Page 10

Eight

T he mortal realm smelled like dirt.

Slate still had not asked Ruby whether she ate dirt. But judging by the amount of effort the Glenda woman was putting into making a second pie when she had mounds of dirt in her garden, he assumed that it was not, in fact, a crucial part of a mortal’s diet.

He lingered in the corner of her kitchen, concentrating on the invisibility spell. It had been a long time since he had needed it, and he couldn’t afford to lose it now. Not when he was so close to finding out a mortal food that wasn’t pie or rabbit.

He caught glimpses every time she stormed over to the cupboard, grumbling as she went.

“Lousy, greedy, good for nothings,” Glenda growled as she worked. “Supposed to be able to leave a pie on your own damn windowsill without it getting pinched. Void take them.”

She swung open the cupboard again. Slate peered into it, catching a glimpse of woven bags filled with grains, granules, and flour.

He sighed. He needed more than ingredients—he needed a prepared meal .

He hadn’t even gotten the rabbit right. Ruby didn’t only need to skin it but gut and cook it.

So many steps before they could eat. Slate had lived millennia with a simple diet: he saw something, he ate it.

If necessary, he picked fur out of his teeth afterward.

His castle did have a kitchen, but he never used it.

That was for whoever was in his void before him, who presumably had a more complicated diet.

Four children of varying ages sprinted into the kitchen, chasing each other with such enthusiasm that Slate felt weary.

“Oi,” Glenda snapped, waving a sticky wooden spoon at them. “Calm down, or nobody gets any pie!”

“Okay, Ma,” the children trilled in one. None of them slowed down. The smallest one fell close to where Slate was hiding invisibly, and Slate pulled away reflexively. The child had sticky fingers.

The child squinted up at him. For a moment, Slate thought his enchantment had slipped, and he was about to get found out. But the child only stared up at him with a vacant expression, then whirled around.

“MA,” he yelled. “CAN I HAVE A CHOCOLATE?”

“Not yet,” Glenda said, ducking around the other children on her way to the pie sitting on top of the heating oven. Then she froze, stabbing her wooden spoon at the children standing on top of each other to reach the highest shelves of the cupboard. “Oi! What did I just say?”

“Sorry, Ma,” the children chorused.

Glenda sighed, rubbing her lined forehead. “Get out of my sight until dinnertime, alright? Give my poor heart a break.”

Slate watched the children tumble out of the room. Then he snuck into the cupboard and took the item the children had been climbing on top of each other to retrieve: a small, brown bar wrapped in smudged cloth.

He was almost out of the house when a young woman leaned her head into the kitchen door. “Glenda! Any word on our witch yet?”

“No, and let’s hope it stays that way,” Glenda barked.

Slate stopped. There was only one witch that they could be talking about. He stepped back into the house, the chocolate safely cocooned in his cool fingers.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” the other woman said. “She wasn’t all bad. Hoity-toity, but not all bad.”

Hoity-toity . Slate did not know the meaning, but it was not said in a complimentary tone.

Were witches not revered in the mortal realm anymore?

When he and Paimon used to visit, they were held in high esteem.

Then again, that was long ago. So long that they had invented a new title for him, and nobody remembered a time when he was named anything else.

Glenda huffed, dropping another strip of pastry over the pie. “You’re only saying that because she keeps quiet about your boils.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the other woman said with a tight smile.

“Alright, I might not have liked the girl. But you’d do well to remember that if that Skullstalker ate her, we’d need to find some other witch to hide out in that strange little house on the edge of town. What if the next one’s a blabbermouth?”

“Then you’ll need to learn how to deal with your own boils,” Glenda said distractedly. She knelt to fan the oven flames, then slid the pie inside. “And don’t talk about him. You know what happens.”

The other woman laughed, exposing several missing teeth. “You suspicious old thing. I’ll say his name however much I want! Bygone, Bygone, Bygone ?—”

Glenda straightened, slamming the oven door shut with a sharp bang. “Tessa! Step away from my house, turn around three times, and spit!”

Tessa laughed louder. “Oh, come on.”

Glenda waved hurriedly at her.

Slate watched, baffled, as Tessa stepped away from the house and started spinning in place. It seemed like some rudimentary warding ritual… to keep him away. Why did they think some spinning and saliva would keep him out?

Slate glided out of the house, still puzzled. The mortals didn’t know his name anymore, and they invented strange, false rituals to ward him off. He never had much to do with the mortal realm in the first place, but he was a guide, not a thief. What use would he have with stolen mortal souls?

He had better things to do than venture into the mortal realm, anyway. He had his forest. His nest. Once his deal with Ruby was complete, he would go back to that simple life. Slumbering peacefully, talking to no one, ignoring his brothers’ occasional attempts at socializing.

Existence would return to normal. And Ruby would wither and die in the mortal realm, as she should.

Something snapped in his hand.

He opened his fingers. The chocolate was in two pieces. He hadn’t noticed he was holding it so tightly.

Ruby was not in the bedroom where he had left her. Nor was she waiting in the anointing room or wandering the long, crumbling hallways.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. He could feel Ruby’s presence in his void—partly because she was not meant to be here, partly because of the binding she had placed on him. She was a spot of light in the dark, easily visible from anywhere in his void.

He walked outside to the forest.

Ruby was just beyond the tree line. The dog spirit sat at her side, tail wagging as it watched the mortal step deeper into the forest.

“You must be confused,” she was saying to… a lost soul?

Slate blinked. He hadn’t felt a soul enter his void. Why hadn’t he sensed it?

The lost soul was slumped, filled with murky grey. Its face was flickering, and Slate fought down an uncharacteristic stab of guilt. The soul had clearly been lost for a long time.

The soul lifted its head with a mournful groan.

“…don’t know… got here,” it croaked.

“Of course,” said Ruby soothingly. “What was the last thing you remember?”

The soul moaned. It was a dead human, like many lost souls who stumbled into his void.

“Deidre,” it whispered. “I… want… Deidre.”

“I’m going to help you find her,” Ruby promised.

Her tone made Slate pause. She sounded like she truly meant it. She had already pledged herself to a Skullstalker to help her town, and now she was pledging to help this soul she had never met.

Slate hummed to make himself known. It was a soft burr, meant to alert without panic.

It didn’t work. Ruby shrieked, spinning around. Her hand touched where her knife had lived in her old clothes.

“Oh,” she said once she spotted him. Her hand moved against the slick dress fabric, which had no pockets. “Hello. Are you… here to help?”

“It is my job,” Slate said. “Step aside.”

The dog spirit barked excitedly.

“You too,” Slate said.

The dog spirit bumped disobediently into his leg. Slate pushed down a wave of unwanted fondness and allowed the dog spirit just one scratch behind the ears before turning to the lost soul.

It was beginning to have facial features again. Talking often helped them remember who they were before they came here.

“Soul,” Slate greeted. “You had unfinished business before you died.”

“Deidre,” it croaked. “My… love…”

Slate’s eyes glowed behind his skull mask as he looked inside the soul’s heart. It was connected to Deidre, who was easy enough to find. But the connection was thick and thorny and broke when he attempted to reach into Deidre’s dead heart. He caught glimpses of fire and blood and mortals screaming.

“I know where your love is,” Slate said. “But you are not going there.”

Ruby startled. “What?”

Slate flicked his hand. The lost soul dissipated with a sorrowful cry.

Ruby gasped, whirling on him. “Where did you send him?”

“Tormentum,” Slate replied.

Ruby gaped. “The suffering void? Why? He wanted to go with Deidre!”

“Deidre would not be happy to see him,” Slate explained. “I saw his heart. And I caught glimpses of hers. He slayed her after she laid with another. Her family slayed him in return. They bound him to the suffering void. Where someone wants to be and where they must be do not always match.”

“Oh. I thought…” Ruby wilted, confused.

The dog spirit nudged her hand. She petted him distractedly, but the troubled look did not fade.

Slate’s hand curled around the chocolate, careful not to clench too hard this time.

“You were doing well,” he offered. “Lost souls rarely recognize anyone, let alone a living soul. How did you get him to listen?”

Ruby frowned. “Many people don’t want to speak to a witch. You must find a way to make them, or you can never help.”

Not for the first time since he met Ruby, Slate was in the surprising position of admiring a mortal. From his limited experience with them, they seemed nasty and brutish, clamoring to grab whatever they could despite their short, meaningless lives.

Ruby stood apart from that. Even when talking to a lost soul she had never met. Even when helping a town who didn’t want to speak to her. She had been prepared to give her life .

It was a shame she would be gone from this world so fast. The mortal realm needed more like her.

“How could you tell?” Ruby asked. “About Deidre?”

“I read his heart. It is something I can do with lost souls in my void.”

Ruby’s eyes widened. “Can you read my heart?”

Slate huffed a laugh. “You are not lost. You are not part of my void.”

“Oh.”

Slate expected her to look relieved. But Ruby looked almost disappointed as she absorbed this information, fiddling with her dress.

Slate cleared his throat. “I?—”

“Why does the light never change?” Ruby asked. Then she winced. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

He tucked the chocolate into his loincloth. “Never mind. You were asking about the light?”

Ruby nodded, pointing up at the sky. “It’s always evening.”

Slate looked up at the familiar purples and blacks, trying to remember the last time it had looked different. He couldn’t. Was he really getting so ignorant about his own void? Not noticing lost souls, not even noticing the light changing…

“I hadn’t noticed,” he said honestly.

He reached into his sleeve again. But before he could grip the chocolate, he heard himself ask, “What does hoity toity mean?”

Ruby’s full mouth twitched.

“Stuck up,” she said flatly. “Conceited. Why?”

“No reason.” Slate gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. It felt odd. He did not smile often, and it seemed to alarm her.

Probably the fangs, Slate thought grumpily. He dropped the smile.

“I visited the mortal realm,” he began, pulling the chocolate from his sleeve. “And I found?—”

A rustle in the bushes made him stop.

Something twisted inside him, sharp and warning. He had not noticed the lost soul. And he hadn’t noticed this —not until it was too late.

“Get back,” he hissed.

He pushed the chocolate back into his sleeve and swept Ruby behind him, ignoring her gasp as he turned to face the threat.

“What’s happening?” Ruby whispered behind him. “I can help.”

The dog spirit barked, hackles going up.

Slate shushed them both, the noise thick and chafing in ways he didn’t intend. He couldn’t help it: something prickled in his throat whenever he encountered one of these things.

“Out,” he bellowed. “I see you.”

A low snarl echoed through the trees.

Behind him, Ruby shivered. Her heartbeat sped up, making Slate’s mouth water. But his hunger was an afterthought. He was full of protective rage, the likes of which he had never experienced. If he hadn’t been here…

“ Out ,” he growled. “I command you.”

Another wild snarl. This one tapered into a howl as the shade demon leaped from the bushes, claws bared.