Page 47 of Grim

Then, like puppets trained to mimicry, the rest of the room joins in. Polite, hollow, measured applause for the annihilation of those who couldn’t forget what they lost.

Rue doesn’t join them, and neither do I. The applause wanes slowly. A few scattered claps linger before even those fall quiet. I’m just beginning to believe it’s over—that Rue might be allowed to slip back into anonymity for the remainder of the evening—when Big D lifts his head.

His gaze, veiled behind his mask, turns in our direction with unsettling precision. The crowd parts instinctively as his voice slithers out above them, slow and theatrical.

“Well, mortal,” he calls, every syllable soaked in amusement and warning, “what did you think of our little ceremony?”

Rue stiffens beside me.

I don’t look at her—I don’t dare—but everything in my body screams the same thing, Tell him what he wants to hear. Keep your head down. For the love of everything, Rue, just keep your head down.

But I know better than to believe she will.

Rue Chamberlain doesn’t bow. She doesn’t flatter. She doesn’t shrink. Even now, her spine is straightening like a blade being drawn from its sheath.

And when she speaks, it’s not with tremble or deference. It’s with cold, cutting honesty .

“Cruel and unkind,” she says, voice even and deliberate. “With decidedly poor production values.”

A ripple of black spreads outward from where Big D stands. It curls across the marble as if it were oil seeking a flame. Then, from either side of him, the Sisters appear.

Fate tilts her head, birdlike and venomous. “What did she just say?”

There’s a lull. A single heartbeat of silence in which Rue could still possibly retreat, recant, and run.

She doesn’t.

Instead, she takes a half step forward, chin lifted. “I said,” she repeats, her voice growing louder, “that punishing people for remembering their stories is monstrous.”

Her eyes flick toward the sealed floor, where the ash of the condemned still glitters faintly beneath the chandeliers.

“We remain alive in memory only. That’s all we have left. So, forgive some of us if letting go of that is too hard.”

“She speaks of forgiveness,” Time spits out.

“I speak of mercy,” Rue corrects, and the word lands in the room like a lit match in a dry field.

Everything stops. Every eye turns to her.

Every masked guest, ghostly warden, every reaper-in-waiting faces the girl who dared to speak that word in this place. The name no one invokes.

“Mercy,” Fate hisses, as if spitting out poison. “That sounds so familiar, doesn’t it, sister?”

Time bares her teeth in the opposite of a grin. “It sure does. Like a memory we buried .”

“I wonder,” Fate purrs, circling Rue now, “does our little twit of a mortal know what she’s evoking?”

Rue doesn’t move. She stands firm like a mountain, refusing to bow to the howling winds.

“Poor Mercy.” Fate feigns a sob before smirking. “She was the ugly sister anyway.”

“W-what happened to her?” Rue asks quietly, much to the Sisters’ delight.

Fate squeals and clasps her hands together in excitement. “She was a weakness. ”

“She believed that souls could be redeemed,” Time adds, practically snarling at the word. “That some endings should be rewritten. That pain could be unraveled with compassion.”

“Basically,” Fate snorts, rolling her eyes, “she thought she knew better than us.”

“She was wrong,” Time snaps.

“She was,” Fate trails her fingertip just beneath Rue’s jaw, barely grazing the skin, “removed.”

Rue doesn’t even flinch.

“So, that’s your answer then?” she says, voice low and trembling with fury. “You destroy what doesn’t conform? You erase what makes you uncomfortable? You make nothing of anything that dares to remember?”

“Of course we do,” Fate replies as if it should be obvious. “Because feelings and memories are inefficient.”

“They lack function,” Time adds.

“Because if we allow every soul to embrace the past,” Fate gestures to the masquerade around her, “we’d be incapable of moving forward.”

“And that simply won’t do,” Time says, tilting her head with a smile too sharp.

They step back in unison, like the performance has ended and the curtain is about to fall on Rue’s part in this play.

Fate turns toward Big D. “She’s dangerously close to becoming a problem.”

“Agreed,” Time murmurs. “And problems must be dealt with.”

Big D doesn’t respond immediately.

Terror wraps itself around me in a most uncomfortable embrace.

Because they’re right; she is becoming a problem. And they’ve made it clear what this world does to problems.

Fate grins dangerously. “Mercy.”

The word hangs between them like a scent they thought long lost.

Fate leans in toward Rue, her voice gone syrupy with sarcasm. “I hardly knew ye.”

“I wonder,” Time glides behind Rue like a shadow, “do you know how long forever feels in darkness? ”

“Mercy,” Fate says again, this time turning to the room, to D, to the watching crowd, “banished to the Moonless Mountains.”

“Those perilous peaks,” Time says.

“Doomed, disposed of, and forgotten,” Fate adds, fangs beneath her smile.

“And you, mortal?” Time tilts her head, as if considering whether Rue would look better as ash or stone. “You reek of her.”

“Your sentimentality,” Fate coos. “Your softness, your insipid belief in second chances. It’s enough to make some remember.”

“Which means you cannot stay.”

“No,” I state with decisive power.

Fate’s head swivels, and Time’s smile vanishes.

Rue turns toward me like she momentarily forgot that she wasn’t alone. Which she never will be, not if I can help it.

“No?” Time questions coolly.

“She doesn’t belong here,” Fate adds.

“No,” I repeat with steely calm. Then, fiercely, I state, “She belongs to me .”

I step between Rue and the Sisters before they can reach her.

Rue’s breath catches behind me. I don’t touch her. I don’t need to. The bond between us is molten now, threaded through every bone in my body, every thought, every instinct.

“She is mine ,” I say again, louder this time, darker, more final.

Her mind. Her body. Her soul.

All of it etched into me like a promise I never dared to make.

And I, in turn, am hers.

Bound not by contract, or duty, or design—but by the simple, unmistakable truth of pure feeling. The kind of conviction that can move mountains.

Fate sneers, “Such a disobedient little dog you’ve become.”

“Your attachment is unbecoming,” Time says, her voice dripping with disdain. “You were once one of our most efficient reapers. Now, look at you. ”

“Emotional.” Fate spits the word.

“I’m taking her home,” I say, taking one slow step forward. “She has time left on Earth. I’m going to see to—”

“No,” Fate states, tapping her finger to her lip in mock thought. “No, I think not.”

“What?”

“You were assigned to guard her crossover,” Time reminds me, waving her fingers as if flicking away dust. “But you have failed. You allowed her to interfere. You indulged her delusions. You disobeyed.”

“Bad dog,” Fate scorns.

I grit my teeth. “She has time left.”

“And that time will be honored,” Fate replies with mock graciousness. “Just not by you.”

“Asher,” Time sings, and my stomach drops.

He steps into view from the shadows, always having to make a fucking entrance.

“Ladies,” Asher says, voice smooth and unhurried. “You called?”

“You have a new assignment,” Time states.

“Supervise and escort the mortal,” Fate adds, already turning away from me as though the decision is sealed.

“With pleasure,” Asher hums.

Fate snipes, “We don’t give a fig for your pleasure, Asher.”

“We only care about your fealty.”

“Now do as you’re told.”

“Yes, Sisters,” Asher concedes and makes a move toward Rue.

“No,” I snarl.

Time’s eyes flash a coppery gold. “Say that in any of your ten languages, and it will be just as meaningless.”

“Grim,” Fate taunts, using the nickname like a weapon.

“You can’t do this,” I snap, stepping toward Rue like I might pull her behind me and run. “She is mine to protect. That was your order.”

“And now we are changing it,” Fate declares.

“Because we’ve seen enough,” Time snips.

“Felt enough.”

“And because, and this is the most important part … we can. ”

Rue steps forward, but I stop her with a hand. I don’t look at her. If I do, I’ll unravel. And I need to hold on. I need to fight.

“Kane?”

“Please!” I say over Rue’s weak voice. “Please,” I beg again, pride lost to reckless desperation. “Don’t do this.”

“Why not?” Fate tilts her head like a curious cat. “Because you care?”

“Oh, I don’t know, sister,” Time muses. “He’s begging. That might be more than caring.”

“Because everyone deserves to die with dignity. Everyone should be given the grace to end their life, surrounded by the ones that love them.” The words pour out of me, no less true for the speed with which I spit them out.

“Love?” The Sisters hiss as Rue whispers the word in the same breath.

I lock eyes with Rue in what I fear may be our last moment together and say as simply and honestly as I can, “Yes.”

“Oh, this is too good.” Time smirks.

“And you have been very bad, Kane,” Fate hisses. “Which is why …”

Before I can react, before I can reach out for Rue, the floor beneath my feet shifts. My wrists and hands are bound by invisible shackles. I feel the lock instantly, the helplessness of being caged inside my own skin.

“No!” Rue’s sharp voice cracks like lightning—wild, raw, and real. She rushes forward, her footsteps frantic against the floor.

I expect one of them to stop her, but they don’t. Maybe they want to watch me break.

Her small arms wrap around my neck before I can speak. She throws herself into me like gravity doesn’t matter, like there’s no dignity in distance. Like she couldn’t care less who sees her beg.

“Kane—K-Kane please,” she chokes, breathless and trembling. “Please, don’t let them take me. Don’t make me do this alone.”

I lean into her as far as my bonds will allow. Not nearly far enough.

She’s holding on like she thinks she can keep herself tethered to this world through me. Her fingers fist in the back of my collar, her face buried in my throat, tears searing my skin.

“You can do this, Rue. You are brave. You are strong. You are enough.”

“I’m not ready,” she whispers. “I can’t face this. Not alone. Not without you.”

The crack in her voice at the end splinters me.

My heart—the one I thought I buried centuries ago—shatters. Shards so sharp they carve regret through every piece of me.

I want to hold her. I want to press my hand to the back of her head and promise her she will never be alone. I want to tear the room down around us and challenge them all to stop me.

But this is no fantasy. This is no one’s fairy tale. My hands are bound and I cannot move.

“Mayday,” I say, the word rasping from me like blood through a wound, “I’m here. I will always be here .”

“No, you won’t,” Time snaps.

Fate sighs. “This has grown tiresome.”

“No!” Rue gasps again, louder this time, trying to twist her arms tighter around me, like she could make it permanent. “Please don’t let them take me. Please . I’m scared.”

“I know,” I whisper, hating myself more than I’ve ever hated anything. “I know . But you’re going to be so brave.”

“I don’t want to be brave,” she sobs. “I want more time.”

Our hopeless moment gets interrupted as Asher steps forward and the Sisters nod. The crowd watches in silence, their masks hiding whatever pity—or perverse interest—they might feel.

Asher does not speak; he simply reaches out.

“No, no —” Rue panics, trying to grip tighter. “Kane, don’t let go. Please don’t let go—”

“I’m not ,” I snarl, straining with everything I have. “I’m not letting go, Rue—”

But it doesn’t matter.

Asher touches her arm as a portal opens, and she’s gone, ripped from me like a scream swallowed by a void .

“Kane!” Her final cry echoes off the walls, guttural and aching.

Then silence.

And I stand in the center of a masquerade, chains around my wrists, heart bleeding into the hollow of my chest, with nothing but the ghost of her body clinging to me.

“D,” Time states after a pregnant pause, “take this philanderer away. He can wait out the rest of Rue’s time in your office.”

I don’t fight as D grips me by my biceps and pulls me toward the stairs.

I say nothing. But I swear by every grave I’ve dug, every soul I’ve ferried, every curse I’ve ever muttered into the mouth of night, I will not forget this.

And I will not forgive.