Lucy
I am ready for whatever death means.
Intellectually, I know it’s not the end. I’ll be new, another iteration of me. A shade maybe, or if I’m lucky, I’ll skip that entirely and pass into whatever comes after.
I’ve studied enough deaths, contracts and papers to know the mechanics. I’ve witnessed enough shades moving through the Veil to know what the transition can be. Objectively, of course.
I suppose I never considered what it would feel like, from the inside.
For a while, I lie in the gloom, waiting… but nothing happens. Nothing other than my incessant intellectualising and solid darkness.
No light, or sound, nor any sensation that I can discern. Though, the longer I stay prone the more there is… substance.
It rises from the murky ashes with fingers and toes. I can sense them wriggling. My cheeks seem wet from Midnight-shaped tears.
It all has matter and weight, too much, in fact.
Much more than a shade has. They are translucent, weightless beings. Like bubbles in the air or a spring breeze brushing your cheek.
This—I—am not that.
I frown.
Then scrunch harder because I can feel my forehead furrow. Like flesh and brow and body.
I reach for my face, touch it, and freeze. Despite the tears, my cheeks are warm.
Firm.
I sit bolt upright. My insides fill with something new, unknown, wrong. It’s hungry and yearning. Thrumming and vibrating to the point that what’s inside me is glowing. Like it’s impatient to be used.
What am I even saying? I was reaped. I’m dead.
And yet, this is not what dead looks like.
Not in the library books or contract footnotes.
Not in any reaping or realm I’ve ever studied.
But if I’m not dead, then what the hell am I?
My heart rate climbs, my limbs tingle. I can’t tell whether it’s blood flowing into them or panic. I thought I was the contract?
That’s what Architecti said. It’s why she made me see the final rune because I am… was the contract, the only way to free myself from what he made me was to break it—break me.
If I—as the contract—broke, then what’s left? Nothing… well, nothing but magic, I guess. But that sounds ridiculous, even to me.
What I need to do is follow logical conclusions. If I was a contract, then I need to think like a contract:
Clause 1: I made Midnight reap me.
Therefore, I should be dead.
Should being the operative word because there’s no part of me that feels dead. But if I’m no longer the contract, then what the hell am I? I thought the puzzles would be over after we broke the contract. I thought I’d be free.
A scratch akin to sandpaper that smells like old meat and unwashed butt scrapes across my cheek. There’s a huff of air and then fur tickles my chin. “Mortem?”
“Obviously.”
“Where am I?”
“I’d think that was also obvious.”
“The underworld?”
“Mmm,” he says, swiping his tongue over my neck this time and a second, more intense waft of fish and cat arse drifts up my nose.
I swat at him. “Do you mind?”
“I don’t, as it happens. You’re different. You taste of tingles.”
Tingles? Is that the thrumming I can feel? My heart rate kicks up another notch. I don’t like this. Not one bit. I’m used to contract law and magical rules. Not this… this unknown.
I glance at my arms, but I can’t see a damn thing in the darkness.
“Where are the lights?” I say.
“Don’t need them. I can see in the dark.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, in case it evaded your notice, I’m not a cat. So for the sake of my sanity, where exactly is here? And where the fuck are the lights?”
“The Tower of Prima.”
The Tower of Prima. The gate, the entrance. The start of it all.
I’m right below Finis, in our tower’s inverted twin.
Two paws knead on my thigh and a low purr rumbles out.
“You’re making biscuits? Now? Do you think maybe we can get the hell out of here first?”
There’s a puff of air that sounds distinctly irritated. The ground beneath us rumbles and shakes.
“Oh yes. Forgot. Huge rip. Wraiths escaping into Ora. Now is a good time to leave,” Mortem says and head-butts my cheek.
Wraiths escaping? Midnight…
“She’ll be fine. Midnight’s a cockroach. Never dies. Come on.”
I didn’t think much past breaking my contract with Ignatius, but I know what a vindictive and vengeful bastard he can be. I’d put money on the fact that now he’s lost his favourite toy, he’ll find a way to come after me. If I stay anywhere obvious in the underworld, he’ll hunt me down.
Now what? Try the Celestial Realm? As I push off the ground, something sharp digs into my palm, slicing it.
Mortem sniffs. “Mmm, dinner,” he meows.
I smell it too. “Blood?” I breathe. “How is that possible?”
“Not dead,” Mortem says.
“My soul was reaped. I can’t be alive either.”
“Then you are a special snowflake, as well as exhausting…” he says, nudging me to get me going.
I’m going to swat his furry backside if he doesn’t cool it with the snark. My spine grows clammy, my breathing shallow. I have spent my life reading the fine print, understanding the rules, and recognising that all I needed was enough knowledge and I could get myself out of everything.
If I’m not Lucy the demon, and I’m not the contract, then I don’t know what I am. What rules am I playing by?
And that’s a good point because where is Mortem even going to lead me? If I’m not dead, then will I even be able to get into the Celestial Realm? If I’m not a demon anymore, then I won’t belong in the underworld. And if I don’t have a soul then I don’t belong in Ora either.
That thought sinks heavy in my gut. My throat thickens and my world narrows to this godsawful realisation. I don’t belong anywhere.
I wipe my hand across my thigh, smearing the blood, and trail after the sound of Mortem’s padding feet.
“Hey, Mortem…”
“Meow.”
“Where are we going? I have no soul, I can’t go back to Ora.”
“True, but you’re also not dead so…”
“Don’t give me hope, it’s cruel.”
His tail jitters around my calf. “Way I see it, you have two choices. Try to go back or stay.”
“Yeah…” He’s right, of course. But I hate the way hope floods my chest, tightening and clamping down, my breathing rapid.
Possibility.
The promise of a second chance. He’s right, I have to try.
“I’ll take you to a door,” he says and continues plodding.
There’s a pause as he pads further away. I chase after him, realising there’s more I need to say.
“Thank you… you know, for coming after me.”
He doesn’t respond, but a faint purr hums around me, making me smile.
We move out of the gloom and into an enormous tunnel. Light blossoms, far in the distance.
I freeze as I finally take in my appearance. “What the fuck?”
My arms and legs are smothered in golden runes. I lift my top and my stomach is too.
They’re all over me and the further we walk into the light the more activated they become. Gold blooms in the swirls and lines of each rune. They glisten like mini burning moons. I run my fingers along them, and wherever they sit, my skin vibrates. Like they’re straining to get out.
My fingers trace their lines and shapes.
I can read contract runes, but these are not the same.
Almost, but not quite. They’re not ancient demonic script either, again, almost, but not quite.
Like the other forms of runes they’re not quite celestial either.
It’s as though they’re a little bit of each runic form, but I’m not able to read them.
If I concentrate, I can make out familiar strokes, but then they dissolve and I’m left staring at shapes I can’t understand.
That knowledge settles like the weight of a demonic countdown. Heavy, unrelenting and ever present. I no longer know who or what I am.
A dim light blinks to life, pulling my attention.
I squint against the sudden intrusion, forcing my eyes to adjust as we step into a circular balcony area. I’m at the top of Prima’s enormous tower.
The ground tremors worse than before. It shrieks an awful, hollow sound filled with violence that sends goosebumps shivering down my spine.
Dust escapes from between the tower stones, drifting listlessly in the air. Mortem glances at me, his furry face pinched with worry.
“You’re right. Let’s keep moving,” I say.
He doesn’t reply, just turns his backside to me and prowls aggressively towards the staircase.
Finally, the perpetual stretch of grey wall is pitted by windows. Endless and tall, they stretch down the tower’s long sides like roots burying themselves into the underworld.
We’re so high it seems like I could simply step back into Ora.
To Midnight.
Mortem’s right, even though I have no soul for Finis to call back, I need to try. I’m left with one lingering worry: if I go back, will she forgive me?
I peer out the nearest window; the sky is as dark as the atmosphere in here. The clouds billow and plume with angry grey bulges. Each puff filled with shadows and rage and the listless dead.
The tower sweeps like Finis. The same twisting spiral down for an eon. The only interruptions are balconies, the occasional door and the odd scuffle and pounce of Mortem attempting to catch a ghost mouse.
I follow after him, a slow coiling in my gut.
The tower is too quiet. The stillness unnerves me.
Life is never still. That is the point, though, there is no life here. It’s a ceaseless passage of nothingness and time so thick it crawls through my veins and settles heavy around my throat.
Shrieking fills the air. Mortem’s hackles bristle. The hollow sound furrows and darts and skitters around us. One scream becomes many. The wraiths must have returned to this side of the Veil.
“Faster,” I say, forcing my feet forward. But there are already shadows slithering down the walls. Skeletal bodies and the scent of decaying flesh. Was the Veil sealed shut? Does that mean I can’t get back?
If Architecti was released, maybe she accidentally let out a load of wraiths.
“You need to hide your arms,” Mortem says and halts on the next floor. He stretches up and scratches at some shaggy looking curtains. Reluctantly I yank them down, a puff of dust peeling off them.
I shrug the curtain around my shoulders, it’s weightier than I expect and cold. I’d rather not don the cloak, but the brilliance from the runes will make me a target, and I don’t want to attract a wraith unnecessarily.
A sluggish sensation washes over me. The atmosphere chills enough that goosebumps flower down my neck.
I freeze. Mortem glances up at me, his eyes settling at a spot above my shoulder.
“What is it?” I whisper. But my gut is already telling me to run and get the fuck out of there.
Mortem trots back until he hits the wall, his eyes never leaving that cursed spot above me.
I crane around.
Shit.
“Thalia,” I whisper. Her eyes glimmer as violent as the wails circling us. Mortem trembles beside me.
Thalia is more than a dozen floors above me but it’s still far, far too close.
“I think it’s time we had a new introduction,” she says. “My name is Interitus.”