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you not have this under control, Anaya?”

A droplet of fear trickled down my spine. A warning. “Yes.”

“I can always count on you to do as you’re told.” Balthazar smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s a great comfort to me.”

I almost laughed. Almost. He said it like it was a choice. None of us were fooled. This was no democracy he was running.

“Can you tell me how much longer?”

“In a hurry?” He raised a brow.

“No, I mean how much longer until I can bring the boy in,” I said. “I’m eager to see Tarik.”

I was also eager to end this poor boy’s torture and give him the everlasting peace he deserved, but I didn’t say that. I was ready for this sick experiment of Balthazar’s to end.

“I know it seems cruel to you, but it is a process that is necessary for him to become what he has always been meant to be. And we can’t rush that process now that it’s started. What I wanted to know has been proven. But I can’t end a life and neither can you. This is a waiting game now. A game you are going to have to win. His body is expired. He will perish. In the meantime, you need to gain his trust. I need this situation to stay free of complications. Can I count on you for that?”

I nodded and twisted the hem of my dress in my hands. “Of course. But wouldn’t it be easier if you just told me what you wanted him for?”

Balthazar looked off into the horizon outside the one enormous window that dominated one wall.

The clouds parted at his command, and the frozen sunset set the fog on fire with an orange burst of color.

“Do you know what I don’t need, Anaya?” He raised an expectant brow. “I don’t need one of my most valued reapers in possession of knowledge that could very well get her dragged to the underworld for interrogation, then tossed aside as a chew toy for the demons of Hell. As your keeper, your commander, I am telling you to trust me. All will be revealed when the dangers have passed, but as of now, you are better off being kept in the dark. Do you understand?”

I simply nodded as I clutched my scythe. Fear washed through me, dousing my heat.

“Good.” He looked up and rubbed his chin. “Also, I thought I should warn you.”

“About what?” I stepped forward. The fog swam circles around my calves, leaving an icy imprint on my skin where my ankles were submerged. “There’s not a problem with my transition, is there? You promised when I was finished, that my debt would be paid. That I could cross.” I forced my lips to close around the rest of my words when he narrowed his gaze on me.

“A complication has arisen,” he said calmly. “Nothing to do with your… transition. It’s just something that’s going to make your job a little more difficult.”

I stepped back. How could this possibly get any more difficult?

“What is it?”

Balthazar sighed. “Another death, of course.”

He slid a gold tablet across the table toward me. His ledger. No one ever saw this ledger. And he was offering it to me like it was a boon. My eyes flitted up to meet his for assurance and he nodded for me to read. Letting my fingers rest a breath away from the tablet I began to drink in the words. Name after name. Death after death. I was just about to pull away when the familiar name made me stop. My fingers shook as I pulled them away and looked at Balthazar.

“No,” I said.

“Do I need to remind you how much I dislike that word?”

“But it’s not fair. It’s—”

Balthazar shot up from his chair and leaned across the table. His palms pressed into the glass. Frost began to crackle across the surface.

“Are you questioning me?” he growled.

I stuttered and took a step back, shaking my head. “N-no. Of course not.”

“Then I can trust you to handle this?”

I closed my eyes and images flashed behind my lids. This wasn’t right. On any level. But did I really have a choice? I opened my eyes and let them focus on Balthazar. The power rippled out around him like an electrical current.

“Anaya?” he said. “Do I need to have someone else deal with this?”

I rested my palm over my scythe when its heat began to wage a war with the cold surrounding me.

“No,” I said. “I can handle it.”

It wasn’t often that I found myself searching for Easton. That probably explained the look on his face when he melted up from the black cloud base beneath him to find me calling his name. He twirled his scythe between his fingers like it was a six-shooter and shoved it back into the black holster at his side as he walked over, grinning.

“You rang?”

“Yes,” I said. “I need your help.” Easton’s violet eyes widened when I gripped his duster and pulled him under the shelter of a shadow.

“Oh, God,” he groaned. “What did you do now?”

“Why do you automatically jump to the conclusion that I did something?”

“Because you either dragged me in here to make out, or you screwed up again and you need me to get you out of it.” He raised a brow at me and folded his arms across his chest. “Something tells me it’s the latter.”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out, so I closed it again, trying to come up with a way to make this sound less bad than it actually was. When I realized there wasn’t a way to explain it like that, I sighed. I tucked a braid behind my ear and averted my gaze. “Well, it certainly isn’t the first one.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Easton said. “So what is it this time?”

“He touched me, Easton. Touched me.”

“The human?” I nodded and Easton cursed under his breath and stalked away before coming back, eyes blazing. “I told you this would happen. Did you not learn anything from Finn’s mistakes?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! He touched me when I was in soul form, like it didn’t mean anything for him. He just laid his fingers on me and…forced me into corporeality. Do you have any idea how this is even possible?”

“Maybe.” Easton grabbed the back of his neck and looked around. “I’ve heard of something like this.”

“I’m not in the mood for a guessing game, Easton.”

“Well, I’m not in the mood to get caught in the middle of the shitstorm you’ve just created, Anaya,” he hissed.

Easton started to pace and I bit my lip to keep from snapping back. The serpent tattoo that covered the right side of his neck flashed, seeming angrier every second that he ignored his call. Black smoke rolled up from his scythe into the air around us. He was vibrating with the need to go. But he didn’t.

“You don’t have to…” I started, but he held his hand up.

“A shadow walker,” he said, his violet eyes cutting through the curtain of smoke between us. “It’s the only way he could’ve forced you into corporeality like that. That’s one of the reasons the guys upstairs and down go nuts if they get a whiff of one coming into existence.”

I blinked at him, watching the golden glow from my eyes clash with the black smoke dueling for dominance in the small space between us. Dark and light. There didn’t seem to be an in-between anymore since Finn was gone.

“A shadow walker?” I blinked at him, confused. Shadow walkers were rare. So rare, in fact, that I’d never seen one.

“A soul caught between life and death. Straddling the line,” he said. “Think about it, Anaya. It makes sense. He was dead and you brought him back. This…” He stopped pacing and shook his head.

“This is a real possibility.”

“But Finn…he brought Emma back. She’s fine. I see her practically every day and she’s not dodging shadow demons at every turn. How could Cash be one?”