Deathless

Chapter 44: Jackson

Atropos glides through the charred chaos of the room, her footsteps delicate like a bird treading through fresh snow. Despite the storm that rages around us, the walls crumbling like chalk, the Death Wardens fierce in their midnight armour—everything and everyone seems to halt as she approaches.

This is her storm, and she is the silence at its heart.

She looks different. As if she's trying to dress like a mortal girl. She's dressed exactly like Millie. She's wearing a sleeveless dress, baggy coat and old trainers. This isn't a look Millie has put together deliberately, though. The dress is still the one she wore for her birthday, a memory that stabs at my chest, but feels so long ago now. The jacket is too big because it's mine and the shoes Millie slipped on quickly before we left Roisin's are scuffed and faded. Millie's eyes narrow like she's picked up on it too.

"I'm afraid, little nephew, that won't work. That little trinket is just that, a trinket."

Atropos looks at me accusingly, and I meet her glance with a glare of my own. She giggles. It's high-pitched and rings in my ears like a bell. She walks over to me, grabbing my chin between her bloody hands, the bony fingertips tearing at my skin and I flinch.

"Thanatos never got it to work, for all the years he put into trying. Never got to hand over the last of his power to his precious little reapers." She takes the pin from my hand, crushes it in hers, and smiles. The black dust glitters as it falls delicately to the ground.

My stomach drops. What now? Jeanette and Lucius look at me, their expressions flat, like the last of their hope has just drained away. Only Millie looks unmoved, her eyes like glowing embers, working over the next steps in her mind and demanding me to do the same. In the quiet centre of all this mess and madness, she is still a force of nature, and I beam in admiration. When she sees it, she shakes her head at me like I'm a little child, but her cheeks flush, her lips twitching in the corners.

"Then why send me after it? For what purpose?"

Atropos sighs, like this she's growing bored with all this.

"I needed more time. Fate may have ended the moment Death slipped through his door, but I needed the Death realm in ruins before it would let me leave my temple. I thought the Chronica might keep you boys busy."

"But you said..." Thomas's voice quivers. "You said it worked. You said any reaper could travel through time with it?"

Her ringing laugh starts again, and then as quickly as it starts, it stops. She moves towards him. Those slow footsteps take an eternity.

"I lied." She smiles a sickly sweet smile that churns my insides. "I needed you. Me and my sisters, we are bound to our temple, to our tools of fate since our creation. I couldn't leave, so I had to wait, and wait I did, century after century, until you came to me, till your pain became my weapon. You, Thomas, you were a gift."

"You lied to me, you lied to me!" He launches forward but isn't quick enough. The Death Wardens are on him. Grabbing him roughly till he cries out in pain.

"You answer to me! Let me go!" They don't move, keeping their grip as hard as steel. He's now standing next to me. He glances at me quickly, pain slashing across his face. Two hold him tightly, pulling his head up by his hair, forcing him to meet her gaze. Atropos stands on her tiptoes to face him.

"Oh my dear Thomas, they're not Death Wardens. No, I replaced them the moment I sensed my brother had passed. No, you'll find they're all very loyal to me. Very loyal to the person offering them endless suffering to feast on."

The Death Wardens all laugh. Their unified cackle filling the room. I shudder, a chill running through me. The Keres, she's replaced the Death wardens with the Keres. They haven't been just rounding people up, searching for me. No, they have been feeding on suffering already. On the people of Scythe.