Chapter Eight
Snow Globes and Tapestries
Celestia
The elevator dings as the glittery gold doors slide open, granting me access to my home.
Well, one of my homes. As a deity, I maintain residences in multiple realms, across countless dimensions, in every corner of existence where my influence extends.
In other words, everywhere. I have villas, palaces, and a charming cottage I enjoyed during one of humanity’s downfalls.
The sounds of their screams did wonders for my inner peace.
But this penthouse suits my current mood perfectly.
High above everything, nestled in the OtherWorld’s only gated community for deities and dignitaries, my place in Celestia is a wonderful retreat when I need to get away from it all.
Plus, from this height, I can look down on the lesser beings scurrying about below like the insects they are.
As I stare intently into the bustling throng of the city center, my finger rubs mindlessly at the top of my stomach.
There is a small scar beneath the spot I’m rubbing.
A consequence of my brush with Kane’s blade in D’s office.
No one knows the scar is there, and I intend to keep it that way.
The idea that a meddlesome reaper left a lasting impression on my body absolutely sickens me.
I press my middle finger directly into the scarred flesh, hidden beneath my outfit.
Then I let out a sigh and turn away from the window overlooking the city.
I step into the pristine white marble foyer, the sharp clicks of my heels echoing against the floor. My stride falters as I hear the familiar mechanical hum of a tanning lamp emanating from the main living area.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Rolling my eyes so hard that I almost see the back of my skull, I walk toward the sound to find my blonde sister lounging in a chair, completely nude, as her large overhead sun lamp beats down on her golden skin.
Her face is covered in some atrocious-smelling cream that makes the entire penthouse reek like a day spa.
“Why?” It’s the only question I can muster.
I’m still seething with rage over what that disobedient reaper Asher dared to say to me after our appointment. “The last time.” As if he had any say in the matter whatsoever. As if his pitiful wants and needs carried any weight against my will.
I am Fate. I decide when he’s done. I decide when we’re all done. And I am far from finished with him. I am far from finished with everyone.
His words, however, struck a nerve. Something uncomfortable and unfamiliar that’s been gnawing at me the entire journey home. I want to finger the scar beneath my sternum again, but hold back in front of my sister.
“Why what?” Time drawls without moving, though one coppery eye cracks open to regard me with lazy disinterest. Her iris shifts and rotates like the intricate workings of a clock, gears turning within gears, measuring seconds and centuries simultaneously.
“You don’t age. You don’t tan. You don’t need whatever that awful stuff is smeared across your face, like some mortal trying to stave off the inevitable march toward death.
” I gesture at her with barely concealed disgust. “So, why? Besides to stink up our home like a wellness retreat for desperate housewives?”
She reaches for a pristine white towel, wiping the offensive substance from her face. “Self-care is vital to maintaining a healthy mindset, sister dear.”
She drags her gaze up to examine me, looking for flaws to exploit later. “You should try it sometime. You look tense. All those lines around your eyes. Very aging. Very mortal.”
“Of course I’m tense!” I hiss, following her as she rises from the chair and glides through the penthouse.
The space is as opulent as one would expect for beings of our stature, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the OtherWorld’s city and beyond.
A bar is stocked with liquors distilled from moments of pure joy, aged in barrels crafted from the wood of trees that had witnessed the birth of civilizations.
The furniture costs more than most souls could earn in ten lifetimes.
I pass by the luxurious sitting area and stop in front of my tapestry.
It dominates an entire wall, folding into dimensions the mortal eye cannot comprehend.
Infinite, fine golden threads intertwine, each representing a soul—past, present, and future.
Every life, every death, and every choice woven together in patterns of my own design.
Consequence and subsequent action written in the fabric of each weave.
I find the particular thread I’m looking for and curl my lip in disgust.
It would be so easy. Just one pull, one snip, and it would all be gone.
“Don’t.” Time’s warning comes sharp and immediate as she slips a silk robe around her form and knots it at the waist. “She’s caused us enough problems as it is. Let her stay in that miserable little corner, where she belongs.”
“Easy for you to say!” I snap, my hand hovering near the offending thread.
“My neck is still giving me problems from her boy toy’s dramatic outburst. Do you have any idea how undignified it is for Fate herself to have to realign her own neck because some lovesick French reaper decided to play hero? ”
Time lets out a small, tinkling laugh that would make a mortal’s skin crawl.
“You think you’re the only one who suffered?
Look at my left hand, Fate! Look at it! It’s not straight anymore.
When it was reattached, it reset a fraction off from the other.
I’m Time. I cannot have a crooked hand. That’s not a good look for me. To say nothing of the metaphor!”
“Well, you know what they say, even Time with a crooked hand is still right twice a moonturn.” I giggle to myself, enjoying the jab at my sister’s expense.
“How DARE you—” she gasps, her voice rising to a shriek of pure indignation.
I ignore her and storm over to the glowing tapestry, searching for the thread again.
Rue Chamberlain.
Just looking at it makes my teeth grind.
Before she arrived, this place operated flawlessly like a well-oiled machine.
Like the cosmic order it was meant to be.
My sister and I were feared and respected.
Reapers performed their duties without question, and souls went to their designated corners without fuss.
Big D was too busy admiring himself in the mirror like a preening parakeet, which allowed Time and me to run the OtherWorld better than anyone ever had.
Everything in its right place. Everything followed the plan. Everything was as I wove it.
But then Rue came along with her kindness and her fucking hope, and now it’s all feelings, second chances, memories, and love. And—
“Mercy.” I spit the word like a curse.
Rue and Kane reintroduced mercy into the equation. And now it’s spreading through the OtherWorld like a plague, infecting reapers who should know better and giving souls ideas above their station.
The Lost Souls Division. What an utterly moronic concept. As if souls deserved to be shepherded gently into the afterlife instead of being severed and sorted like the cosmic cattle they were.
“Damn it!”
I shriek and rip a thread from the tapestry before I can stop myself.
The thread disintegrates in my grasp instantly, erasing the soul and any potential beings they would have created. Not just killing them, unmaking them. As if they never were at all.
I watch with savage satisfaction as the tapestry responds, changing from gold to an icy blue where the thread once lived. New patterns form automatically, weaving around the absence, adjusting reality to account for the soul, now nothing more than a gap in the fabric of existence.
Seamless. Perfect. As if they never mattered at all.
Because they didn’t.
“Feel better?” Time asks dryly from her position at the bar, where she’s poured herself something that glimmers like captured starlight.
I glare at her over my shoulder. “You should be more concerned with the changes happening in the OtherWorld instead of mocking me. It’s your head that will roll right along with mine if the ants become wise and decide to stand up.”
The balance has always been delicate. D thinks he’s in charge, and we let him believe that because it keeps him docile and distracted.
But if the reapers—and the souls—start realizing that mercy, hope, and love can reshape the order we’ve built?
Chaos. Complete and utter chaos.
“Please.” Time waves her hand dismissively, and the light pouring in from the windows instantly fades, plunging the penthouse into darkness, save for the ethereal glow of my tapestry.
“Oh, not again,” I groan, knowing exactly what’s coming.
She swats at me to hush, which I find incredibly rude, but I choose not to comment on it.
With theatrical flair, Time raises her hand, and a panel in the marble floor slides open with a mechanical whir. Her shelf rises from the hidden vault below, ascending like an altar, dedicated to her own vanity.
The shelf is endless. Massive. Over-the-top annoying, much like Time herself.
I look at the snow globes, each one filled with a moment in time—a scene playing out on repeat.
Each globe represents an instant where a soul’s life changed forever, preserved for her personal collection.
Each one is a trophy. Each one is a moment she deemed significant enough to pluck from the river of time and keep for herself.
Every soul’s story is made up of infinite moments, microseconds that become a complete picture of someone’s journey.
And in the course of those immeasurable moments, certain seconds stand out.
Certain breaths are more significant than others.
Some moments pass by without notice; others change the entire trajectory of someone’s life.
“Which one are you looking for?” I ask, my annoyance evident.
Time trails her fingers across the glass spheres, her expression rapturous. “I’m looking for that delicious moment when the theatre burned down in Millbrook, 1897. Four hundred souls, all screaming at once as the fire—”