“You’re telling me!” exclaimed the girl, though they both fellquiet as I started to climb, their conversation interrupted by the low sliding of stone.
“Johann, look!” piped the girl as, above, a shaft of light ripped through the gloom, revealing the spiral stone staircase I now ascended. “I thought you said Grim left.”
“He did,” said the man. “You see his scythe is missing from the statue’s grasp.”
“Hello?” I called as I reached the top of the stairs, just before I poked my head into the enormous domed room that, at its center, hosted a little old man at a scribe’s desk wearing a familiar McDonald’s visor, an enormous and glorious raven perched on his shoulder. Next to him stood a barefooted, redhaired, and pointy-eared preteen in a fairy costume. An old-fashioned lantern sat at her feet, its panes lit with bright green light, which sparked and flared at my appearance. Though the lantern rocked and rattled, neither the girl nor the man nor the bird paid it any mind.
Instead, they gaped at me.
“Losh!” The girl put her hands on her hips. “Youarea bonnie one, aren’t ya?”
“Told you,” said the bird as he ticked his head at me, revealing himself as the source of the third voice. “Grim Grim caught a pretty bird. Strangest thing we’ve ever heard.”
“I’m… Helena,” I said, which made the girl smirk.
“Welcome, Helena,” said the man, his voice echoing faintly in the enormous chamber. “To the Hallowed Halls.”
23GRIM
A peal of laughter cleaved through the quiet as I stalked down the hall leading to the Basins, the high and light sound setting me on alert.
I unfurled, then re-formed in a swirl of black fog in the Basins chamber, my gaze at once finding the owner of that laugh—who was exactly the woman I suspected.
Helena.
Startled by my arrival, Pluto cawed and lifted off from his perch in a panicked flutter. He flew past Helena, who stood bold as daylight in the center of the room with Flora and Johann—the only one among the three who didn’t lose his smile at my sudden appearance.
“Ah, Grim,” said Johann, “we’ve been waiting on you.”
Waiting… on me?
After circling the room once, Pluto rounded his way back to Johann before landing on his shoulder. “Grim’s home. This time he’s alone.”
My gaze bounced between them while I tried to cobble together an answer for this assembly. How had Helena gotten out of my apartment? What were they all talking about together like this, as ifthey were having a fucking faculty meeting? And why was she just standing out here in the open? What if Cedric came back?
And Johann…
“Where did you get that hat?” I growled, pointing with a skeletal finger.
The visor he wore—I’d seen it yesterday. On Bryce’s head.
“Flora brought it to me from Mickey D’s,” said Johann. He pointed to the hat’s emblem. “One would think the yellowMwould give it away. She also brought me a McFlurry.”
“Had to make it meself,” said Flora, “since there wasn’t any staff about. You and Cedric did a right good job of clearing out the place.”
Again, my gaze ricocheted between them, going from Johann, to Flora, to Helena, and then down to Flora’s lantern, which flared bright green. It shuddered and shook, creating a racket against the marble floor, a clangor that echoed up through the dome and down again—until Flora gave the lantern a kick.
“Pipe down, you slippery radge,” grumbled the fairy—an unusual response to her normally tender tenants. Whose soul did she hold in that lantern now? It wasn’t a child’s. Their souls were smaller, like lightning bugs.
“What is this?” I demanded, even though I already had an inkling. “What is going on?”
“Helena’s come up with a plan,” said Flora, hands going to her hips Peter Pan–style.
A plan? What kind of plan? For what?
“I think… it’s a good plan,” said Helena, her words shocking me. “If… I’m allowed to say so.”
She wasn’t angry. A moment ago, she’d even laughed.
