As we reach the shed door, I lift my hand, feeling the familiar pattern of a time-anchor spell forming beneath my skin. Arcana flows from my fingers to the air around this place, weaving itself into a large bubble of suspended reality.
My phone dings. Right on cue.
I ignore it. The Divinity Connect app can kiss my ass. I'm not letting these idiots stumble into a Reaper's path. I'm the one who brought them here; protecting them shouldn't be a fucking plausibility issue. Of course, basic logic tends to mean nothing to the team of Balance.
"Is it her?" Owen asks, and I can feel the anger simmering beneath his deceptively mild words.
"No. In some ways it's worse."
The shed door swings open without so much as a creak, of course. They'd never allow something so pedestrian as a creaking hinge.
The time-anchor sets with a soundless snap. To Jack-Eye and the others, nothing has changed. They're frozen in place, suspended between one second and the next.
For me, the world shifts into a peculiar muted palette of suspended time. Colors fade just a bit. Sound dampens. All momentum bleeds away into perfect stillness, like I've closed a snow globe around us and sealed it with a whisper.
A figure steps out, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes.
The Reaper is still irritatingly beautiful—all porcelain skin and eyes like black mirrors, reflecting everything and absorbing nothing. He's wearing the ridiculous uniform they all insist on: matte-black cloak with shadows that cling too long, too thick. And, naturally, a full-length scythe.
It's purely ornamental. They don't need it to reap souls, and they aren't allowed to harm anything living. I guess they could use it in a battle against divinity, but those are all strictly regulated, thanks the rules of Plausibility and Causality.
"Still using those for balance, I see," I say dryly.
His mouth curves into a smile, but it doesn't disturb a single muscle in his face. Creepy to humans, normal to those of us who were raised with these assholes. "We were expecting you."
I cross my arms, letting my weight shift to one hip. "Stop playing around. Why are you here so early? There's a reason, isn't there? Who's behind this?"
"You've created a thread of deviation." His voice carries the exact same inflection it did three centuries ago, which isnone. Monotone bastard. "We aren't the only ones dispatched to achieve balance."
"Listen. I've got better things to do than play cryptic bullshit bingo with you. Burn the shed, raze the evidence, do whateveradministrative ass-covering you need to do. But I'm not stopping, and you can't make me. So either get on board or get out of my way."
He sighs, the sound too perfect to be real. "Do you ever tire of fighting the very system you were born into?"
"Do you ever tire of being a cosmic hall monitor? Get laid. Learn to relax. Maybe try yoga."
A smile plays at the corners of his mouth. "Is that an invitation?"
"I don't fuck the undead."
He chuckles, taking a step closer, one pale hand reaching toward my face. "That's not what I recall."
I smack his hand away before he can touch me. "Your flirting has only gotten creepier in the three hundred years since I last saw you."
"I miss you, Lyrielle."
"You're just a pervert with a fancy job title."
"You rather liked my personality once." His eyes drift to my lips. "Before the last plague."
"You were my rebellious phase, Caeriel. Until I realized you weren’t rebellion. You were bureaucracy with better cheekbones. Pretending to buck the system while bending over for it."
He laughs, the sound too fucking beautiful. Then again, it's the entire point of a Reaper. Too beautiful to be real. "We're done here. You can undo your magic." His eyes flash with something way too close to hunger. "I'll see you next time."
The promise makes my skin crawl. He disappears—along with the presences I'd sensed inside the shed, hiding instead of coming out to face me—leaving behind nothing but a faint scent of lemon.
I drop the time barrier with a sigh, reality snapping back into normal flow.
Jack-Eye and the others tense, sensing the shift but unable to identify what changed. The red-haired wolf lifts his head, nostrils flaring as confusion washes over his face.
