“Were there any survivors? Did you send the gold guards down into the basement?” Sofia replied, and Kalon shook his head again, eyes on Esme.

“No survivors. I would’ve dragged them out here myself,” he said. “And I haven’t had time to alert anyone. I had to bring Esme up here.”

Valaine exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment. “Okay. I’ll go alert my father, as well as the Lord and Lady Supreme. Zoltan Shatal is now an enemy of the empire, a killer at large,” she declared. “I promise you we will not rest until he is brought to justice. I’ll lead the guards into the basement and raid the entire place, turn it upside down and whatever else I can do.”

“Thank you, Valaine,” Sofia said, giving her a soft half-smile.

“Do you mind if I join you?” Derek replied, looking at Valaine. “I need to see that basement for myself.”

“Of course,” Valaine murmured, then came around the table and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Be careful out there.” I sighed. “Especially with the gold guards.”

“I have no choice. But I will summon my father. He’ll bring in our private troops. The Crimson dynasty has a small army of its own. Their loyalty cannot be doubted.”

I wasn’t sure if that was true, but it was probably better than nothing. As Derek and Valaine went out to ring the alarm on Zoltan and the palace basement, I found myself shivering, my eyes stinging with tears as I had another look at my beloved sister.

Amal noticed my expression, her hands pressing tight on white gauze against the blackened wound. “She’s stable, Tristan. Esme is going to live. But the wound… if it was caused by a Reaper scythe, it will take longer to heal. Not even vampire or Aeternae or any kind of living blood can speed this along, I’m afraid.”

“But she’ll be okay?” Kalon asked, hopefulness tinging his broken voice. Blood had dried on his shaky hands. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. There was so much crazy to unpack from this entire incident, I didn’t even know where to begin explaining things to him.

The Aeternae didn’t, or at least weren’t supposed to know about Reapers and Death and their scythes. Was Zoltan the only one? Were all the Darklings aware? If so, how could we get ahead of this? What connection did their use of Reaper scythes have with their endgame of offering Aeternae sacrifices to stop the Black Fever? There were so many pieces missing from this puzzle, I couldn’t even wrap my head around it properly.

I bent down, whispering in Esme’s ear. “You’re going to be okay, sis. And I will be here, watching over you… waiting for you to wake up. Just come back to me. Please.”

Her breath hitched, if only for a fleeting moment, and I knew, deep down, that she could hear me from beyond, inside the layers of sleep and exhaustion to which she had succumbed. Kalon was stiff as a board, not moving a single inch. He was worried sick about her.

Had it not been for him, I realized, my sister would’ve died down there.

Zoltan was out there, free and incredibly dangerous. He had a Reaper scythe, and he was a Darkling—that organization spread farther than I’d thought. How many other people knew of their whereabouts? Who else knew about the basement and the scythe? The more we’d dug through this festering pile, the more questions we stumbled upon.

But I would be damned if I was going to let the Darklings win. They had almost killed my sister. That switched something on inside me. Something feral and vicious. It demanded retribution. If anyone was going to take Zoltan’s head, it was going to be me. That much I knew, in the midst of all this murkiness.

Nethissis

Seeley had a look of pride about him whenever he looked at me. It must’ve had something to do with what I’d accomplished regarding Rudolph. I welcomed it. It made me feel incredibly good, which was a rare emotion for me these days.

We’d spent the last few hours talking about Zoltan and the ghouls, reaching the same conclusion. The guy had put together one hell of an operation down here, and chances were that few people knew about it—except the Darklings. I’d seen them through the hallways; I’d heard them mentioning Valaine and how important it was that she was to be killed. We couldn’t understand why, but at least we had a few undeniable facts to work with.

The chained ghouls had sort of gotten used to me now, not even bothering to look my way whenever I came through the door. I took it as a good sign, sometimes wondering if I could reach out to them, like I’d done with Rudolph. Then again, Rudolph had been freshly turned. Who knew how long these guys had spent down here, as mindless animals, slaves to the whims of mad Zoltan Shatal? Because one had to be mad, if not clinically insane, like Amelia used to say, in order to do such things…

“Rudolph is definitely on to something,” Seeley said after a while. “If he takes a scythe, he can transfer it to you.”

“Yeah, I got that part. Will I have to do anything in particular, other than scratch these runes off your collar?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. You’ll have to describe each rune, first. I can’t see what’s on my collar.”

“Right. Okay. We’ve got this. Maybe in a day or two, tops, we’ll get Rudolph to snatch a scythe. He’ll be growing on those black guard suckers, eventually.”

“You haven’t seen or heard any other Reapers around, huh?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been out and around the palace twice so far, since I last saw Rudolph. There wasn’t anyone. Do you still think Death will send others?”

Seeley thought about it for a moment, as if unsure of how to answer. “I don’t know. If she does, it won’t be a lower-level Reaper like me or Rudolph. She’ll probably send a higher circle… or even one of the First Ten, if she can spare one from her search for the others.”

“Even that might be problematic,” I said, remembering how blindsided Rudolph and his team had been. “Whoever she sends, they won’t know what they’re getting into. Zoltan has trained the ghouls and the black guards to be constantly on alert for incoming Reapers. The protocol is airtight.”

“But not flawless,” Seeley replied. “Let’s get me free first, and things will be different. Someone needs to tell the other Reapers what to expect, at least. As long as I don’t know what Death is planning with Visio, I can’t even dare rely on her full assistance. I’ve never been so confused before.”

“Listen, we’ll figure it out. Whatever kind of crap Zoltan has been pulling up here, it won’t last. Sooner or later, Derek and the others will come across this place… this stuff. I know it.”

“What have they been up to?” Seeley asked, his gaze softening as it settled on me.

“Last time I checked, Esme was out on some covert mission, but I didn’t see her. I only heard Tristan mention it. The rest of them were in the study room, pushing on with the research of the Black Fever and the day-walking protein. But I’m telling you, Seeley, something super weird is going on here, and I’ve got a feeling that this whole basement full of ghouls is just one part of it.”

He leaned back against the wall, giving me a warm smile. “You’re a relentless creature, even as a spirit. I’m sure we’ll get through, like you said. You have yet to disappoint, thus far.”

“Why, thank you ever so much,” I replied, chuckling and blushing at the same time—my puny attempt at making light of an otherwise pitch-black situation.

There was some kind of commotion outside. It startled even the ghouls. Roars and growls and barked orders. Boots thundering through the hallway. Clanging and squeaking of rusty doors. Before either of us could react, black guards poured into the cell, carrying scythes and chunks of raw meat in leather sacks.

“Come on, pretty boy. We’re moving house,” one of the soldiers said to Seeley, stopping in front of us. I scrambled backward as the other guards snapped the chains off the walls and guided the ghouls outside, throwing them a piece of meat once in while as a reward for their obedience.

Seeley was dragged away, his hands and feet still bound as the black guard pulled him by the rune chain. I could see the collar digging into Seeley’s neck, but there wasn’t anything I could do other than follow him, because something strange was happening.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

Seeley grunted as he slid across the floor. “What’s going on?” he asked the black guard in charge of him, as we left the cell and joined the others in the hallway.

“We’re evacuating,” the soldier replied. “Our cover got blown. We can’t hang out here anymore, but Scholar Zoltan is taking us somewhere much nicer than this. You’ll love it.”

His facetiousness was the last thing either of us needed right now. I felt terrible watching Seeley struggle as he was dragged down the hallway, but he wasn’t the only one. Whether I looked ahead or behind, I was witnessing something that simply overwhelmed me—there were hundreds of ghouls in this place. Hundreds of them. I’d heard growls and wails. I knew they had ghouls, sure, but never had I thought there would be so many of them locked inside the cells.

The more we advanced through the wide corridor, the more ghouls joined the principal column. I stayed mostly out of sight, moving through the walls so they wouldn’t see me. I counted approximately five hundred ghouls, likely most, if not all of them former Reapers forced to turn into ghouls, like Rudolph and his crew. I spotted Rudolph, too, and I rushed to walk by his side, because I could see he was angry and confused, yanking the chain from his handler’s grip. The other ghouls snarled and snapped my way, but the black guards yanked them back, forcing them into submission as they hurried through the tunnel. There was no time for them to deal with whatever it was they might’ve spotted—in this case, me.

“Rudolph, don’t,” I said to him. “Play nice. They’re moving us somewhere else. I think something’s about to go down here, and I still need you. Seeley still needs you. Let’s stick to the plan, okay?”

He huffed with clear discontentment, but he followed my lead and walked nicely in his chain, surprising even his handler. I felt tiny and insignificant in the middle of all this, and, at the same time, I felt like I was one of the few who could actually do something to stop it.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” I said to Rudolph and rushed back ahead to stay with Seeley, who was surrounded by a group of black guards. The ghouls couldn’t see me here, thus going back to their usual huffs and low, discontented growls. Seeley’s handler enjoyed jerking him around and causing him discomfort. Anger threatened to cloud my judgment, but I quickly remembered I was powerless before the living.

“Does this a-hole know why they’re moving you? Other than the cover getting blown excuse?” I wondered aloud. Seeley glanced up at me. Fortunately for him, as a Reaper, being dragged across the hard stone wasn’t painful—just annoying and uncomfortable, at most. I took some comfort in knowing that.

“Why are we running away?” he asked the black guard. “I mean, it’s obvious that’s what we’re doing here.”

“Well, at least you’re smarter than you look,” the Aeternae replied. “That vampire bitch messed up one of our operations. She found this place, and now we have to go.”

“You know, you’ve got a lot of balls while holding this chain,” Seeley said, his sharp tone promising nothing but misery. “I look forward to hearing what you sound like when I lose this collar.”