I draw a breath, drink in her face for a final time as though it is water, and I’m terribly parched.
“Good luck, then,” I say, and hold out my hand. “I’m Cecilia.”
As she places her hand in mine, I cannot remember the last time I experienced the simple greeting. “Anais,” she says. “And good luck to you, too, Cecilia.”
Anais continues past me. I watch her until she disappears into the fray. Such a strange world we live in, I think, and then I am back on the prowl.
I pull the hourglass hanging on a long gold chain out of my shirt and examine it. Before I left Rose, I calibrated it to the amount of time she had left in her hourglass. Minutes dwindle as grains of sand continue to fall. I pick up my pace and continue to scan the crowd.
I am just starting to believe I will never find what I am looking for when I spot a tent tucked along the edges of the Market, nestled amongst the shadows. There is nothing spectacular about it; on the contrary, it is rather plain in comparison to the sights that surround it. But once my eyes touch it, I cannot draw them away.
It is as if the plain white tent is calling to me, summoning me closer.
I head toward it in not quite a daze, but not quite not one, either. The sounds of the Market die around me as a soft, sweet humming captures my ears. The scent of bodies, roasting meats, and sugars dissipate until I can smell only lavender tea and something else I can’t put my finger on but enjoy nonetheless. The tent calls me forward, and forward I go.
Like Little Red Riding Hood, on her way to grandmother’s house, unsure what she will find inside.
7 3:25 p.m.
I push aside the tent flaps and step in.
My shoulders relax, and I draw a breath for the sake of it, not because my immortal body needs air, but because it seems to ease me to do so.
The interior is as plain as was the outside, but I am instantly comfortable here, and a small voice in the back of my head tells me that this fact alone should raise some alarm.
But it is hard to hear it over the sound of the soft humming.
The humming which now stops.
Sitting on a stool in the rear of the tent is an older woman, hair as silver as the moonlight and eyes as wise as time. Feathers hang from her ears, and her smooth skin is adorned with dull blue tattoos that climb up her arms and over her shoulders. Her head turns as I enter, chin jerking as might a bird’s. Her face is kind but strong. Her eyes scan the place where I stand, but I can tell she cannot see me.
She lifts a pair of peculiar, rimless glasses that hang on a silver chain around her neck, and places them upon her nose. Her head tilts again in that peculiar, birdlike way.
“Ah,” she says as she apparently sees me. “A reaper. How curious.”
“How are you?” I say, and it comes out sounding stupid, but I am way out of my element here, and trying not to show it.
The Abbah laughs heartily, and the low rumble of it is somehow comforting. “I’m well, child, thank you for asking… And, how, exactly, are you?”
Gods help me, but I want to cry. My throat tightens and I draw a slow breath. How long has it been since someone asked me that? I swallow.
“Not great,” I manage to say without cracking.
The Abbah gestures toward a stool near her own. I draw closer and take the offering, feeling relief as the weight relaxes off my feet, weight that is wholly imagined.
“An eternity collecting souls… How could you be great?” She croaks another laugh, but sobers fast, sharp eyes curious. “Tell Abbah what’s ailing you, dear.”
That small voice in the back of my mind whispers as the urge to spill my guts seizes me. The Abbah does not give without taking.
But, then again, perhaps everything in all the realms was a give and take, an equal and opposite reaction, a constant push and pull.
“I need to save a life,” I say.
The Abbah nods and crosses her legs, shifting her long skirts as toes adorned with silver rings flash before again disappearing. She tucks some of her long hair behind her ear, feathers swaying. “That is a conundrum, then, seeing as how you are only in the business of taking life.”
She sounds truly sympathetic, appropriately concerned. I remind myself that the creature before me has lived lifetimes longer than I; The stories about the Abbah dated back through the ages, a great many of them not all that pretty.
“Do you have what I need?” I ask.
The Abbah straightens, and I see a hint of respect in her gaze. Her head tilts and shifts, as though she is listening to whispers only she can hear.
“Of course I do,” she says.
I wait, fighting against the urge to relax entirely, to seep into a puddle at her feet and let her comb her fingers through my hair.
A crafty, ancient witch, the Abbah.
She smiles, flashing teeth a touch too large for her mouth, the expression just a bit too inviting for my liking. She reaches into the folds of her skirts and produces a vial.
Inside, an earthy green liquid shimmers and glows.
“A sip of this can stave off death,” she says, eyes glittering as she studies the vial, then looks back at me. “But there is no remedy for Fate.”
“What does that mean? Even if I save the person from death, they’ll only die in some other way?”
“It means only what I said. There’s no shaking Fate, child. Even for a reaper.” She laughs. I no longer find the sound soothing. “Perhaps especially for a reaper.”
The image of Rose and Kai in the bookshop flashes
