A Shadow in the Reaping

"You had a seizure," Ediye says, her voice quiet and soothing. I roll my tongue across my teeth and try to cleanse a fucking awful taste from my mouth.

What ungodly beast took a shit in my mouth? I write.

Ediye looks a little relieved by my note and almost smiles. She passes me a cup of warmed blood and nods to a second mug and a teapot that waft rank steam into the air. "It's a mix of ferula asafoetida and some other herbs I had on hand. It seemed to help."

Great. Here's hoping it doesn't happen again. Cheers.

Ediye watches as I take a sip of the blood and hang my pounding head. The fever still rages. Sweat still mists my skin. The numbness has receded from my fingertips but I feel weak, like just casting my hand across the page takes more strength than I have.

Thank you, Ediye. They would have kept going if you hadn't shown up. 

"What do you mean?"

Something about 'waiting for the witch serum to take effect.' Then following it with a wolf serum. They wanted to make me into a hybrid weapon and use me against the Shadow Realm. It would somehow transform my venom into Angelwing poison, among other 'upgrades' I guess. 

"Angelwing? You would... produce it?.."

I nod. My hand begins to tremble again and I feel the pins prodding at my eyes once more. I snap my fingers and point to the cup that contains the ass-smelling herbs. Ediye passes it over and I take a long drink and grimace, but the stabbing pain subsides, the tremor stops in my hand.

Ediye watches with a thoughtful, pensive frown. "Maybe that's what's going on with your body, Lu. Whatever process they started, it has begun but is incomplete. This witch serum is doing something, obviously. But maybe your body needs whatever is supposed to come next in order to stabilize."

Not fucking happening. You didn't see the hybrid's dick. It was abnormally huge. What if it makes my labia into a parachute? 

Ediye smirks and runs her hand across my cheek. "Though I'm glad they didn't steal your fucked-up sense of humour, we really need to figure out what's happening to you and stop it before it gets worse. The apothecary I told you to see in Cairo, did you meet him?"

I nod.

"Good. He's partial to vampires. We'll go to him, he might be able to help," she says, standing over me as I remain seated on the floor. She grabs a cushion from her couch and guides me down until my head rests on the pillow. "Stay here, try not to move. I'll gather what I need to make a portal."

I nod and close my eyes. I listen to the sounds of Ediye fleeting through the kitchen, opening cupboard doors and muttering reminders to herself. I hear the pestle grinding fragrant herbs against the mortar.

"Need pine needles," Ediye says as she walks past me and opens the front door. I hear her footfalls bounce down the porch. I know she'll walk to the right side of the house where a pine tree shades her bedroom from the afternoon sun.

A few moments later I hear footsteps climb the stairs.

But they aren't Ediye's footsteps.

These are slow, the steps firm but not heavy. The point of each heel strikes the floor with finality. Sulphur wafts toward me on the breeze of the open door.

"Leucosia," a voice purrs.

I groan but no sound comes.

"You have seen better days."

I open my eyes as Ember bends down toward me.

"Do not worry, your witch is fine," she says, smiling her sweet and poisonous grin. Her eyes make a slow path from my sweat-drenched hair to my bloodied boots and back again. "You really look terrible."

I give her my middle finger. My attempt to keep it from shaking with rage and sickness is futile. The needling pain pokes my eyes and I reach for my cup of Ediye's concoction. Ember watches with fierce interest as I take a sip and suppress the urge to toss it into her face.

A faint smile lifts the corner of Ember's mouth. "They started with you, didn't they. But they didn't finish." A small and wistful laugh escapes past her lips. "I am impressed. I only asked for you to bring the knowledge of how to make the weapon back to me. Not to become the weapon."

Fuck you, I mouth.

"Don't worry, we will figure it out and finish what they started," she says as she curls her hand around my upper arm and hauls me to my feet.

Two unfamiliar Reapers enter the room and Ember turns her head without taking her eyes from mine.

"Bring this potion and the witch, then burn the house to the ground," she says to them. "We're going home to the Shadow Realm."

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Chapter 33

"This place is fucked up," Ediye says to me in a low voice as a black carriage emerges from the fog, pulled by a line of souls. The chains dangling from their necks clank as they slacken and the carriage draws to a halt.

Tell me about it, I think as I look over with a weary half-smile. Her grip across my shoulder tightens.

There's a tug on the glowing chain wrapped around Ediye's throat. It's a warning from the guard that stands behind us, tethered to the other end: don't try anything stupid. Not that she could with an enchanted obsidian chain tied around her neck to mute her power. The guards don't even bother to bind me. I'm in no state to threaten anyone.

The carriage door swings open and Ember is the first to enter. Ediye and I are pushed forward by the Reaper guards behind us, Ediye entering next to pull me up with her. The guards follow and shut the door behind us as the carriage lurches forward.

"It's good to be back, don't you think, Lu?" Ember asks as she crosses her legs and regards me with a coy and devious smile. I give her my middle finger. Her smile widens.

I look away, watching the fog outside the window as we pass through the veiled streets of the Shadow Realm. I want to ask Ember a thousand questions about Ashen. I want to ask if he's okay, if he's awake. If he's injured or in pain. If he's safe, as safe as anyone can be here in this place. I want to know if he's tried to come for me, even though the corridor of his estate was still closed when we arrived there with Ember. She must have come another way. Maybe she was already in the Living Realm. Watching. Waiting.

Ashen's voice in my memory pulls a tight cord across my heart. If you're trapped in the Realm of Light, I will still find you. I close my eyes and lay my head on Ediye's shoulder, replaying those words in my mind, imagining the warmth of his touch on my skin. My heart is as sick as the rest of me, I think. I drift to the brink of sleep but it's an island I never reach in a dark and desolate sea.

It feels like every second is a minute, every minute an hour. Our carriage lumbers a winding path through the fog and twilight. Sweat still coats my body in a slick film. The numbness in my fingers comes and goes. Sometimes, the pins return to press on my eyes, but there are no seizures to follow in the confines of the black carriage.

Ediye taps my hand and I force my eyes open. It feels like it takes a lot of strength to do so. The thought crosses my mind for the first time that I might not just be sick. I might be dying. When I look at Ediye I can tell that the same thought is already embedded in her brain like a thorn. Her brow creases. I hear the erratic rhythm of her heart as her anxiety climbs. She tries to give me a reassuring smile but it comes out fake, like it's been painted on.

"Have you seen that before?" she asks, pointing to the window. The fog is less pervasive here. I can see for a distance. We're on a long bridge over a bay of black water that seems too thick and oily. The waves move u