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thirty-two

I tried to ignore the angry voices coming from his office, telling myself I should mind my own business. But each time I attempted to get back to my basket, my fingers wouldn't cooperate. The rows weren’t getting any shorter.

Then Feo’s voice rang out, louder now, cutting through the house with the honed edge of a blade. Leaving the project in my lap, I tiptoed down the hall, avoiding the planks that I knew would give away my eavesdropping.

“You were given a choice—”

“It was not a choice!” Grim’s voice rose. “It never was. And even if it had been, I made my decision years ago.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, ready to be found out, but the rising tension distracted them from my presence. Grim’s back was to the door, Feodora hidden from view through the narrow gap, but her bangles clanked with every frantic movement of her arms as she argued with Death.

“You forget there is free will. Do you truly believe you know her heart better than she? Because the thread you’ve been gifted with has now withered. Died. It’s gone, forever. How could you be so foolish?”

Grim’s silhouette loomed as a mountain, his fury gathering in dark clouds, spilling rage like thunder rolling down the hills.

“I stand by my choice,” he said, each word tight, as if it physically pained him.

His arms were crossed over his chest, but even that couldn't protect him.

“I have now known love, and even a single fleeting second of it with her is worth more than a million lifetimes lived without.”

The air was swept from my lungs.

Feo clucked her tongue as she gestured to the strange milky white globe before her. The very one that always stole my attention. Reaper groaned, a sharp noise, as he stretched out on the hardwood floor. Her eyes darted to the door as I ducked out of sight, my back pressed against the wall.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Death. For her sake and yours…” she whispered, defeat laced heavy through her tone.

Darting back into the living room, I rummaged through a stack of notebooks on the coffee table, picking up where I left off.

My fingers shook as I scribbled the same looping letters over and over again, running through their conversation in my mind. Death made some kind of choice; one Fate was angry about. And I was fairly certain it involved a curse… me.

The next morning, I woke alone. In his bed. A folded note on the pillow beside me.

Astoria,

I hope you slept well. I had business to attend to, home by dinner, I promise. Tomorrow we’ll go back for Gentry. Give Reaper a treat for me, will you?

I love you,

G

It left a crooked grin on my face as I pushed tangled curls from my forehead, imagining him carefully disentangling himself from bed to avoid waking me. His hurried handwriting on the note only made my smile grow wider. Despite the rush, it was clear he couldn’t get home fast enough.

It was a small thing, but it made my heart clench.

After breakfast, I sat at the table, ready to tackle the project Grim mockingly dubbed my ‘life’s work.’ The basket still needed two more rows. Only two.

The basket would be done by the time Grim walked through the door for dinner. I had already asked the House to pull ingredients for our meal. It had been a while since I’d cooked anything from scratch and I was excited to make something without magic or shortcuts.

I set to work, my hands moving almost instinctively now. The motions, though slow at times, were becoming easier, more fluid. I didn’t have to think about the steps, my fingers just knew. And as I worked, I watched the basket take shape, a little more with each pass.

An hour later, I held my finished creation in my hands. The House responded in its usual way, the lights flickering with approval, as I set my completed masterpiece on the table.

Would Grim notice? He had cheered me on all week, reading while I weaved, offering quiet words of encouragement, his steady presence always in the background. But before I could linger too long in my small victory, a loud crash from the hall startled me. Reaper.

I groaned, realizing the monster had vanished yet again. Yesterday, I’d caught him with Grim’s loafers.

“Reaper!” I yelled, striding down the hall. The dog burst out of Grim’s office at full speed, barreling past me and nearly taking my knees out from under me.

Pushing the door open, I silently prayed that the crash had sounded worse than it actually was—especially considering how many priceless artifacts Grim kept scattered across his shelves.

My eyes swept the room. A water glass lay tipped over beside the desk, its contents dripping onto the hardwood. Grabbing a towel, I mopped up the mess, nudging a fallen globe aside to reach under it.

“Ugh, Reap. You have water in your bowl, you little menace,” I muttered.

That’s when I noticed it… a shimmer across the floor. Patterns of diamonds and light scattered over the wood, twisting and moving like something alive. I looked up and found the source: the fallen globe. It was strange, and for as often as I thought about it, I'd never asked him.

Standing over it now, I watched as the smoky glass appeared to breathe, the reflection restless and alluring. An invisible pull tugged at me, coaxing my hand forward until my palm met the cool surface. A tingle zipped through me, static electricity kissing every nerve.

And then the smoke inside the sphere shifted, dissipating into moving pictures that played across the glass.

I knelt down, rolling it gently between my hands, searching for any clue about what it was. The images sharpened: a narrow road tucked between a thick line of trees. An old car, broken down and steaming in the middle of the pavement.

Two women stood clutching each other in the street.

My heart slammed against my ribs as realization hit me with a slap.

It was me.

Me and Beatrice.

This was my memory.

The scene inside the sphere shifted, the viewpoint gliding out of the trees to focus on a man climbing from the broken car.

James.

My breath caught in my throat. One moment, he was standing there, alive—and the next, he wasn’t. Hands, large and spectral, reached out from my perspective, grabbing him. Bones snapped under the pressure; spirit crumpled in a tight, merciless grip.

I gasped and stumbled back from the sphere, bile rising in my throat.

What was I seeing?

Trembling, I placed my palm back to the glass, desperate for answers. The image morphed—the same brutal hands now tucked casually into a pair of trousers, attached to—

To Grim.

No. Not Grim.

Death.

I recoiled, stomach flipping. These weren’t just any memories. They were his.

The scene played on. Death crushed James’s spirit in his fist, and then his gaze swept to Beatrice and me, where we clutched each other in terror.

There was no sound, but I didn’t need it.

I could feel the weight of it, the inevitability.

This was his mercy? This was his work? A terrible thought stirred at the edges of my mind, sharp and splintered.

I thought of Ishani.

And the day in the hospital when I saved her.

The memories within the sphere shifted again, more violently this time, dragging me forward. Piper and I were in Ishani’s hospital room, everything happening exactly as I remembered, my shaking hands, the faint beep of the monitors, the horror flooding my face when Regina burst through the door.

Death hovered, hesitating.

Just for a breath.

Then he moved. Striding forward, cold and certain, he killed Regina, with quick and clean efficiency. He arranged her body with a meticulousness that turned my stomach, crafting a scene designed to look brutal and senseless.

He killed her.

He killed James. Clutching the globe, I collapsed onto the floor, flipping through every memory. Every awful, damning memory of the lives I thought I had saved.

Over and over and over again, Death moved without hesitation. Every time my hands lit with hope, he was there—a shadow slipping through the cracks, stealing the nearest life to balance the scales.

Every time.

The weight of it crushed my chest, making it impossible to breathe.

I stumbled to my feet, half-blind, and ran for the bathroom. Vomit tore from me until my mouth turned to cotton and my ribs ached from the violence of it. Even after there was nothing left, I heaved again, clawing at the sink for something— anything to hold on to.

Finally, shaking, I pushed myself upright. Forced myself to move back toward the globe. My hand trembled as I pressed my palm against the glass, throat raw, heart breaking. I gritted the words out like a curse, "Show me all of Death’s memories."

I didn’t watch them all. I couldn’t, I’d seen enough.

Enough to know that when Grim ferried souls, he didn’t kill. He gently plucked the spirit from the body and carried it onward. Sometimes it took coaxing. Sometimes it was long and brutal. He bore the marks of spirits who didn’t go quietly.

As I laid my hands on someone, as I fought for life, Grim moved, not with violence, but with purpose.

He would step into the moment, his form almost a shadow against the light, and reach out with a hand as soft as mist. And then he would pluck the wrong soul from the room, the one nearest, the one easiest, as gently as a shepherd gathering a lamb.

No shattered bones. No screams. Just a theft, silent and devastating.

A life exchanged because I dared to intervene.

When I saved a life, Grim balanced the scales himself.

Cold hands, patient and sure, reaching for someone else and taking them away.

Of course, he’d have delivered the souls of those that I’d traded, but this wasn’t that. I knew it in my gut.

I sat on the bathroom floor, my body hollow, calling out for Feo, screaming until my voice cracked, until my heart gave out under the weight of the truth.

She came on the third cry, holding me through angry, hopeless tears.

"Was it their time?" I asked her, no greetings, no preamble. Just the one question clawing at my throat.

Feodora’s arms tightened around me. "Everyone's given a length, Astoria," she said softly.

"A thread. I know," I snapped. "But that's not what I asked." I swallowed hard, rubbing my eyes with the back of my shaking hand. "Did he kill them?"

I had asked Grim once, long ago, if he killed. Only when it needs to teach a lesson, he'd said. He had told me the truth all along, but I just refused to hear it.

Feodora pulled back, her expression brittle with sorrow. "You," she admitted. "He made every choice because of you."

I flinched from her, the words carving me open. "No," I resigned. "I won't carry that." I stared at her, daring her to lie to me.

But Feodora only set her lips together in a firm line before speaking the words that shattered my world. "No, Astoria. It wasn't their time."

It broke me as the final stone fell and the flood came. Wild and breathless, I sobbed, my chest tearing itself apart on the cold gray tile. We sat like that for a long time. Time didn't seem real. My mind kept repeating the same three words: not their time, not their time .

Finally, when the tears had dried to silence, I rasped, "Why?"

Feodora didn’t answer right away. Her face had that faraway look again, the one she wore when she was speaking to no one but the dead.

"You'll have to ask him," she said eventually. "There are things I—things I shouldn't say. Things I don’t know."

I laughed, bitter and broken. "You think he’ll tell me the truth now?"

She hesitated, then gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "Ask anyway. He owes you that much."

I let my head fall back against the wall. "What if I don't want to hear it?"

"Then you already know the answer," Feodora said. And it hurt worse than the silence.

"Please go," I whispered.

She hugged me but I couldn't return it, and so I sat there hollow as she left me alone with the wreckage. Turns out, I was never the monster. Not even a villain. It wasn’t the curse and it wasn’t some cruel bargain where I stole time from others.

No, I had fought to give life, and Death had punished me for it as he stole from the ones I loved most—teaching me grief was a lesson carved into bone.

I set my back against the wall and wrapped my arms around myself, as if I could hold my own body together. As if that would be enough to keep from unraveling.

He lied. But so did I.

Because deep down, I knew . I’d felt the weight of it—the cost. Every time I brought someone back, the world demanded a balance. I just… looked away. I told myself I was the one paying the price. That guilt was the sacrifice, and I bore it alone.

But I wasn’t alone.

I let it happen. Over and over again, I chose to believe in my curse rather than face the truth: I wanted to believe I was the martyr, not the executioner.

And now? Now I know better.

I should be angry with myself. Maybe I am…

But I can’t seem to feel anything except this fire, burning wild and furious inside me. Not because I was guilty, but because he made me feel righteous in it. Because while I begged the universe for forgiveness, Death stood beside me… and let me shoulder what was his to carry.

No. He didn’t lie to protect me. He let me believe I was damned .

And I don’t know what’s worse.

Madi could still have a father. She might still be alive. James. Regina. The countless others…

My heart tore itself into ribbons inside my chest. James was not my soul mate, but he had been my husband. The father of my children. And I had carried the guilt of his death as a noose around my neck, never realizing it wasn't mine to bear.

It was Grim's.

The front door slammed shut with a ferocity only I recognized. Death knew of my sorrow, but he had not tasted my fury.