Page 137 of Grim Tidings

“Wow.” A familiar head of blond hair pops up on the other side of the glass. “I didn’t think you could become more boring, and yet here you are. Inspiring.”

Aelia gives me a toothy grin and slides her number under the small crack at the bottom of the window. I stare at her, stuck somewhere between disbelief and searing, startling affection.

It’s been twenty-eight days of agony in this tiny cubicle. Gideon says punishment wasn’t his intention, but it definitely feels like it. Working the customer service desk of the afterlife has been a lesson in slow-burn agony.

“Is this a figment of my imagination?” I ask. “Or are you real?”

“Real as a nightmare, baby.” She blows a bubble with her gum, then snaps it back into her mouth. She slides another small piece of paper in the tray with her ticket. “You’ve officially been summoned to the Head Reaper’s office.” Her eyes sparkle. “Your final judgment awaits.”

I don’t touch either paper. “Is it bad?”

Aelia lifts an eyebrow. “You mean worse than this place? I don’t see how that’s possible, considering it smells like someone microwaved fish.”

“Someone did microwave fish,” I reply. “Seth has microwaved fish in the break room every day for two weeks.”

I’m convinced Seth was placed here specifically because of his affinity for microwaved fish.

“Okay, well. What Gideon has for you can’t possibly be worse than that.” She nods toward the small waist-high door at the back of my cubicle. “Come on. I’m supposed to escort you over there.”

I stand and pull off my headset, tossing it on my desk with a clatter. Seth stares balefully at me from the other side of the partition wall.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I have to go.”

He sighs. “The good ones always do.”

I’m not so sure I can be categorized as a good one considering I’m a Reaper serving her mandatory sentence for defying the order and optics of the department on her way to meet her final judgment, but I’ll take the shred of kindness for what it is.

That’s what the past couple of weeks in customer service has turned me into. A shell of a being, scraping the very bottom of the barrel for any inkling of generosity.

I meet Aelia on the other side of the wall, and we hurry into the hallway.

“How bad has it been?” she asks. “Are you okay? Let me look at you.”

She pulls me to a stop, fussing. She smoothes the material of my sweater and presses up on her toes to pinch at my cheeks. A soft brush of tenderness curls around the cavern of my rib cage. She’s worse than a mother hen, and I love every second of it.

“I’m fine,” I promise her, grabbing her hands and urging them down. I hold on to them. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.” Besides this tender, hollow wound that seems to sear me from the inside out. “Have you heard—” I pause and inhale deeply through my nose. “Is Gabriel—”

Aelia squeezes my hands tight. “I don’t know,” she says gently. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know.”

I nod and try to reassure myself that it doesn’t mean anything. The Office of the Guardians is notoriously siloed from the rest of us, just as the Office of the Grim Reapers is. Just because Aelia hasn’t heard anything doesn’t mean that the worst has happened.

It doesn’t mean he’s been stripped of his wings. It doesn’t mean he’s somewhere suffering because of the decisions I’ve made.

“Come on,” she says, tugging at my hands. “I’m supposed to take you to Gideon.”

“Okay.”

It’s enough, I reassure myself as we wind our way down the department hallways. It’s enough to keep my memories, to know that we had time together, limited as it was. It’s enough to know that in the end, I did the right thing. I saved the soul I was sent for and offered closure for another. I experienced life again. Pumpkins and sticky bar tops and the bite of cold on an overcast October morning. A red lighthouse, rising from the bay like a sentinel. Twisted bedsheets and soft kisses. Husky laughter and the thump of a dog’s tail against the floor.

All of the mundane, ordinary, perfect things I had been missing. I had them again. They were mine.

I got to choose my own path, and I fell in love.

Whatever happens now, that’s enough.

Aelia stops in front of an unmarked door in an otherwise unremarkable hallway. We could be anywhere in the department for all I know. Forty thousand leagues under the sea.

“Through this door, okay?” She frowns at me again, her blue eyes searching my face. “I’ll see you soon.”