Page 122 of Grim

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 speakthatword inthisplace. The nameno 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 weburied.”

“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 endingsshouldbe 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 ofanythingthat 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.