When we part, my cheeks are bright pink, and I’m breathless.

  “Good night, Angelica,” he murmurs. “See you soon.”

  He vanishes right there before me, a shimmer of blackness and grayness, and then nothing. I’m left standing, breathless and blushing, in front of the apartment building. It’s not the way I would have liked to end the night. I wanted to invite him into the apartment, if we’re being totally honest here.

  But clearly, that’s not on the table.

  I turn and head inside of the building on my own instead, making my way up the stairs to my apartment. The house looks untouched; no omens waiting to be found. At least, none that I can see. The building feels a bit on the stuffy side though.

  “Might let some fresh air in.” I drift over to the sliding-glass door that leads out onto my small balcony. I flip open the lock and slide it back. As I turn to head inside, my gaze catches on the strangest thing.

  There’s a rose bush on my balcony.

  Now, I had a pretty flowering plant sitting in that ceramic pot once upon a time. On one of my first meetings with Grim, however, he stole the energy of the plant to restore his own magic. The plant has sat dead since then, both because I’ve been too busy to replace it, and because I liked the reminder of Grim.

  But now, the pot is filled with a rose bush—in full bloom. Black roses curl away from the dark green leaves. I step over to it, reaching out and making to pluck one of the flowers away. Instead, I prick my finger on one of the thorns.

  With a hiss, I jerk my hand back. The motion causes some of the branches to shift, revealing a bird nest. The same bird that has been tormenting me since the day of my Missed Death has made a nest there.

  It watches me with sharp, glinting black eyes as I reach up and stick my bleeding finger in my mouth.

  My eyes narrow. Around the digit, and with copper on my tongue, I ask it, “What are you?”

  There’s no answer. Not just because it’s a bird, either, but because a concerning dizziness washes over me. It’s paired with a blooming sensation in my chest, as though an aura of malcontent is growing within me.

  It feels almost like the rose branches are wrapping around my heart. The thorns pierce into the muscle, but they don’t bust it. And then the flowers bloom, and all I can smell is roses. My hand drops from my mouth to my chest, gripping at the front of my lace-up black and purple blouse. I stagger backward, and barely manage to catch myself on the railing behind me.

  I hit the ground, leaning against the railing. The last thing I see before I pass out is the bird looking down at me.

  Chapter Two

  Grim

  With dawn’s light, I find myself faced with a vaguely shocking realization. For the third day in a row, my Omen does not come and find me. Frustration builds up in my chest at first, and then concern. Wil is not the sort of creature to skip out on his duties. He’s devoted to them. As a former prince, as an Omen—it’s just not who he is.

  When something comes up, well, he ignores it. His work is his first priority. His own interest is his second. Wil doesn’t like it when people try to tell him what to do, when they interrupt what he’d been planning on doing.

  For all that being an Omen is supposed to teach people lessons, supposed to help them become better, Wil just…hasn’t seemed to learn any of them.

  But he does take his job seriously.

  I wait around a while longer, but eventually have to acknowledge the fact that he’s simply not going to show up. And when that happens, well, I can’t just stand around and not look for him, right? Wil is a bit difficult to get along with at times. He has very specific opinions on my relationship with Angelica, and he doesn’t have any problems sharing them.

  But that doesn’t mean we aren’t friends…in a sense.

  We’ve been working together for fifty years now. I’ve spent more time with Wil than I have with anyone else. Before I met Angelica, my world was quiet. Reapers busy, and they don’t often have time to spend with each other. The Omen that we’re paired with becomes our closest companion.

  So not having Wil around is…unsettling. One day, I might have been able to let it slide. But three days in a row? There must be something wrong.

  There are a few spots Wil tends to loiter when we aren’t working; places where the sun hits the street for long periods of time, steps of people who like to bring him bits of food as a treat, places where he pretends to be a cat in favor of sitting on someone’s lap or stretching out in a lawn chair.

  He calls it the cat life of luxury and claims it’s as close to living as a prince as he can get these days. But now, when I check those spots, they all come up empty.

  A sense of unease starts to build in my chest. I head toward the park, planning on using a water window to try and find him—but there’s someone already waiting for me at the lake. Another Reaper, and an Omen that’s not my own.

  “Baber.” The name comes out stiffly. I pause about ten feet away and look her over. The Reaper in question is older than I am, her face covered in a magically created darkness that keeps it in eternal shadow.

  I’ve seen her around the city a fair bit this last month, though we haven’t spoken. Baber has a reputation for being a bit of a bitch among Reapers. She knows she’s valuable, that her job is difficult and important; to Reap the souls of something that isn’t quite a mortal man, that takes a special talent, and a certain amount of experience.

  And beyond that, Baber always seems to delight in doing things that she shouldn’t but finding a reason to get away with them. The last time we met, it was Baber who used an illegal soul stone to gather me up and force me to attend the council that forbade my relationship with Angelica.

  But… She was also the only Reaper who came to me, when all was said and done, and supported my pursuing the relationship anyway.

  Her Omen is a black dog, broad through the chest and still nothing but bones. Bower doesn’t even glance up at me. He’s been given an old chunk of rotisserie chicken to chew on and is ripping off mouthfuls of it, the juice running down the curves of his maw.

  “There you are,” says Baber, cheerfully. “You know, we’ve been waiting here for ages. I was starting to think that you were just never going to show up!”

  “What’s going on?” I say, uninterested in her games. It’s part of what makes her a bit of a bitch. Baber likes to play mind games with the other Reapers. She acts as though she’s an innocent, sweet little thing, but her comments are made to cut, and her words are made to sting.

  She tilts her skull to the side, asks me, “Are you really not on the up-and-up, Grim? That’s a little sad. I would have thought that you’d figure it out all on your own, and come out here all wound up and demanding a change.”

  “Baber, I’m not in the mood for games,” I grumble at her. “If you have something to say, then spit it out.”

  Baber croons, “That’s good, because I’m not playing any.”

  “Really?” I say, stretching out the word. “Because it looks to me like you’re trying to play one right now.”

  She slides around me, circling me for a moment. Not like a vulture after dead animals, more like a lion that knows she’s just found a good piece of prey. “I wasn’t lying, you know. When I told you that I do support this thing you have with the mortal girl.”

  I go stiff as a board—as a corpse. My spine snaps up and my jaw clenches together so hard that it makes an audible grind. I refuse to even turn my head to follow Baber’s path, not wanting to let on how unnerved I am by her.

  “You said something of the sort,” I tell her, stiffly. “I do recall that.”

  Baber stops in front of me again. “So keep that in mind, because you aren’t going to like what I have to say next.”

  And there it is. That’s the kind of mind games she plays. She collects information like most Reapers collect souls, like the fae collect milk teeth, like the gremlins collect coins. And then she lords it over the others, taunting it, a worm on a string.

  “You’re a lazy bastard,” says Bower, between mouthfuls of greasy chicken. “It’s not that hard to understand.”

  I narrow my eye sockets at him. Bower is far from my favorite Omen. The dog has a terrible personality, and doesn’t get along well with most others. “I don’t recall asking you anything.”

  “I don’t care.” Bower yawns, showing off a mouthful of sharp teeth. Then he shifts, stretching without standing up.

  I narrow my eye sockets at the dog. My teeth grind even tighter together, and my jaw bones ache with the force that I’m clenching.

  Baber gives her Omen a look, though it’s almost impossible to tell what it means behind the shadows covering her face.

  Maybe Bower just knows her better, because his tail gives a single thump, and then he goes back to his chicken. The dog is always eating something, though it never changes how emaciated his frame appears.

  Baber tells me, “You can’t let her get in the way of your job.”

  Instantly, my hackles raise up that much higher.

  “My job,” I echo the words. “I don’t think that I asked for your opinion on my job, Baber.”

  “If you think that you’re being sneaky.” She waves one hand flippantly through the air, flipping it palm up. A little silver ring flashes on one of her fingers; I can’t see what it sports, but I have no doubts that she shouldn’t have it. “Then you’re wrong. Satania knows that you haven’t been collecting souls. I understand that you love this mortal, and I’m not telling you to change that. But I am telling you that if you can’t find a way to make it work without affecting the balance of the world, you’re going to be in big trouble.”

  “He’s already in big trouble.” Bower finally looks up at me, the old Omen fixing me in his gaze. I can’t see what color his eyes are, but that doesn’t make them any less piercing. “You know what kind of trouble you’re in, Reaper?”

  I stare him down, unwavering even in the face of someone like Bower. Then I dismiss him, and turn back to Baber; it’s a purposeful snub, done mostly because Bower and Wil have never gotten along with each other. I’ll have Wil’s back on things, even if the Omen isn’t around for it.

  Even if—

  My gaze snaps towards Baber. “Where’s Wil?”

  Baber’s mouth twists into a grin, sharp and mean. “There you go! Now you’ve figured it out.” Her laugh is lighter, and she steps forward, toward me. “I was thinking that we would have to spell it out for you. Maybe you aren’t dumb after all.”

  “What did you do with him?” I demand.

  Bower snorts. “Oh, that’s a good one. Does he think we have that filthy cat in a sack somewhere? Carrying him around like old Saint Nick?”

  Baber goes on, “I didn’t do anything with him.” And then, leaning back and pressing a finger to the underside of her jawbone, “Well, that’s not entirely true. What’s a better way to put that?”

  “Wasn’t your decision,” grumbles Bower, finally having stripped the bone of all its meat. He licks it a few times and then begins to crunch it in his powerful back teeth. The snapping grind is unnerving; it’s hard not to flinch at the sound, considering I’m nothing but bones myself.

  Jaws like that, they could crush my phalanges without any effort.

  “There we go, that’s right. It wasn’t my decision,” says Baber. “And nothing’s happened to him. We just had to collect him and send him back to the Reaper Chapel.”

  “What?” I gasp, stepping forward and closing the distance between us. We’re standing barely inches apart, the energy spilling off of our combined visages draining the grass beneath our boots. It turns brittle and dark in a wide circle around us.

  “You weren’t making use of his omens,” says Baber, simply. “What did you think was going to happen, Grim? Did you think that Satania would be fine with you just not doing your job? Consider this a warning to you. She knows what you’re doing, and she doesn’t like it.”

  “I don’t give a shit if she likes it. Angelica,” I start.

  Baber interrupts me by saying, “Isn’t stopping you from doing the rest of your work. I know Grim. I know what you’re thinking better than most.” Her voice takes on an uncharacteristic softness. “You can’t just pretend that the rest of the world isn’t around you. You’ve been made a Reaper for a reason. If you don’t do your job, then you’re going to lose the resources you need for work.”

  “Wil isn’t just a resource!”

  “Do you think Satania cares?”

  “He’s a person!”

  “He’s an Omen,” says Bower, standing up and stretching. The black dog licks at his chops, cleaning away any remnants of chicken that might have been left. “We need to work. That’s why we were created. You were doing him a disservice by not listening. The fact he’s gone? That’s your own damn fault.” And then, with a flick of his ears, “Can we go now, Baber? I’m hungry. I want to get something from the butcher shop on Eighth.”

  Baber looks at her Omen for a long moment, and then nods, just once. “All right!”

  They both vanish with a shimmer of darkness, leaving me standing in the park, alone. Bitterness wells up in the back of my mouth, in the curls of my ribs.

  Wil was sent back to the Reaper Chapel?

  I don’t know what to do with that. I stand there by the water for the longest time, eventually trying the mirror trick. But there’s a blockage between our world and the Reaper Chapel, and the reflection shows me nothing but darkness. I can’t see what’s on the other side, and I can’t see my Omen, suffering for my own inaction.

  Frustrated, I snap my hand away from the surface of the lake, and the glow vanishes. I turn and storm through the park, so angry that I let the magic pull at the grasses around me, leaving dead patches in my wake. It’s not until I hit the sidewalk beyond the park that I’m able to get a hold of myself, letting out a deep, unwavering breath.

  My ribs rattle noisily together. I close my eyes, exhale, and open them again—just in time to watch the woman that I was supposed to Reap, Wanda Delruse, step out into the middle of a busy road. It’s like she’s moving in a trance, her arms straight at her sides and a blank look on her face.

  She stops directly in the middle of the street. The cars part around her like the waters of the Red Sea; no one honking, no one acting as though they even see her. They just peel off to the side, their tires catching on the edge of the pavement and bumping, then spilling back out onto the tarmac.

  Like nothing strange is happening at all.

  Wanda turns, and she stares at an incoming car. She doesn’t try to move. The car doesn’t slow down. Like all the vehicles before it, this one just pulls onto the sidewalk and around her, then continues on its way.

  Someone comes rushing down the sidewalk. It’s an older man, with a thinning hairline. “Wanda? What are you doing? Get out of the street!”

  Wanda ignores him.

  The man rushes into the street, grabs her by the hand, and pulls her back onto the pavement. As soon as her feet are on the sidewalk, the spell appears to be broken. She turns and smiles at the man. “Herb! What are you doing all the way out here?”

  “You were supposed to be at the diner two hours ago,” Herb says frantically. “I was worried. Looks like I had good reason for it, too. What on Earth were you thinking?”

  Wanda doesn’t seem to have any memory of stepping out into the road. I turn away, feeling that sickness brewing in my chest with even more weight. Souls can always tell when they’re supposed to be Collected. It’s what gives humans the intuition to give their daughter a kiss before they leave for work, and lets old folk in their bed look at gathered loved ones and say, “It’s time.”

  To have her original Collection Date skipped out on, the soul must be frantically trying to figure out how to fix it. But because there was no Reaper to gather the soul, the cars couldn’t hit her.

  Where are the other Reapers?

  I can only assume this is some trick Satania has pulled; a stop on the other Reaper’s collecting the souls that were meant to be gathered by my own hands. She would rather let the city be flung out of order and into chaos than she would just let me have this.

  Childish, that’s what Satania is. That’s what she’s always been. Stupidly childish! And to make Wil suffer for something that the Omen had no true control over, on top of it all? The idea is enough to make anger burn at my marrow.

  I storm through the streets, trying to ignore the places where chaos reigns. Birds that slam into windows and then get back up and fly away. Dogs that pull at their leads when people walk by, able to sense that the mortal was already supposed to die.

  People doing the impossible, trying to initiate their death only for nothing to happen. The world refuses to take a life when there is no one around to Collect it. To let souls just sit in the world ungathered, it would be true devastation; the highest sort of mistake and misery.

  No, it’s better to let the dead keep walking. A bend in Fate and Destiny, rather than ammunition for the darker forces of reality.

  And it’s proof, too, that maybe my original decision wasn’t quite so thought out as I would have liked for it to be. The fact is, there is something here, in this world, that has gone dreadfully wrong. It’s not that I was unaware of it. I was more willfully ignorant.

  I didn’t want to see the damage that my lack of work was doing to the city. I had blinders on, like the race horses out in the country. I had let myself turn away from the chaos that was building in the shadows, until I was forced to stare at it.

  Now, there is no way for me to go back to that state of blissful ignorance, but I have a different problem that can’t be solved. A problem that must be solved. Less of a problem and more of a decision.

  What action will I take?

  Do I bend to Satania’s orders, and allow her to find as many faults with my job as she can, so that she has an excuse to strip me from the city where I’ve been stationed for nearly fifty years—and in turn, away from Angelica?