Page 23 of Reaper’s Curse

Her cheeks flushed, and her gaze fluttered downward, clearly attempting to redirect the conversation.

“Can we help?” Kira chirped, Myla perking up at her side. “We can design pretty dresses.”

Their mother smiled. “I would very much enjoy that.”

Winter leaned into the table and gave the twins a conspirator’s grin. “I’m going to need you two”―he glanced back at Camilla―“and your mother to come to the palace for this particular task.”

Camilla gasped. “The queen will never stand for it.”

Winter warmed his smile and added a gallon of compassion, with several dashes of understanding. “That was a long time ago, Cam. I’ll handle her, and everything will be fine.”

Kira tugged at his jacket, and he dropped his gaze to meet hers. “Can you get us new parchment? We’ll need them to draw our dress designs, and Ace took our last couple of blank pages.”

Winter’s brow wrinkled. Why would he⁠—

At the back of the pub, a boom sounded, the back door having slammed shut.

Aoes stood alone, and Chace was gone.

7

Istepped into the back alley behind the pub and, through measured breaths, forced myself into a place of clarity.

Only…

Dire. Raven’s injuries had been dire. And she hadn’t wanted me to know.

I pressed my fingers to the center of my chest. For all the pressure present, Raven could be shoving the heel of her boot into my ribs, crushing the bones. Yet she wasn’t. Not physically, anyway.

But she was now good. Healed. And as it would seem, safe. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Aoes was correct. Until I had a better understanding of the situation surrounding Raven, I couldn’t blatantly storm up to the palace to talk to her, much less bring her back with me.

She was well positioned to make forward progress, and I had both the queen’s demands (the suggestion I leave the citadel immediately…and that was close to a week ago) and the unknown kidnapper/torturer to consider. An individual likely searching for me. Wishing me further harm.

The curse, the inability to reap, was a vital concern, but it wasn’t the only concern. Evidence that much more was afoot was becoming increasingly clear, especially if I were to take the twins’ drawings and Aoes’s comments regarding my energy signature to heart.

I just wasn’t sure I wanted to accept what I was seeing…hearing. Or what those things truly meant for me.

Aoes implied I wasn’t completely reaper, but something else as well. Something that might be growing more dominant within me. The thought caused every muscle and bone within me to tighten to the point of breaking.

If I wasn’t fully reaper, the only thing I had ever known, then what was I? Who was I?

And the pictures the twins had presented…

One of Raven battered and bloody, while surrounded in some ethereal glow. And another of me, or as they said they saw me with their gifted sight.

I needed to wrap my mind around all the new information. I needed a sounding board. Given my current limitations, I needed Raven.

Earlier, one of Camilla’s daughters, the unaffected one, had given me a black pencil and two blank pages. Upon those pages, I’d scripted a message for Raven once, twice, three times, then I tore them apart and tossed each attempt. In the end, I decided opting for the simplest of words was best.

I just needed to make contact. Establish a line of communication with my only fellow reaper within the citadel walls.

Like it or not, the two of us were in this stinking reap together, and our elder, Aldine, was now gone. We desperately, sorely, needed to talk.

I pulled Raven’s contraband crow clicker from my pocket and pressed the button, then I turned my gaze toward the gray sky. The cloud cover camouflaged any hint of the citadel’s barrier magic, not that that was my intended focus.

My attention speared to the flap of black moving in my direction.

I rubbed the back of my fingers along the too-long stubble covering my jaw and followed the crow’s retreating path until sight of the feathered messenger became obscured by the crowded homes and businesses of the citadel.