the sound of a large bell rippled outward, bringing the entire fight to a sudden halt.
At once, all the Reapers disappeared from our ranks and joined Baethal. The ghosts froze as well, staring at us with empty eyes. My heart was pounding in my chest, my breath cut short, and my wounds stinging worse than any other injury I’d sustained until now. The scythes were definitely capable of inflicting a startling amount of pain, deeper and sharper than regular blades.
Fallon managed to push himself up into a kneeling position, blood dripping from his cracked brow ridge. Fortunately, his vampire nature would heal that and the rest of his bruises and gashes in no time. The same couldn’t be said about Herakles, who was in dire need of at least one of the witches’ blue bottles to recover. Riza moved to his side, one arm around his waist to help him stand. The Faulty was wobbling on his feet.
“Something’s off,” Baethal announced. “Taeral isn’t here.”
“And neither is that elemental daughter and the bossy swamp witch,” Wrik added, frowning.
“Took you a while.” Raphael chuckled, unabashed in his contempt.
The Reapers all went pale at once, the realization hitting them so hard, it was almost comical. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, despite the pulsating pain in my legs and hip. They’d been so busy fighting and pretending to be trying to kill us that they hadn’t even seen Taeral, Lumi, and Eira slip past the palace’s gilded double doors.
The uh-oh look on their faces was priceless, but the ease with which they’d stopped the fight, including the ghosts, did startle me. That same ease could be used to kick it all back into motion and terminate us out of sheer spite—for we’d distracted them from their true mission, just as Taeral had suspected earlier.
The Reapers looked around, genuinely alarmed, until Baethal sighed as he glanced at the palace. “He’s in there, isn’t he?”
“You’re damn right he is,” Varga said, wearing a most satisfied smirk. I wasn’t sure that was the best attitude to display at this point, but, then again, if this was to be our last moment alive, we might as well go down as snarky as we could be.
A moment of silence passed, heavily pressing down our shoulders. My instincts were sharp, while my mind processed the flurry of possible scenarios from this point onward. I decided to gamble a bit, for lack of a better choice. “He’ll speak to Death now. There’s no point in trying to stop him,” I said.
“We wouldn’t be able to stop him, even if we wanted to,” Baethal replied reluctantly. “He’s inside the palace. We’re not allowed past the golden doors.”
“Oh?” I breathed, feeling my eyebrows arch with genuine surprise.
Wrik sighed, shaking his head in dismay. “Our entire mission was to stop Taeral from getting in. The rest of you don’t matter.”
“Whoa. Hurtful!” Fallon grunted as he got up, assisted by Varga and Eva. He grimaced from the pain likely flaring through his ribs.
“This was all about Taeral, just like he’d said,” I mused. “So, what now, if you’re not allowed in there?” I asked, nodding at the palace.
Baethal shrugged. “We’ll get severely reprimanded, most likely. And your friend will irritate our boss even more.”
“Severely reprimanded?” Nethissis replied, not sure whether she understood what that truly meant for a Reaper—a sentiment I shared.
“You don’t want to know,” Baethal said. “But rest assured, your friend’s mission isn’t going to be as smooth as he might think. Our boss won’t take kindly to him showing up unannounced. There are protocols one needs to go through in order to meet Death.”
“What protocols? Up until the other day we didn’t even know she existed as an entity.” I sighed.
Baethal grinned. “Exactly. That’s how impossible it should be to meet her. Man, when she finds out who gave her away, she’ll be so angry…”
“Hm, yeah, so… what do you say we get out of the hot radius?” Wrik asked him innocently.
“You know what? Not a bad idea,” Baethal replied.
Before any of us could react, all the Reapers vanished. It was quiet and still once more, the spirits fading away, unseen by those of us without scythes. It was a clear sign that we were no longer considered a threat, that it was too late for anyone to stop Taeral from what he’d set out to do.
Only, even as we breathed our collective sigh of relief, I worried. What if Death didn’t like Taeral going in there? What if something were