Grim went with me, and I prayed as we plummeted together that the Black Basin, or rather Grim’s regret, his guilt, his pain, and his unhealed wounds, would not try to suck him back into his own imprisoning solitude.
But then, the colored and masked figures pluming into view, gathering around us in a circle, each expelled by one of the other Basins, told me that, even if his demons didn’t try to reclaim him, we both still had more hell to pay.
52GRIM
While Helena’s soul fell straight back into her body, my smoky essence splattered against the cold stone floor, spreading out even as it regathered into my reaper form.
I lay face down on the floor, hood still thrown back, and I glowered into the black marble floor that reflected my human form. I pushed up, skeletal arms trembling, and I looked away from the man I had once been but could never be again, head twisting her way.
I waited, praying, hoping,desperatefor her to awaken. Tolive.
Helena lay draped against Johann, who held her while Pluto, perched on his shoulder, cawed at The Few. Until Helena arched, taking a huge breath as that incredible soul of sun and light reconnected with and reanimated her physical vessel.
“Helena’s wellena!” cried Pluto.
In this form, I had no capacity to shed tears. Relief, powerful and potent, flooded me anyway, and I sagged, hanging my bony head.
At least she was okay.
The Few. They’d materialized—all of them except for Sir Black—as we’d descended.
I’d glimpsed Cedric among them, too.
And though I wasn’t foolish enough to believe they would notbanish me back into the Black Basin or do something even worse with me now, I could at least take solace in the knowledge they would not condemn Helena.
Perhaps they would still try to take her life. Undoubtedly, they would let Cedric, who must be here to claim my role, do just that.
“Renwick Loxley,” said Sir White, that strange name I had, until now, forgotten was mine echoing through the chamber of the Basins. “You have been found guilty of breaking your oath, betraying your sanctified station, grossly neglecting your duties, and egregiously tampering with the sacred order of the universe.”
He forgot kissing the most divine creature on the planet. But then, maybe that crime was lumped somewhere in that list of grievances—right along with my salacious interludes with that same stunning woman.
My bone arms still trembling with the effort, I rose, pushing onto my feet.
“You, The Few, have conspired against me,” I accused as I switched my gaze from figure to masked figure, my bravery bolstered by Helena’s—by Johann’s, too, who’d stood up to The Few well before I had. “You provoked Helena’s interest in me,usingher for your purpose. You plotted with that vile wizard to corner and condemn me.”
I extended a skeletal hand toward Cedric, pointing at him with a bone finger while, with my other hand, I summoned my scythe.
“Vile, am I?” asked Cedric in a cool voice, a single brow bobbing. “I would have thought at some point you’d recognize I’ve beentryingto do you a favor.”
The Few surrounded me, Flora, Johann and Pluto, and Helena, who only now just began to regain her senses enough to sit up on her own and then, with Johann and Flora’s help, climb to her feet.
Across from me stood Sir White. Between him and the masked woman draped in crimson—Lady Red—smirked Cedric, his arms crossed as if he’d already won.
Which, perhaps, he had.
Behind me stood Lady Green in robes of deep emerald, her mask silver like Sir White’s. Beside her lurked Sir Blue, sapphire robes spilling down his tall form, glowing red eyes regarding me with what I could only assume was contempt.
“I will surrender my title,” I announced, “my scythe, and my claim to this position willingly, and face whatever punishment The Few would decree, butonlyif Helena’s soul be released from her role as a Fated.”
“You attempt to bargain in vain,” came Lady Green’s cool and sultry voice, its essence faintly warbled, as though funneled through water. That weird hissing and clicking emanated from her, too, when she tilted her head at me. “You no longer have any right to hold the station or power that will, in moments, be stripped from you anyway.”
“Then you deny it?” I gripped the staff of my scythe between both hands as I slid to stand before Helena and my friends—my family. “That you are culpable, too? Guilty yourselves oforchestratingmy downfall—and using a Fated to do it! Tell me, who among us has truly tampered with the ‘sacredorder of the universe’?”
Darting forward, Helena rushed to stand at my back.
“Grim,” she whispered, clutching my robes as she pressed her forehead into my spine. “Don’t make them angry. Angrier…”
I ignored her. If I was going to save her this time—this last time—I had to.
