“I accept my sentence,” I told The Few, shifting my focus between them, ignoring Cedric, who only held that infuriating smirk. “And my punishment—whatever it may be. But only if Helena is rewarded her life in exchange for being made your pawn.”
“This is a right injustice!” snapped Flora, who hurried to my side to shake a fist at Sir White. “Entrapment.”
“I agree that Grim cannot be held accountable,” said Johann, who stepped to my other side. “He, like Helena, was manipulated. By you, The Few. And for what reason? To install a new reaper? Why? Cedric… why?”
“Don’t worry, old man,” said Cedric. “Grim, or should I sayLoxley, has had this coming for a while—and you and Flora know it.”
“You’ve betrayed one of our own!” Flora snapped at him. “And do you have mince for brains? If The Few sold out Grim, then it’ll only be a matter of time before you’re the one under the bus!”
“Grim might have taken an oath,” said Helena, stepping out from behind me. I extended my free arm, holding her back—to keep her as safe as I could for the moment. “But he never did anything wrong to land himself in this role. He’s not here because he’s serving a sentence or working toward redemption. He took the oath willingly. It should count for something that… that he is the only one among the occupants of the Hallowed Halls who hasn’t gotten his second chance.”
I glanced her way, stunned. Because what she was saying… I wanted to believe it.
For so long, I’d blamed myself for abandoning Phineas. But in the Black Basin, Helena had made a point of how the alternative, the only other choice, would still have resulted in my nephew and me being torn apart.
I’d had no choice. The one I’d made… For me, ithadbeen the only one.
I could regret the consequences without regretting the choice itself.
Helena had shown me that.
“How Grim came to be in his role is irrelevant,” said Sir White, lifting a silver-clawed hand at me, that palm open. “It only matters to The Few that he broke that oath. We are in agreement, and our decision has been made. Renwick Loxley, you will now and forever be stripped of your title, your role, your scythe, and your place here in the Hallowed Halls.”
One after the other, Sir Blue, Lady Red, and Lady Green lifted their palms as well, aiming those gauntleted hands at me as colored light swirled in those palms, the energy building, brightening, intensifying.
“No!” shrieked Helena as she flung her arms around me, like that could stop the blast—or save me from the rays that hit me from all sides.
Somewhere, Pluto started cawing again, panicked cries echoing above the sudden roar in my ears as the four energies, white, red, blue, and green, dove into me, swept through me and then—as one—out of me. The surge of power ripped free my robes, cloak, hood, scythe, and skeletal form, leaving me standing there in my human incarnation, garbed in boots, ripped jeans, leather jacket, and T-shirt.
The Few then shifted the aim of those hands and that energy toward Cedric, who welcomed the blast with open arms.
Gritting my teeth, I glared hatred at him as my former robes swathed him, fabric and mist dancing with the crackling green energy of his wizard’s magic as they enwrapped him.
He grinned, then laughed darkly as my scythe materialized in his grasp the moment he, like I had done so many times before, called the tool—the weapon—forth from the ether. That laugh built in volume as green-tinted smoke enshrouded him, tattered robes flying out, his figure flickering between his human form and his new skeletal form.
Helena whimpered as she clung to me. Turning to her, I pulled her close, enfolding her in my arms. I squeezed her tight, all too cognizant of the fact that we were moments from—one way or another, or perhaps even all ways—being torn apart for good.
Cedric roared with laughter, the smoke of his own essence rising and winding about him, dancing with luminous, phosphorescent, poison-green magic that illuminated his now half-human, half-skeletal frame, transforming him into a terrifying figure with even more power than I had ever possessed.
While he reveled in his victory and this act of retribution, the first among the many he was now bound to claim and exact, the figures of The Few each contracted into colored orbs. One after the other, they shot back to their Basins, plunging into the waters—vanishing.
But where were they going?
That. It was a stupid question.
They were going back to their realms.
Because their work here was done.
My punishment? Helena’s fate?
The Few—it seemed—had seen fit to leave those items in the now-highly-capable hands of the world’s newest Grim Reaper.
Atruepompous psycho.
53HELENA
I could only gaze on in horror and in dread as Cedric basked in his victory, his dark cackle like that of the heinous wizard—and now hand of death—he had become.
