“She doesn’t serve me,” I cut in, angry at the implications of that. Crow was her own being and free to do as she pleased.
He smiled at me. “And that is why she has chosen you and stayed with you for so long.”
There was a shift in the air then, and the sky lightened up, sunshine pouring down. I could suddenly make out a boat not far offshore, and people were drinking and laughing on it. There was a figure in the boat in a pink cloak with a shining staff, and somehow I knew it was Sebbie. The man in black was smiling fondly at the boat.
“He isn't really here,” I stated. “He’s shopping with the humans.”
The man in black waved his hand carelessly. “Time is a construct. Yesterday, today… It's all relative. He’s shopping with his friends, and he’s also guiding the boat to the shores of the underworld. He is many things.”
“Yesterday, today, and tomorrow?” I asked, because if time was relative, he had forgotten the future.
He looked at me, smiling. “Your mother would be proud.”
I felt goosebumps rise on my skin, but I didn’t look away from him.
He turned back toward the boat, gazing out at the river. “Tomorrow is not a part of that. Free will makes tomorrow forever in motion. It is only the past and the present that can coexist. The future is an unknown, and even as we speak, it is changing. It has already changed.”
I looked out at the river. I had a good idea who the man in black was, but I didn’t care for riddles when it came to Sebbie. As if he sensed my thought, and perhaps he did, he looked over at me.
“He is an old friend of mine, even if he has taken on a new form. He has free will now, and that was something that was never supposed to happen.”
“So why did it?” I asked.
“Because the universe is changing, and sometimes it needs to be helped along. Creation is not my specialty, but sometimes I can manage to do a little… finagling.”
So the grim reaper and the ferryman were not supposed to be in Sebbie?
“There is no Sebbie without those pieces. It is who he is. It is how he was born,” the man answered, although I hadn’t asked my question out loud.
I pondered that. I didn’t want to change Sebbie, so I was unsure why the man in black had brought me here. I looked back out to the boat, smiling as I could see people laughing and chatting, Sebbie walking around with a container filled with drink. How very like Sebbie to make the afterlife a party, even if he didn’t know he was doing it.
“Oh, he knows some of it. He’s far more in touch with being a ferryman than a reaper, although it is all dreams and imagination to him. But his actions have changed things, and you cannot put back what you have unboxed,” the man said.
“Killing the Nephilim,” I stated. That made sense. Sebbie had killed an immortal being. He must have been in touch with his reaper side in order to do that. “Are you saying he can’t hide from his reaper side anymore?” I asked.
The man looked at me, his face serious. “I’m saying he cannot control what he doesn’t know exists, and he has unboxed things he wouldn’t have wanted to open up. But you cannot hide parts of yourself forever.”
“I’ll help him however I can.”
The man smiled. “Your familiar has already been at work connecting the two of you, but you’ll need to act more quickly than you’d like. Things are already in motion, I’m afraid.”
With those ominous words, I opened my eyes to the forest. Crow flew down, cawing at me, and I stared at her.
“Watch over him, Crow. Help me protect him,” I told her. She cawed again, and then she flew off. With her departure, the air settled into a heavy weight pressing down around me. Something was going to happen.
I wasn’t sure what, but I didn’t have a good feeling about it.
Chapter 8
Sebbie
“Well,we’ve got to do something to help you along. At the rate you two move, we’ll be a hundred before you even go on a date,” Q grumbled.
We were sitting at a cafe in a neighboring town after doing some shopping. Aiden had said he wanted to try the competition—not that he had a competitive bone in his body. Q, on the other hand…
“This croissant is shit. Yours is much better, Aiden,” he said, taking a bite of the pastry.
At least he spoke low enough that no one who worked here could hear him. He was snarky as hell, but he never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings. I appreciated that about Q.
