“Grim and Helena, sitting in some trees,” sang Pluto, “trying to figure out the birds and the bees.”
I flicked off the raven. “Keep talking, beak brain. This placeneedsa new feather duster.”
The bird puffed. “Grim’s just mad ’cause he’s got it bad.”
Damn. Bird.
“The three of you are full of shit,” I mumbled, turning back to the Basins.
“Just… think about it,” said Johann. “I personally don’t see the harm. And that’s coming from me. Someone who understands the ramifications of breaking the rules, perhaps, better than anyone.”
“Like you said before,” I muttered, unhooking the hourglass from my belt. “We all broke the rules in some capacity. That’s why we’re here. The idea is not to break them again. Mostly because none of us can afford to.”
“You didn’t break any rules, Grim,” said Johann, his voice uncharacteristically gentle—and his words had me pausing before tipping the White Basin’s souls into the vat. “Well, at least not until recently. Until you met Fräulein Hart.”
“How do you know?” I barked.
I hadn’t told him what happened to me. Even if I didn’t rememberwhat I did, Iwouldremember telling him. The events of my human life were what remained at the outskirts of my memory, not those I had experienced in my current form.
“I know,” Johann assured me. “At least now I do. But… we can worry about that later. For now, we have a librarian to help, and some tracks to cover.”
“They’re my tracks to cover.” I shifted next to the Blue Basin.
“They were,” Johann conceded. “But Flora and I, we’ve thrown our hats into your ring. And, thanks to Flora, I at least have plenty more to throw besides.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“And we knew you wouldn’t,” said Johann. “Which is precisely why… we did.”
Silently, I finished delivering souls to the remaining Basins, grateful I didn’t have one for the Black again.
“I’m not agreeing to this,” I said, retracing my steps to snatch up my scythe.
“Is it really up to you?” asked Flora, her voice soft, the question tender and probing when I would have preferred her anger.
“It’s always up to me.” I swung away, an invisible force tearing at the tight bulb of my soul, claws ripping up tendrils, shredding the core of me—because that was a lie, and we all knew it.
“Grim,” called Flora, but I didn’t pause or turn back. I just kept marching for my statue and the entrance to my quarters, a place I normally found much-needed respite and solitude.
Neither of those things would greet me there this night. The trade-off was that Helena would.
“Grim,” said Flora again.
I halted next to the stairs, glaring back at her. She was trying to do me a favor—shehaddone me a favor. Helena, too. Like Johann, she didn’t deserve my anger.
“What?” I growled at her all the same.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I’m… really sorry.”
To this, I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. Not when she’d seen through me—and Johann had, too.
They both understood what I hadn’t fully until now. That it was too late.
That officially… Helena was someone I fucking cared about.
24HELENA
“That painting,” I said when Grim emerged from the doorway to the left of the desk and the picture in question, which I pointed to. “It changed. Twice.”
