A figure steps into the room. The moment I see him, I recognize him. It doesn't matter that he’s squinting against the acidic air or that his clothes are different from before.
It's him. The man I saw under my willow tree.
“What…?” I whisper, my brows drawing together in confusion.
He meets my gaze—just like before—and smiles. But it's not a friendly smile. It's sharp, cold, laced with secrets meant to stay buried.
“At last,” Cassian says, pausing his work. He tosses another gas mask to Nathaniel. “The Grim Reaper is starting to figure out how to break free. We need to tether it. Now.”
“Tether?” I echo, my pulse quickening. Yes, I feel a pulse now. “Tether me how? What are you talking about?”
Nathaniel catches the mask effortlessly, his long, pale fingers curling around it. Only then do I notice the backpack in his other hand—it's heavy, stuffed with something. Mud and dirt cover it, staining his fingers.
He drops it to the floor, and something inside rattles.
For some reason, I start to feel strange, like it's me that's been thrown to the ground. Like whatever's in that bag belongs to me.
It's ridiculous. Stupid, even. I'm not even a human.
But when Nathaniel—the guy with piercings and slicked-back hair—puts his mask on and opens the bag, my entire existence contracts.
Inside are… bones. Not just any bones.Mybones.
Suddenly, everything starts clicking together in my head, and I swear I feel sweat starting to bead on my forehead. This man appeared at the house with a shovel in his hand. He looked me straight in the eye. And when I was dragged away by the pull, he dug up my grave.
He dug up my remains.
And now, those remains are here.
“What are you going to do?” I ask, threads of panic creeping into my voice.
“Don't worry, Little Grim,” Foxface says. “It’s just what we agreed on. You’re going to help us, that’s all.”
“Then why do you need my bones?”
Nathaniel crouches over the bag of my bones and picks one up between his fingers. It’s a piece of a rib, smooth and pale, like it’s never touched the decay of the world.
I can’t explain why, but the sight of it hurts. Not physically—I don’t feel pain like I used to—but in a way that digs deep into the essence of me.
I shouldn’t even be able to see them. No Grim Reaper should be able to see their remains. It's unnatural. It defies the very nature of death itself.
I take a step back—or I try to.
Of course, I cannot. The binding holds me in place.
Nathaniel tilts his head, turning the rib bone in his fingers like he’s admiring it. Admiringme. And soon enough, he pulls out something that looks suspiciously like a knife.
“What are you going to do with that?” I ask, even more uneasy.
That bone right there, it’s a part of my body. My property. He cannot touch it. He cannot—
Nathaniel presses the blade to the bone and starts carving something into it.
My nonexistent heart lurches.
“Your bones are the last thing tying you to this world, our curious little creature,” he says, his voice sounding just like it did under the willow tree. “And that makes them the key to tethering you.”
Nothing in my existence prepared me for this. This isn’t supposed to happen.
