Chapter Forty-Four
Jackson
A tropos glides through the charred chaos of the room, her footsteps delicate like a bird treading through fresh snow. Despite the storm that rages around us, the walls crumbling like chalk, the Death Wardens fierce in their midnight armour—everything and everyone seem to halt as she approaches.
This is her storm, and she is the silence at its heart.
She looks different. As if she's trying to dress like a mortal girl. She's dressed exactly like Millie. She's wearing a sleeveless dress, baggy coat and old trainers. This isn't a look Millie has put together deliberately, though. The dress is still the one she wore for her birthday, a memory that stabs at my chest but feels so long ago now. The jacket is too big because it's mine, and the shoes Millie slipped on quickly before we left Roisin's are scuffed and faded. Millie's eyes narrow like she's picked up on it too.
“I'm afraid, little nephew, that won't work. That little trinket is just that, a trinket.”
Atropos looks at me accusingly, and I meet her glance with a glare of my own. She giggles. It's high-pitched and rings in my ears like a bell. She walks over to me, dragging her bloody hand down my face, the bony fingertips tearing at my skin, and I flinch.
“Thanatos never got it to work for all the years he put into trying. Never got to hand over the last of his power to his precious little reapers.” She takes the pin from my hand, crushes it in hers, and smiles. The black dust glitters as it falls delicately to the ground.
My stomach drops. What now? Jeanette and Lucius look at me, their expressions flat, like the last of their hope has just drained away. Only Millie looks unmoved, her eyes like glowing embers, working over the next steps in her mind and demanding me to do the same. In the quiet centre of all this mess and madness, she is still a force of nature, and I beam in admiration. When she sees it, she shakes her head at me like I'm a little child, but her cheeks flush, her lips twitching in the corners.
“Then why send me after it? For what purpose?”
Atropos sighs, like this she's growing bored with all this.
“I needed more time. Fate may have ended the moment Death slipped through his door, but I needed the Death realm in ruins before it would let me leave my temple. I thought the Chronica might keep you boys busy.”
“But you said …” Thomas's voice quivers. “You said it worked. You said any reaper could travel through time with it?”
Her ringing laugh starts again, and then as quickly as it starts, it stops. She moves towards him. Those slow footsteps take an eternity.
“I lied.” She smiles a sickly sweet smile that churns my insides. “I needed you. Me and my sisters, we are bound to our temple, to our tools of fate since our creation. I couldn't leave, so I had to wait, and wait I did, century after century, until you came to me, till your pain became my weapon. You, Thomas, you were a gift.”
“You lied to me, you lied to me!” He launches forward but isn't quick enough. The Death Wardens are on him, grabbing him roughly till he cries out in pain.
“You answer to me! Let me go!”
They don't move, keeping their grip as hard as steel. He's now standing next to me. He glances at me quickly, pain slashing across his face. Two hold him tightly, pulling his head up by his hair, forcing him to meet her gaze. Atropos stands on her tiptoes to face him.
“Oh, my dear Thomas, they're not Death Wardens. I replaced them the moment I sensed my brother had passed. No, you'll find they're all very loyal to me. Very loyal to the person offering them endless suffering to feast on.”
The Death Wardens all laugh, their unified cackle filling the room. I shudder, a chill running through me. The Keres, she's replaced the Death Wardens with the Keres. They haven't been just rounding people up, searching for me. No, they have been feeding on suffering already. On the people of Scythe.
I turn my head to Thomas, but he's hanging limply in the arms of his captor, looking down at the ground, his eyes round orbs of suffering. Atropos moves towards him, her face almost soft, except for the gleam in her eye, which says she is enjoying his pain as much as the Keres remains.
“Not about everything, Thomas. Death reaped your wife instead of his own. Across time, the broken and lost have come to me, trying to understand why their beloveds were taken. My answer was always the same. But not you. Your wife was taken against the word of the Fates. And I dreamt of you. I dreamt of what I could do if you ever came to me. If my brother could finally pay for his actions. And then you did. Through you, I could drop the breadcrumbs that would lead to Thanatos's destruction. I knew you would betray me. I knew your desire for your wife's return would be greater than revenge against my brother. But it matters not anymore. I have what I wanted. I will be ever grateful to you.”
“Then bring her back, that's all I want.”
Thomas sounds broken. A hundred years of grief and rage has built up in him, rotting his soul, consuming him from the inside out. And he kept it all hidden from us, from his friends. I'm guilty of so many things, and now I can add another thing to that list. I let down a good friend by never seeing what he hid behind his smile.
Atropos raises her hand to caress his face, almost lovingly, leaving crimson streaks across his cheek as she smears her blood into his tears.
“Jackson was my weapon. It could only ever be him. I can't exactly let you go back and erase him from existence, can I?”
The noise that comes out of Thomas's mouth isn't human, it comes from what's left of his soul, his heart. It's the sound of a man breaking apart. I feel the Keres, still wearing their Death Warden skins, tighten their grip on me and realise I was trying to get to him. I see it on Lucius's face too, the need to help our friend. Whatever he's done, his actions were born from pain.
“So you have everything you want. Your freedom, a very broken, rotting world. All yours,” Millie says her eyes feverish, darting back between me and Atropos. “What more could you possibly want?”
Atropos recoils. It's subtle, barely a twitch in her neck, but I see it. And so does Millie. Her honey and vinegar smile returns.
“To hurt the only thing that Thanatos really cared about.”
She's lying. Millie catches it, too. She needs me, needs me for more than just punishing Death one more time. The question remains, though—why?
“Search them.”
The Keres search Lucius, Millie and Jeanette, roughly pulling at their clothes as they pat them down.
“You've already searched me, you stupid buzzards,” Jeanette mutters, which gets her a backhand across her face, but she just glares even as red grows on her cheek.
The ring is in my pocket. I hate seeing them hurt Jeanette, but the altercation keeps eyes on her and not on me. When I drop the ring, the small clunk goes unheard above the din. I cover it with my foot. Millie and Thomas see the move. And though his eyes darken, he says nothing.
The Death Warden, searching Lucius, hands Atropos a grenade and his phone. She slips them into her pockets and turns to me, nodding for the Keres to search me.
“Where's his ring?”
They point weapons at me, and my chest seizes, clenching like it's in a vice. I battle to keep my face flat.
“I took it off him,” Thomas mutters casually. “It's in my pocket.”
Atropos raises an eyebrow and nods towards the nearest Death Warden. They take a ring out of the pocket of his jeans. It's old, probably one he took from the archives for the same reason Jeanette gave me Death's old one: he needed to travel with the minimum chance of detection. The Death Warden hands it to Atropos, who examines it. She frowns but nods, slipping the ring into the pocket of her too-large coat.
“Now, nephew. Tell me, tell me all about my brother's last moments.” Her eyes glisten with a morbid fascination that makes me feel sick. “I want to know everything.”
“It was quick.” I shrug, pretending nonchalance. “He appeared, then he was gone. The door sucked him in. I didn't even know they could do that. One second, he was there; the next, he was gone.”
She takes a step toward me. The Death Wardens on either side grip me tighter, and I grunt through clenched teeth.
“Did he say anything? Did he know it was you?” Her eyes are glassy with frenzy, bloodlust turning her even more manic.
“This was all about punishing Death? You've ended the world 'cause of some sibling spat?” Jeanette yells, tugging against her guards who hold her steady.
Atropos turns, her mouth settling into an amused curve. Her lips part, but the velvet and grit of Millie's voice draws all attention to her.
“I know why you did it. I understand. You did it to be free. For the freedom Death has been enjoying for centuries. Taking lovers, seeing the world, having children. You wanted your turn.”
Atropos approaches her, eyeing Millie hungrily.
“I've watched girls like you for so long. And there was I, bound along with my sisters, to do our roles. Thanatos … he found ways, ways to find his freedom. And all I could do was watch, but now I'm free.”
“I understand. I understand why you've done this. I do.”
Atropos moves closer to Millie.
“They lie, and they deceive; they take what they want, and we're supposed to just accept it. Your brother lived the life he wanted, and he didn't care about the scraps he left you with. Jackson stole my mother from me. Then tricked me into loving him just because he could.”
I flinch at Millie's words. When she looks at me, I can't face the ice in her eyes. It burns as hot as any fire and I look away.
“Yes. My sisters don't understand why I'm doing this, why I had to do it, but you do.” Atropos nods, her bottom lip trembling. “I just wanted a piece of what he had. Just for a while.”
Millie nods, tilting her head, her face soft. She reaches forward, almost like she wants to touch Atropos's face. The Death Warden holding Millie grips her arm tighter, and she cries out, her face twisting in pain. Atropos shakes her head angrily.
“Let her go.”
They let go of Millie, and her body relaxes. She nods in thanks and reaches up, adjusting Atropos's hair so her braid sits neatly across her shoulder like her own. She pulls at the hem of her dress and adjusts her coat so it sits just slightly off the shoulder. Tugs and plucks at the fabrics until they match her outfit exactly.
“There,” she says with a smile, her hands slipping into her own coat pockets casually as she steps back to admire her work. “Now, when you get to the Mortal realm, you'll fit right in.”
Atropos beams, looking down at herself. She twirls slightly, closing her eyes, dancing to music only she can hear.
Millie glances my way, her lips tight. Her expression is unreadable. Atropos gently touches Millie's shoulder before she walks away and back to me, her eyes dreamy and sparkling with excitement. When her glance returns to me, her expression turns hard again.
“It's been very nice to have this little chat with you, little reaper. But I think our time is over. I can feel it. The Death realm is nearly gone. Can you feel it, too? Do you know what happens to those who don't pass into the Mortal realm before it does?”
Her lips pull tightly across her bared teeth.
“I think I can guess,” I grunt out.
Everyone is looking at me, needing me to think of something. But my mind is empty. I feel empty. Everything hurts. The pieces are all here, in front of me, and the exhaustion is stopping me from putting them together.
She'd been pressing me on Death passing over. Why? What did it matter?
What had happened? Remember, Jackson, remember. I'd seen his spirit before it passed over. He'd said a word. Just one word.
Jaqueline.
The look on his face as he uttered her name. I've always been good at lying, and never better than lying to myself. I hadn't wanted to deal with what I knew to be true. Death's last word was my mother's name, but now, as I look at the hungry expression on Atropos's face, the dust from the broken Chronica at her feet, I realise what he was really telling me. That I could have fixed all this the moment I broke it. I know what Atropos wants.
I glance at Millie, and somehow, I know she knows. Maybe not everything, but she knows I've worked it out, and that's enough. Her head dips, and it draws my attention lower—to her jacket. When I see it, it takes every piece of self-restraint not to laugh.
She's quicker than lightning, too quick for the Death Warden behind her. She takes the grenade out of her pocket, pulls the pin, and launches it near the front entrance, far from any captured reapers.
The Death Wardens storm forward, desperately searching for it in the debris, but they're too slow. The seconds march on painfully, and then the roar blasts through the room. It sends the Death Wardens flying, the flames, heat, and smoke launching upwards before the force knocks us all backwards.
There's too much confusion, too much noise and too much wreckage. The Death Wardens close to the blast are screaming, their appearance now back to their usual Keres flesh, their limbs oozing with blood, wings hanging limp at their sides. The vicious creatures screech, in agony at their wounds or in pleasure, uncaring that the violent suffering is coming from their own kind.
I duck down, easily slipping out of the grasp of the two Keres holding me. When they try to seize me again, Thomas launches at them with a howl, punching and kicking with his full might. Grabbing the ring from the ground and slipping it on my finger, I rush across the room. Millie, Jeanette and Lucius are tackling the Keres, but they're too distracted by their pleasure at the cries of pain to put up much of a fight.
I reach Millie and take her hand. For a moment, everything is still, everything is silent. She looks at me, her mouth open, but says nothing. She doesn't need to. I see anger, I see hurt, but I also see something else. Reluctant and unwanted, but there, and burning bright, even as she wishes she could extinguish it.
Quickly, I pull her along with me as I race across the room, as far away from the fire and the Keres as we can manage. Lucius and Jeanette are close behind us. I look for Thomas, but I can't see him in the chaos of smoke, wings, fire, and claws. My stomach lurches, but I keep going. I drag Millie behind a fallen chunk from the floor above. We crouch down, glass and grit dig into my skin, but I barely notice. Lucius and Jeanette huddle down next to us, panting loudly, their faces dusty, hair laden with ash and sweat.
“Get them! Get them now!” Atropos wails, pointing in our direction, but the Keres are in anarchy. Few react to her cries, and by the time they do, we're out of sight and hidden by the wreckage.
“Tell me you have another plan?” Lucius's voice is a hoarse whisper. Blood is pouring from the wound on his forehead.
“He better,” Jeanette grumbles as she tugs at her clothes.
“I know what she's looking for. There's no time to explain, but …”
“Then stop explaining and go.” Jeanette backs away, her eyes looking upwards.
The carnage roars on around us, the heat of the explosion still burning the back of my throat. My ears still ring with the echoing thunder of the explosion.
“We'll try to keep them busy.”
Lucius nods, his face severe.
“Try to save him,” I mutter, and he nods. His face is still pained. I back away, holding my hand out to Millie. She hesitates before looking at me hard.
“Go. I don't need your help.”
I laugh, and she glares. “Yeah, I know, but evidently I do.”
I can see the conflict in her eyes, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides. The pounding of footsteps grow louder and ever closer.
“I know you don't need me, but I need you. For this, I need you. Please?”
Slowly, she lifts her arm, placing her soft hand in mine. I focus on the warm metal on my finger, and a moment later, we're gone.