“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.
