My scythe burns in my hands, the lantern shuddering. My whole being feels wrong.
I don't know what he's doing, but I canfeelit. It starts right in my heart and spreads outward.
Pain lets out a sharp, piercing shriek. It feels it, too. Nathaniel doesn’t look up. His focus stays locked on my bone, his blade moving with a scary fucking precision. His hand doesn't shake. His eyes don't blink. He's just… carving, like whatever he's doing is some kind of art.
“Stop,” I choke out. “Don't do this.”
“It's necessary, Little Grim,” Foxface says.
“No, it's not,” I argue.
But Nathaniel doesn't stop. Far from it. He gives me a quick glance from beneath his eyelashes, sets the bone apart, placing it on the freshly cleaned floor, and picks up another one. Then another. Finally, he picks up my skull. And right in the center of it, on my third eye, he presses the tip of the blade again.
And just like that—I feel it.
Pain.
Not the distant, dull ache of memory. Not the phantom sensations of a body long lost.
Real, searing, all-consuming pain. Like I'maliveagain.
I scream.
It’s a raw, wretched sound, torn from the depths of my being. My raven shrieks with me, and for yet another time today, I crumble in agony.
Nathaniel carves one last mark into my skull.
And everything inside me locks into place.
I collapse onto my hands and knees, my entire form anchored to the spot. My scythe clatters against the concrete, falling behind the rims of the binding.
And I know, before anyone even says it, that something has changed within me.
Foxface crouches down beside me, and takes his mask off. He extends his gloved hand, moving it toward me, and just before his fingers should pass right through me, he stops.
I feel a tingle.
His hand doesnotpass through me.
No…
His fingers hover, just an inch away from my skin—from my face.
It's not quite a touch, but it's not nothing either. It's something I've never felt before.
It's as if his fingers remain just shy of contact, like there's some warmth lingering between us.
And by the look in his mismatched eyes, it seems like he can feel it, too.
“Well, well,” he murmurs. “Would you look at that.”
Just like that, I know.
My five years of peaceful existence as a Grim Reaper are over.
I have just become something else entirely.
Something that can feel.
