the living ones. We were at risk. Glancing at Eira, I immediately thought of a way to get her as far from here as possible, before things escalated.
“Wait, what did you just say about Amelia?” I croaked, suddenly aware of what Lumi had just said. It was as if my mind was finally functioning properly again. As if I’d been plucked out of a daze.
“We’re on Mortis,” Lumi said. “Where Death lives.”
“Snap…” Raphael managed, giving Amelia an appreciative smile. “Look at you, quite the explorer.”
“I had no idea! I just wanted us to find Death and get this over with,” Amelia replied.
“We’re not going to ask you again,” Baethal cut in. “You need to go. Now. You’re not welcome here.”
Lumi moved to stand in front of me. She lit up white, like a star. The light was so powerful, so bright, that it caught the Reapers by surprise. We had no choice but to close our eyes, but I did hear the Reapers cursing. Then, silence followed, as the light faded.
Seconds later, Lumi was back to normal, and the Reapers were gone.
“What the hell?” I gasped. “Where’d they go?”
Lumi gave me a brief glance over her shoulder. “They got the Word’s message?”
“Whoa. That was you interacting with the Word?” Amelia asked her.
The swamp witch nodded. “It just told me to let it out like that. It told me not to be afraid. I don’t know if it will do that again, but… I couldn’t not trust the Word, you know?”
“It scared the Reapers away,” Eira said. “That’s… unbelievable.”
“What’s even more unbelievable is that we’ve been on Mortis this whole time, and we had no idea,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “I cannot believe this!”
A slew of expletives left my mouth as I moved away from the crew and walked over to where the Reapers had stood. The building continued to watch me, in its wordless away, from across the forest. The glowing paths seemed to be inviting me to tread them, beckoning me to go there.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Amelia said. “You couldn’t have known. None of us knew. I had no friggin’ idea… The pink waters are insanely receptive, if they were able to pick up my tiniest thought about Hellym. I’m as baffled as you are.”
“No wonder the pink waters are so hidden and protected,” Raphael replied. “Imagine if everyone knew about them and what they can do.”
“It also explains why Firr sealed up the Calliope one,” Lumi reminded him. “He knew it would only be a matter of time before we figured it out. Before the others found out, too.”
“Yeah, but Firr couldn’t anticipate all our moves, unfortunately for him and his ilk,” I said. “Since we are already here. Sheesh.”
“Let’s get past this initial shock,” Eira interjected, pointing at the waterfall building. “What’s over there?”
I took a lungful of air, trying not to look at it too much. I worried that, if I paid too much attention, it would actually start talking to me, somewhere in the depths of my consciousness—because whatever that place was, it had some kind of life in it. It was more than a building. It was an entity.
“I think it’s where she lives,” I whispered.
“You mean Death? How do you know?” Lumi asked.
“I just… trust me, I just do.”
Eira reached me and gripped my arm. “You can feel her, can’t you?”
“I think so. It’s difficult to explain.”
“You’re holding the scythe,” she said, giving me a warm and understanding smile. “It’s not that hard to figure out.”
Even so, the entire concept was still mind-boggling. We’d been wandering around for hours, for the better part of a day, trying to figure out what this place was. Baethal had been so evasive and irritating. He could’ve just told us where we were—but then, he knew what our purpose was. Like he’d said himself, word about us traveled fast. Our mission was to find Death. Why would he ever lead us to her, when the entire universe had worked so hard to keep her hidden?
It had only been a stroke of luck that we were here, in the first place. That Herbert had told Ibrahim where to find Mortis. That Kabbah had told Varga about Mortis to begin with. That Amelia’s desire to get to where Death was had swayed the pink waters into bringing us here… Mere flickers of goodwill and favorable fortune. Everyone else who served Death—the Reapers, specifically—had kept a tight lid on her location. Why would these three stooges have done