“Grim,” said Johann, his expression darkening, “whatever has happened, I must insist that you release Cedric this instant. Like you, like me, he is a tenant of the Hallowed Halls, and a member of our order.”
The fuck he was.
“Move,” I commanded, “or I will make you move.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” blustered Johann, his hands going to his hips. “You will, instead, unhand Cedric and let him go to find his body. And you’ll do that for the benefit of all of us. Including yourself.”
“He interfered with my work.”
Johann’s scowl deepened, and he thrust a knotted, crooked finger toward the Black Basin. “You know as well as I do that Basin is going to kick Cedric back out no sooner than you send him in.”
“Fine,” I snarled, “then Green it is.”
I pivoted away from the old man and stalked toward the glowing Green Basin with its swirling vortex. But with slippers squeaking against the polished ebony floor, Johann managed to skitter in front of me a second time, walking backward until his spine collided with the Basin.
“The same thing will happen with this one and you know it,” Johann cautioned, actually shaking a finger at me. “His soul is cursed, and sooner or later itwillcome spitting right back out—just like the last time you threw him in there. As is true of the rest of us, Cedric’s not going anywhere, Grim, and the last thing any of us need, including you, is for another of The Few to come poking about in the Hallowed Halls. Lady Green was quite cross the last time, you’ll recall. Especially since The Few are the ones who cleared Cedric to take asylum here. Are you listening to me, Grim?”
I growled low, the tightness of my obsidian soul, which had coiled around all my bones, giving by a fraction of a centimeter.
Greenhadadmonished me not to submit Cedric’s soul a second time…
I’d once dunked him in the Red Basin, too—which he’d actually stayed in for half a day.
I’d never been angry enough—at least not until now—to kill him myself.Orset my sights on tossing him into the Black.
But Johann was right.
Like a bad case of toxic mold, no matter what, Cedric would just come back.
Maybe Johann sensed my reluctance to release Cedric despite his admittedly apt and reasonable warnings, because he continued his tirade.
“I don’t know what Cedric’s done to anger you this time, but I can gather he pressed one hell of a button. If you want him to press it again only harder, by all means, shove him into one of the Basins or try bottling him for a decade. It’s not going to work, and it’ll just make whatever this is festering between you two all the more unmanageable.”
“Stuffing him in a bottle isn’t a bad fucking idea!” I bellowed, wrenching that wretched soul tighter in my fist as if I could squeeze the arrogance out of it, my arm tremoring with the effort to deal a hearty dose of pain Cedric wouldn’t—couldn’t—feel in this form anyway.
“Let him go, Grim,” said Johann. “I will talk to him.”
“That never does any good!”
“I said, let him go,” Johann insisted, starting to shout now himself. “Let him go, and I swearIwill take personal responsibility for him from this point forward.”
Personal responsibility. What did that even mean?
Johann was stuck here. Just like me. Just like Flora. Just like fucking Cedric.
Our lack of personal responsibility waswhywe were here.
“I’m tired of you always covering his ass,” I snapped even as, whirling away from Johann, I pitched Cedric’s godforsaken spirit toward the hall I’d just traversed.
Loosed, the sphere sparked and sputtered—perhaps spouting a barrage of curse words only Johann could hear before the foul thing pinballed down the hall and zipped out of sight, zooming off to reconnect with the physical form it was forever shackled to, a mangy dog in search of its miscreant master.
“Grim.”
I veered on Johann. “What!”
Pluto soared down toward us, and with a flutter of ebony wings, he lighted on Johann’s shoulder.
“Grim Grim,” the bird said, as though sounding an alarm, his feathers bristling. “Grim is grim.”
