I nodded slowly, looking back at Petra. “This is the first stage, isn’t it? The fatigue, the thickening and darkening veins…”

“It is. They will be like this for a while, and then it will get worse and worse,” Petra said, her voice low and sorrowful. She felt sorry for these people. I could tell from the look in her otherwise cold blue eyes. She sympathized with their suffering, more than the nurses.

Looking at the vial I’d just filled, I noticed the blood was a dark red, almost black in color, and strangely thick in consistency. Whatever the disease did, it clearly started with the blood. The thicker it was, the harder and slower it flowed, thus causing exhaustion and muscular weakness. There were bound to be clots, too. The fever was connected to all this, the body’s reaction to a virus that rampaged its insides.

“Where is my mother?” the Aeternae girl asked, her gaze wandering around, as if she was hoping to see her here. The disappointed look on her pale face nearly broke my heart.

“I’m sorry, darling, but you know the rules. No other Aeternae are allowed to get close to you, in order to stop the virus from spreading,” Petra said from ten yards away. “You wouldn’t want your mother to get sick, too, would you?”

The girl shook her head, closing her eyes and taking a deep, ragged breath. She would soon be asleep. I moved to the next, more recent patient, a young male Aeternae with hair kissed by fire. He stared at me as I pointed at his arm. I didn’t have to tell him what he needed to do. He turned his palm up, squeezing it into a fist, and I went ahead with the catheter and the vial.

He didn’t say much, other than asking me about my world and what it was like. There was a keen sense of curiosity coming off him—a pleasant contrast to the wary looks I’d gotten on my way down here. He genuinely wanted to know more about what went on beyond the hazy spell surrounding Visio, Rimia, and Nalore.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, watching the dark blood drip into the vial. It was slightly thicker than the girl’s, though she had fallen ill before him. Chances were his symptoms would worsen sooner than hers, though I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it had something to do with his metabolism. “The ocean is endless and turquoise blue. There aren’t any large continents, like you have here, but thousands upon thousands of islands… some lonely and wide, others small and in clusters.”

“Lots of beaches, then,” he murmured, blinking slowly.