His pain—the anger he carried with him everywhere, and in every fiber of his person. It all made so much terrible sense.
Right along with why he didn’t want to remember.
That one life Grim had been granted by the prior reaper—Johann must have realized right away when I’d told him about Cedric trying to barter with Grim for my life that Grim had used his own credit to save someone he loved. And how saving that life had led him to take up the scythe.
In saving Phineas, though, Grim had also left the boy behind.
And he’d spent all this time—centuries—blaming himself for that.
“Grim,” I called again, tears burning my eyes, too, because I wanted so badly to put a stop to his angst, to this agony that worked to eat him alive.
When the figure of the Grim Reaper rematerialized in the far corner of the hut, unfurling from gray-black smoke and mist, my stomach plummeted.
The memory—it was about to begin again.
How many times had Grim already relived it in the hours—thedays—since he’d been here, in the Black Basin?
“Grim!” I tried again as the door, moving on its own, slammed itself shut, sealing him in with what had to be his darkest moment.
Though I tried to shove the door open, it refused to budge, which sent me scrambling back to the window.
“Demon,” said Grim,myGrim.
“I am but the hand of death,” corrected the reaper, a response that had Grim whipping his head toward Phineas before, panic-stricken, glancing back to his unwelcome guest.
“I’ll not let you take him.”
And just like that, the memory began again, forcing Grim to participate, to revisit, to relive every excruciating second.
How could I stop it when he couldn’t see or hear me?
When, to him,Iwas the phantom, and these shadows represented his current—and unending—reality?
This. Wasn’t it the true riddle? Its answer much more difficult, much more elusive than the puzzle Sir Black had presented me with. But then, Sir Black had well and truly beenme. Did that mean Grim had encountered his own Sir Black, too?
To be here, he must have. He did not grasp what was plain to me—that he did not have a prison guard here. None outside of himself.
This torture. Grim was doing it to himself.
Which meant I had no power to stop it.Hewould have to.
One thing Icoulddo was to try to be a better mirror than the one he found himself staring into now. The distorted one he showed himself.
The one he could not escape. Because it was his only perspective.
With just a few words uttered to me in The Judge, hadn’t Grim done the same for me? Adjusted my view. Shifted my soul. Just enough…
“You did everything you could, Grim,” I said, calling to him from the window.
He didn’t hear me. None of the figures within the hut did. Impervious to my efforts, the phantoms and my poor Grim carried out their play, their reenactment.
“You saved his life, Grim,” I said. “Even if he never knew it, even if he thought the worst, that was still worth it… wasn’t it?”
Grim again hurried to put himself between the reaper and the boy, spreading his arms as the dark figure started toward Phineas.
“You tried to do the same for me,” I said. “Remember? Because you love me. I understand that now—even if I didn’t before. And you loved Phineas, too. That’s what matters. That’sallthat matters. That’s all that matters now.”
He didn’t seem like he could hear me.
