“Haven’t you realized yet?” he says quietly. “You are never powerless. Not even now. You split yourself. I am merely entrusting your power to your other half.”
To Pain.
My jaw locks. “You told me that Pain—”
“Is you,” Death finishes. “Which means I do not take your power away from you. You will still have access to it, as long as you become whole. Don’t reject him. Face him. Accept what you cast away.”
I… what can I do? There’s no point arguing. Not with him.
I hate it, but compliance is the only choice.
“Fine,” I say, brittle. “What about Mark?”
“What about him?”
“You said his time isn’t up,” I say. “So what happens when it is? You’ll stop me from reaping him then, too?”
“You are forbidden from reaping Mark’s soul,” Death replies. “Whether his hour comes now or in a hundred heartbeats, someone else will take it. Not you.”
The words burn through me like wax and fire. “You’re assigning him a different Reaper?”
“Yes.”
“What about my men?”
“They cannot kill him either,” Death says. “They may try—but it will be impossible.”
Something in me cracks.
This hurts.
Worse than the wraiths. Worse than anything. Because it means my anger and grief are invisible. To Mark, and even to Death.
It means I don’t matter.
“Do not mistake the denial of a kill for the denial of your worth,” he says. “You are not a blade because you cut. You are a blade because you know what it means tobecut.”
My chest tightens.
Is that supposed to comfort me?
I don’t have time to ask or argue. The void begins to fold, just as it always does when he’s finished. The darkness collapses inward, rushing to a single point like an iris closing, a pupil contracting, the end of a tunnel narrowing into a door.
For a flicker of a moment, I hang in the seam where I once tried to keep Mark, caught in that thin place between decision and consequence. Then the nothing exhales, and it spits me back toward breath.
I return to the living world.
Iget spat out of the void in the exact same place I was pulled from.
Mark is still there, heaving, wild-eyed, staring at me like I’m about to finish what I started.
The moment I see that flicker of hope in his eyes, that pathetic, twitching belief that maybe I’ve changed my mind, I feel sick.
“Unbelievable,” I hiss, stepping back like he’s contagious. “What the actual fuck?”
He flinches. The straps bite into the metal chair with a sharp sound.
“Skye—”
