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“Nobody’s eating anybody!” I yell, then burst into tears.
“OK,” Dervish soothes me. “I was only trying to help. Don’t worry. If you don’t want to eat me, I won’t force you.” He pulls a crooked expression. “Does that sound as crazy as I think?”
I laugh through my tears. “You idiot! Besides,” I add, wiping my cheeks clean, “it doesn’t matter whether we live or die. It might even be better if we perish on this boat. I’m not sure I want to go back.”
“What are you talking about?” Dervish frowns.
I take a deep breath and finally reveal what I learned on the ship. “I touched the Shadow and absorbed some of its memories. I told Beranabus. That’s why he gambled so recklessly and sacrificed himself. He knew the Shadow couldn’t be defeated, that we couldn’t kill it. Sending it back to the Demonata universe for a while was the best we could hope for.”
“I don’t believe that,” Dervish snorts. “I don’t care how powerful it is. Everything can be killed.”
“Not the Shadow,” I disagree.
I lie back in the boat and stare at the darkening sky, listening to the waves lap against the sides of the boat. It’s peaceful. I wouldn’t mind if I fell asleep now and never awoke.
“The Shadow’s not a demon,” I explain quietly, and Dervish and Kirilli have to lean in close to hear. “It’s a force that somehow acquired consciousness. I don’t know how, but it has.”
“A force?” Dervish scowls.
“Like gravity,” I explain. “Imagine if gravity developed a mind, created a body and became an actual entity—Gravity with a capital G, intelligent like us, able to think and plan.”
“That’s impossible,” Dervish says. “Gravity’s like the wind or sunlight. It can’t develop consciousness.”
“But imagine it could,” I push. “You’ve seen the true nature of the universes. You know magic exists, that just about anything is possible. Imagine.”
Dervish takes a moment to adjust his thinking. “OK,” he says heavily. “It’s a struggle, but I’m running with it. Gravity has a mind. It’s given itself a body. And it’s coming after humanity. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Almost,” I smile weakly. “But it’s not gravity. It’s an altogether different force. More sinister. Inescapable. Every living being’s final companion.”
“Don’t tease us with riddles,” Dervish snaps. “Just spit it out.”
“I think I already know,” Kirilli says softly. “The greatest stage magician ever was Harry Houdini. He was a master escapologist. He could cheat any trap known to man. But there was one thing he couldn’t escape, no matter how hard he tried, and it caught him eventually—the Grim Reaper.”
“Aye.”
I sigh as Dervish stares at me with growing understanding and horror, then close my eyes and cross my hands over my chest. I think about Beranabus, Sharmila, Kernel. Dervish’s weak heart. The trap Lord Loss set for Grubbs. What will happen to Kirilli and me if help doesn’t arrive in time.
Dead ends everywhere. The dead coming back to life on the ship. Juni and me returning to life from beyond the grave. The Shadow’s promise to the Demonata, that they’ll live forever once the war with humanity is over.
“The Shadow is ancient beyond understanding,” I whisper. “It’s as old as life. It doesn’t have an actual name. It never needed one. But we’ve given it a title. The demons have too. It’s the darkness when a light is quenched, the silence when a sound fades. It takes the final breath from the smallest insect and the mightiest king. It knows us all, stalks us all, and in the end claims us all.
“The Shadow is Death.”
