37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
~Kalo~
We need to speak to Death directly.
An instinctive dread curled through me at Leo’s declaration, making my reply more forceful than I intended.
“No, Leo. That’s not something, or someone, we want to invite into a conversation.”
The idea felt dangerous in a way I couldn’t fully articulate. Fear of death didn’t cover it; I’d lived with that shadow long enough, but this was something else entirely, a sense that there were forces in existence that should never be approached willingly.
Once you drew their attention, it could never be undone.
Visenya inclined her head, her pale hair shifting over her shoulders as she regarded my mate. “He wouldn’t grant you the audience even if you tried. Death doesn’t negotiate, and he doesn’t indulge requests from mortals.”
Leo’s jaw tightened, frustration flashing across his face. “Then where does that leave us? You’re saying you can’t change anything and we’re not allowed to speak to the one who can. So, what are we supposed to do? Just sit here and wait for one of us to die?”
The raw edge in his voice scraped across my heart. He needed a plan, something he could do, but I forced myself to stay focused on the thread we’d been pulling at.
“I don’t think that’s true. I think there’s still a way for Visenya to help us, even if she doesn’t realize it yet.”
Visenya’s glowing eyes shifted to me, unreadable as ever, as I pressed on.
“When I was bound as a genie, I thought for a long time that there was no way out of it. The magic dictated everything. It felt absolute. But there were rules that could be used to my advantage, and eventually, I figured out that the way to break the curse, both on myself and on the people who made the wishes, was to undo every wish that had been granted. It was a loophole built into the system. I just had to find it.”
“And you believe the same applies here?” she asked.
“It might. Something governs your existence, and that something might be open to interpretation.”
Silence followed that statement, a hopeful silence on my end as I waited for Visenya to open up just a little more. Her gaze lingered on me a fraction longer than before, as though weighing something she hadn’t expected to consider, but before long, it became clear she didn’t intend to respond.
Evalina once again stepped in. “Where are you from, originally? What territory did you live in?”
Just like when Evalina asked her name, it took Visenya a few moments to answer, but rather than feeling like a delaying tactic, I suspected she had to truly try to remember.
“Exteria,” she finally replied.
Evalina’s face brightened at once. “That’s not far from Etta, where I’m from. Maybe you visited my territory?”
“No,” Visenya replied, her tone flattening once again. “Elves had no reason to travel to the fairy lands, and this was long before your time anyway. No one you know would have been alive then.”
Evalina didn’t seem discouraged by that. If anything, her curiosity deepened. “How long ago? Decades? Centuries?”
Visenya hesitated again, her reluctance to answer feeling more and more like uncertainty.
“I’m… not sure.”
“Not sure?” Evalina echoed, blinking in surprise. “Well, it doesn’t have to be exact. Give us your best guess.”
Visenya’s gaze drifted, as though searching inward for an answer she hadn’t needed in a very long time. “Perhaps five hundred years.”
“That’s not as long as Kalo’s lived,” Leo was quick to point out, sounding almost proud of the fact, but I shook my head.
“I expect it’s quite different. I slept between summons. I didn’t experience those years the way she has.” I turned back to Visenya. “You’ve lived every day of those five hundred years, haven’t you?”
She didn’t answer, but that in itself was answer enough.
“You must have collected a lot of souls,” I guessed.
“Of course.”
“Is it ever difficult? Taking people who don’t want to go? People who are loved? Who still have things they want to do?”
Her response came so quickly that time, it almost sounded rehearsed.
“It’s not my place to care. Their time ends and I ensure they pass on. That’s all it is.”
But Evalina tilted her head, her gaze soft but perceptive. “You had to teach yourself that, didn’t you? To stop caring? It doesn’t come naturally.”
The glow in Visenya’s eyes intensified, the white light brightening until it felt almost harsh. “What purpose would it serve if I grieved for every soul I took? Would it change the outcome? Would it alter their fate?”
Evalina didn’t even flinch. “No, but it might change you. I think it’s easier not to care.”
Visenya’s jaw tightened. “It’s not easier not to care, it’s the only way to remain functional.”
Those words seemed significant to me. “Are there reapers who don’t remain functional?”
Was that why Death had to recruit new ones? If she’d lived hundreds of years, she must be immortal.
No answer came from the elf, so I pressed her for more. “What happens to them?”
For a few seconds, I thought she might remain silent again, but eventually, she sighed.
“There’s an island in the fae realm. Those who can no longer perform their duties are sent there.”
“No longer perform their duties?” I echoed. That felt like a euphemism. “You mean they had a mental breakdown? Lost their minds?”
With noticeable reluctance, she nodded. “That’s what happens if you care too much.”
So, her choice had been to turn off her heart or go crazy. Not a pleasant outcome either way.
“You said they’re sent to this island,” Leo added. “But you mean imprisoned, don’t you?”
“They can’t leave,” Visenya admitted. “But they’re not kept locked up either. They’re cared for and kept safe, for their own protection.”
“For how long?” Evalina asked, sounding horrified at the prospect, and I could understand why.
“They can’t die, so they exist there forever, I suppose, trapped in whatever remains of their minds.”
Being bound to the genie’s magic suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad deal in comparison. “How do you know all this?” I wondered.
A flicker of… pain, perhaps, passed across her usually expressionless face, so brief that I couldn’t fully decipher it.
“I was tasked with delivering someone there once. It has… stayed with me.”
“So, you shut down your own emotions,” I guessed. “Everything that might lead you to end up there yourself.”
“I removed the risk,” she stated, which didn’t actually contradict anything I’d just said.
We were making progress, getting her to open up little-by-little, so I returned to the big question I’d asked earlier, which she still hadn’t addressed.
“And why did you choose to become a reaper in the first place?”
Those glowing, vacant eyes fixed on me again. “Why did you become a genie?”
I didn’t have to think about that. “For love.”
Once again, I caught a flicker of some kind of emotion in her expression, just a flaring of nostrils that disturbed her usually unnatural stillness.
“Well, then,” she said, clearing her throat in an almost human way. “I guess we made the same mistake.”