Page 119 of Grim Tidings

The little girl grins at me, all teeth. “Dead.”

“Your father, then?”

“He’s dead, too. So sad. I’m just a small little girl all alone in this cold, dark world.” She pouts her bottom lip out, then flicks her fingers at me. A pulse of magic brushes against my front and I freeze. “Fetch me a beer, bar boy.”

“No.” I narrow my eyes. “What are you, and why are you here?”

She grins, eyes sparkling in awareness. “What are you, and why are you asking?” Her eyes dart to the tattoos on my arms. “Ah. A Guardian.” She leans over the bar for one of the small bowls of peanuts. “A very busy one, given the amount of little mementos you have.”

I don’t like the imbalance of knowledge between us. “What are you?”

“Reaper,” she answers succinctly. She pushes the sleeve of her ballerina costume up, extending her hand over the bar. “Aelia.”

I ignore her hand, keeping myself perfectly still. If she’s here for Darcy—if she’s come to collect—

“I’ll ask again,” I say, letting my grip on my magic slip, just a little. She clocks my tone and folds her hands back in her lap. “Why are you here? And what do you want?”

“And I’ll tell you again,” she replies, her amusement vanishing. Some of her power rises to meet mine. “I’m meeting a friend.”

“Is your friend named Gideon?”

Her mouth opens, then shuts, then opens again. “What do you know?” she finally asks.

“I know I want you to get out of my bar.”

She shakes her head and stays right where she is. “No. You need to tell me right now. What do you know?”

When I stay silent, she grabs a peanut and lobs it at me. It smacks me in the forehead. She picks up another.

“I don’t have time for your goody-two-shoes bullshit, you over-grown bird. If you’ve seen Gideon, I need to know. Now.”

The second peanut hits me in the throat. I grab the bowl from in front of her before she can throw another. “No one has seen Gideon in centuries.”

“I am aware.” She picks up a plastic fork someone must have left from one of the food trucks and brandishes it like a weapon. She looks ridiculous. A little girl dressed like a ballerina, hellfire in her eyes and holding a utensil like she’d enjoy nothing more than scooping out my intestines with it. “Which is why I need to get to my friend before he does. Capisce?”

A low buzz fills my ears. The ache between my shoulder blades intensifies. “Your friend,” I manage. “What’s her name?”

If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it.

“Her name is Darcy and I came here to warn her. She’s out of time. Gideon has come for her.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t leave the candy. You’re slowing us down.”

“You’re slowing us down,” Aelia responds, petulant, one of her arms buried in her massive pillowcase as she rifles around for something. She withdraws her hand as we turn a corner, holding a Tootsie Pop in the air victoriously. “Here it is.” She holds it out to me. “Want one?”

“No.”

What I want is to find Darcy. The longer we look without so much as a glimpse of her, the more anxious I become.

Aelia sighs, hustling to catch up. She’s still in her sequins and tutu, and she blends in seamlessly with the crowd of children on the street. We get a couple of odd looks, especially with Aelia wielding her scythe like a poorly paired prop.

“I told you not to bring that thing.”

“Shocker, big guy, but you don’t tell me what to do. I’m not walking into a confrontation with the head of death itself unarmed.”

“You’re sure he’s here?”

“Positive,” she says. “He dispatched Ferrymen to three separate locations where traces of her magic were found.”