“No.”
Greg’s breath caught.
“The contract dissolved when your clipboard burned,” Noah said. “There’s no reaper’s soul to collect. The terms he agreed to no longer refer to anything that exists. He knew before you did, I suspect. Demons are very attentive to their contracts.”
“Then why didn’t he come?”
“To gloat? To rage?” Noah shrugged. “He collects stories. This one ended in an interesting way. Not all deals pan out.”
Greg looked down at his hands.
Burned. Empty.
Free.
“He asked what happened to me,” Greg said quietly. “When he looked at my soul.”
“Love happened to you,” Noah said, as if it was that simple.
Maybe it was.
Greg exhaled slowly.
The demon wasn’t coming. The contract was void. His soul—whatever it was now, whatever it had become—was his own.
He had braced for a fight and found an empty room.
“Okay,” he said, smaller than he meant to. “Okay.”
Noah let the silence hold for a moment.
Then he said, “You’re facing a different problem now.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not anything.” Greg said it aloud for the first time. “I’m not a reaper. I’m not human. I don’t have a clipboard or a function or a place in any system. I’m soul-stuff held together by a bond to a mortal. That’s all.”
“It’s not the worst thing.”
“It’s not sustainable.”
“No,” Noah agreed. “Not as it stands.”
Greg’s stomach sank.
“What you are right now is unprecedented,” Noah said. “A reaper who severed himself from the system, burned his tether, and survived dissolution through a soul-bond with a living human.” A pause. “Quite the feat.”
Greg wasn’t sure if that was a compliment.
Noah stepped closer. “You were flagged during your internship, you know.”
“Flagged?”
“Let me quote from your file.In danger of being emotionally compromised. Overly curious about the human experience.Lingers too long at deathbeds.” Noah sounded mildly amused. “The reaper administration considered these qualities problematic.”
“They are.”
