Another Reaper stepped through the broken doorway, and Atlas shuddered. I could almost feel him melting at the sight of her. They’d met before, I realized. They must have been close, because there were glimmers of true love persisting in his big black eyes.

  “Nethissis, meet the Morning Star. The Night Bringer and Phantom should be with us shortly as well,” Soul said, giving me a wink. He made it sound like a casual meet and greet, not an absolute carnage.

  “Hey…” Morning mumbled, smiling at Atlas and ignoring the rest of us. “I know it’s been a while.”

  Atlas whispered in his ghoulish tongue, and a solitary tear found its way down Morning’s cheek. Outside, the carnage continued as the last of the Darklings fell under the blades of First Tenners and the fangs and claws of ghouls. I could see them through the window, advancing, cutting the enemy down and cleansing the town of its pest.

  “You’ve willingly stayed with the Visentis dynasty because there was nowhere else for you to go after what they did to you,” Morning said to Atlas. “But I’m giving you a better option now. I’m back.”

  My throat burned as Atlas’s claw pierced it. “Guys… I’m… not… sure it’s work-working…” I managed, my voice raspy and broken as I struggled to survive. Atlas was getting ready to kill me forever, and I wasn’t sure the Reapers had any time left to intervene. The hope I’d experienced earlier was withering fast.

  “Morning, you have to do something,” Seeley said, eyeing me worriedly.

  “I’m trying,” Morning replied, clearly exasperated. “It’s been too long. Maybe I don’t have as much influence on him as I’d thought.”

  “Stating the obvious there.” Soul scoffed.

  “You’re not helping,” I croaked, my hands gripping Atlas’s long and leathery fingers as I tried to pry him off me.

  “Atlas, please! It’s over. You still have a chance at an existence, but you have to let Nethissis go,” Morning said, moving closer. She slowly raised her hands, and I marveled at how beautiful and serene she was, though her emotional pain was visible. “She is innocent in all this, and haven’t enough innocent people died already?”

  Atlas shook his head, determined to kill me. I was seconds away from praying for salvation of any kind, when Morning sighed deeply, shaking her head.

  “You’re not leaving me with any other choice,” she said. “I loved you. You loved me. Don’t let that be in vain.”

  Atlas’s whispers changed in tone, and I could tell he was articulating words in his ghoulish language. Whatever he was saying, it horrified the First Tenners.

  “What… What is he—” I tried to ask, but Widow finished my question for me.

  “Saying? He’s saying the Spirit Bender left quite the mess on Visio, and that none of us are able to fix it,” he replied. “He’s also saying Petra will have her way, as will the Master.”

  “He’s beyond salvation,” Soul muttered. “Atlas has crossed over to the enemy’s side.”

  Morning sobbed briefly. “Please, don’t do this, Atlas.”

  “Nethissis doesn’t deserve this,” Seeley said, trying to help. I looked at him, and for a moment, time stood still. I watched Seeley—all tall and dark and handsome—a cosmic entity that had fallen for me. And I had fallen for him. The idea of my resurrection began to distance itself from my consciousness, as Atlas’s jaws snapped wide open and he shifted his focus to me. “No! Atlas, no!” I heard Seeley shout.

  Horror paralyzed me. Atlas’s fangs framed the infinite darkness of his insides, where I was about to disappear forever. This is it. This is the end.

  Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I gasped as Phantom emerged from the wall behind Atlas. I heard Seeley’s rushed footsteps—his Hail Mary attempt to save me. I said nothing, Atlas’s fangs came closer, and Phantom’s scythe sliced down.

  The blade cut through the ghoul’s back. It sounded almost… musical.

  He shrieked from the pain, stiff as a board before he disappeared in a cloud of silvery ashes, and the grip on my throat vanished. I fell and landed on my back, thankful to hit the hard floor. Atlas was gone.

  And I had been saved.

  All that was left of Atlas was his iron collar, the runes lighting up red before darkening forever. I felt Seeley’s arms scoop me up. He almost crushed me in his embrace, and I cried as he held me tight, pressing his lips against my temple and whispering that everything was going to be okay.

  Petra was gone. Aganon and Simmon were dead, as were most of the Darklings who’d occupied Laramis. Tudyk and Moore were whimpering in a corner, and Atlas had just been obliterated. For the first time in what felt like ages, I was free and had another shot at getting my life back.

  Nethissis

  The chains Petra had put on me jingled as they fell.

  Phantom picked them up, while I stayed cradled in Seeley’s arms. There was nowhere else I’d rather be, especially after my most recent experiences.

  “This is Spirit’s handiwork,” Phantom declared, tossing the chains over to Soul and Widow, so they could study them too. “I recognize the runes and the specific order in which they were carved. It’s his style, and his alone.”

  “So, it’s confirmed,” Night said, coming in from the grave-like silence outside. It wasn’t hard to identify him as the Night Bringer, as darkness seemed to practically ooze out of him, making me chilly. Rudolph walked beside him, his face smeared with blood. “Spirit is the source of all the death magic the Darklings have been using.”

  “I think he basically founded the entire faction.” Morning crossed her arms as she stared down at Atlas’s iron collar left behind on the floor. She wiped the rest of her tears and did her best not to give in to the pain again. She’d loved Atlas deeply, I could tell. This couldn’t be easy for her to watch.

  “Why, though?” Kelara asked. She was as baffled as Seeley and me, while the First Tenners looked like they’d seen this part coming. To be fair, the fact that Spirit had founded the Darklings shouldn’t have come as a surprise at all, not after we’d already established that he’d probably been messing around with Visio.

  Then again, I was definitely missing some information here.

  “It must’ve had something to do with Unending. I’m sure of it,” Night said. “Just as I’m sure that she’s here.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, my voice barely audible.

  “Right, you’re not caught up yet,” Soul replied. “Turns out Unending is here on Visio. She’s been here for at least four or five million years.”

  “The Spirit Bender trapped all the First Tenners he could find, leaving her for last,” Morning explained. “My brother and I were bound, as was the Time Master.”

  “But Unending got it the worst,” Night reminded us. “I’m not sure how, exactly. All I know is what Spirit told me before he bound me to Cruor, and that can only be described as vague and malicious, at best.”

  “Cruor?” I murmured. Yes, I was definitely miles away from the loop.

  Seeley took a few minutes to tell me everything he’d learned from Kelara’s trips. Looking at the First Tenners now, seeing them all here made a lot more sense. Earlier, I’d been so terrified for my own life and so thankful for their interference that I hadn’t stopped for even a second to wonder how they’d reached Visio.

  With a fuller picture in mind, I shuddered, and Seeley instinctively tightened his embrace. “Geez, Spirit did quite the number on Visio, then,” I concluded, almost breathless as I made a key connection. “Oh, snap. The Unending. What exactly is her ability again?” I had a feeling I already knew the answer, and the wheels were turning in my head.

  “She gives immortality. Timelessness. She was Death’s first creation, a response to her own condition as the end of all the living,” Phantom said. “In her early days, Death wasn’t exactly happy with herself. She appreciated the bloom of a rose, the chirp of a bird, the laughter of a woman bathing in a stream… stuff like that. She didn’t like having to end it all. She didn’t agree with the balance between life and death, even though she was literally half of that balance.”

  “So, she created Unending. The only Reaper who could bring creatures to life and grant them immortality without Death’s approval,” Widow added. “Naturally, Unending was overwhelmed by her power. She believed in the balance that Death despised, and the two never got along because of that. Eventually, Death accepted the flow of things. I mean, she has always done her job. She has always been Death… but she hasn’t always liked it, and Unending is literal proof of that.”

  “Dear sweet sunset, Unending is definitely here on Visio,” I said, my eyes widening as the links were finally complete in my mind. “The Aeternae weren’t always… Aeternae. I got a chance to read through some of the history scrolls back at the imperial palace. The earliest record of Aeternae as immortals dates back about four, maybe five million years.”

  “The timeline fits,” Night replied, frowning.

  “What does this mean?” Moore asked from the corner of the room.

  Kelara threw him an over-the-shoulder glance. “It means there’s a pretty big chance that your immortality stems from Unending, since she’s the only entity capable of granting eternal life.”

  “Well, in the Aeternae’s case there still seem to be conditions.” Soul chuckled, nodding at the fallen Visentis men. “I mean, they’re definitely dead.”

  Night nodded slowly. “There must be a glitch… I don’t know. But I am certain that Unending is still here. Maybe she bestowed the Aeternae with this limited form of immortality to spite Death. We all know how their last conversation ended.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Soul pulled up a couple of chairs for himself and Phantom, while Morning brought a few more for the rest of them to sit down. It looked rather odd, considering the corpses and the trembling Visentis kids, but hey… the Reapers deserved a damn break.

  “Let’s just say Death and Unending had a bit of a contentious relationship,” Soul said, bitterly amused. “When Death finally accepted her own role in the grand scheme of things, she considered removing Unending’s power. Which was ironic, because up until then, Unending had been the one begging to be given a different power.”

  “The story is a little fuzzy, mind you,” Phantom added. “None of us were there when the conversations happened. We only have third-person accounts from other higher-circle Reapers who’d spoken to both Death and Unending.”

  “The story, as fuzzy as it may be,” Soul continued, “says that Unending fell in love with a mortal. We’re not sure when and where that happened, but according to rumor, it happened. And Unending knew that once he died, he’d step into the afterlife and she would never see him again. The thought was virtually unbearable for her, so she gave him immortality.”

  “There’s a hitch, though,” Night intervened. “The mortal’s immortality would exist for as long as Unending wanted it to exist, or for as long as immortality existed.”

  “I’m a little confused,” I murmured.

  “If Death took Unending’s power away, her beloved mortal would die,” Phantom clarified. I felt a claw in my stomach as I wondered how deep and intense Unending’s love must’ve been for her to grant immortality to someone after having been so miserable with her ability.

  Almost reading my mind, Morning smiled at me. “You’re still confused.”

  “Yeah, the timeline is a bit… weird. So, Death didn’t like being Death, the end, the grand finale, whatever, so she created Unending first as a form of rebellion against the natural order. Am I getting that right?” Morning and the others nodded slowly. “Okay, and Unending didn’t like having that power, because she actually believed in the natural order.” They all nodded again. “Then, Death gradually changed her mind and accepted the natural order, while Unending fell in love and used her ability on a mortal for the first time. I’m assuming Unending hadn’t used it before then?”

  “That is correct,” Night said. “Minds and hearts changed, and by the time Death wanted to undo what she’d created with Unending, our sister had decided to hold on to her power because it kept her beloved mortal immortal.”

  “So, when Death came to her to take the power away, she and Unending had an argument,” I muttered, connecting the cosmic dots.

  “A massive argument, or so the story goes.” Soul sighed. “Unending never talked to us about it. She kept the details to herself. This was after Death had granted us our freedom and shortly before Phantom, Widow, and I accepted the mission to protect Thieron’s elements. Unending didn’t feel like she owed Death anything. She was trying to build a life with her mortal. After the argument, she left, and we haven’t seen her since.”

  I went over past conversations I’d had with Soul, Phantom, and Widow regarding Unending and the other First Tenners. And I remembered what they’d told me before. There were some inconsistencies.

  “That’s not what you first told me about Unending,” I said. “I do remember you mentioning an argument, but nothing of the kind you just described, Soul.”

  The First Tenner shrugged. “To be honest, these were the sorts of details we preferred keeping among ourselves. No one likes an uncertain Death, now do they?”

  “It does make our creator seem a tad… immature,” Kelara muttered.

  Seeley helped me up, but I refused to leave his side. My arms slipped around his waist, and I held on to him. He looked down at me, smiling gently as he tucked a lock of long copper hair behind my ear. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

  “Are you not glad she’s also buck naked?” Widow chuckled. It prompted the others to laugh, while I blushed, my face burning.

  I had gotten so used to my condition that my nakedness had basically slipped from thought. Seeley, however, didn’t laugh. He just held me, all tingly warm and protective. Morning came closer, scythe in her hand. Instinctively, I moved to get away from the blade, until she spoke.

  “It’s okay, Nethissis. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “What… um, what do you want to do, then?” I asked.

  “Well, you’re not the first mortal to die naked, my dear,” she replied. “I’ve taken pity on others before you, for various reasons. I might as well do the same with you.”

  “Right. Morning does have her little sartorial trick,” Night said, clearly amused.

  “None of you seem to mind me having only my hair to cover my privates,” I muttered. “What if Morning does something wrong, and I end up in the afterlife before I get my chance at resurrection?”

  Night cleared his throat. “First of all, none of us seem to mind you’re in your birthday suit because we don’t care. However, our new friend Seeley there has obviously been struggling with this for a very long time. I believe my sister is trying to help you out of pity for him, not you. Second, do not underestimate Morning. She’s not the kind to accidentally reap someone.”

  “That’s true. At worst, she just sticks her scythe where it doesn’t belong,” Soul grumbled.

  “Nonsense! You and Atifa were a good match!” Morning shot back, glowering at Soul, and I understood they all had quite a history together. A big band of undying Reapers that were older than time and sassier than most Lamias I’d ever met—and our species was renowned for our talent at talking smack.

  “Atifa?” Kelara asked, staring at Soul. Her tone felt strained, tempting me to consider that she might be a bit jealous. “Who’s Atifa?”

  The First Tenner looked like a deer caught in the headlights. But he waved the problem away.

  “That’s a story for another time. Now go on, Morning, do your thing,” Soul replied, shifting focus back to his sunny-side-up sister. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

  Morning nodded once and brought the scythe closer until the tip of its blade touched my shoulder. I felt the cold metal, a chill rushing through my limbs as fabric began to materialize over my skin. A smile stretched across my lips as I found myself fully clothed in a simple long white dress with thin straps and a fitted waist.

  “There we go,” Morning said, pleased with what she’d accomplished. “Much better, don’t you think?”

  I pulled my hair up into a loose bun, no longer having to use it to cover myself. “Thank you,” I replied. “It’s definitely better.”

  “Something tells me Seeley isn’t all that happy,” Widow quipped. “I think he preferred you naked, Nethissis.”

  That earned him a slap on the back of his head from Phantom. “Someday, I’m going to rip that mask off your head and show everybody exactly who you are,” she hissed. “Tone it down and be respectful.”

  Widow didn’t say a word, but Soul was getting a kick out of this. “The fun part is that none of us has ever seen Widow’s face,” he said, then looked at his masked brother. “I urge you to piss Phantom off until she takes that thing off your head. I’ve wanted to know what you look like for a long time.”

  “I love how easily distracted you are, brother,” Phantom cut in before the conversation could digress any further. “Now, let’s get down to business. Laramis is free. Nethissis has clothes on. Unending is here. What’s next on our to-do list?”

  I glanced up at Seeley, whose gaze remained fixed on me. “It does feel better in this dress.”

  “You look beautiful in it,” he whispered. Seeley didn’t have the vocabulary of an Earthly poet, but his sincerity made everything he said all the more valuable and meaningful. “And don’t mind Widow and his siblings. They’re ancient and have a rather rough sense of humor.”

  “In case you forgot, I know exactly what they’re like,” I replied in a hushed tone. “I had to put up with Soul, Widow, and Phantom during our Hermessi run, remember?”

  Even so, I was glad to be around them again. I was fortunate to still have my spirit intact, to be able to see the world of Visio changing so drastically in a matter of minutes. For once, we had a real and undeniable upper hand. I was free and with Seeley again. I knew Sidyan, Lumi, and Maya had gone after Petra. I could see Rudolph was pleased with himself and less miserable about his condition.