Page 100 of Veil of Death and Shadow

“In the medical center. Very sick,” I said, as if that alone proved my point, “though we don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“I don’t know, Agony,” Kieran ran his thumb over my calf, though I wasn’t sure he was doing it consciously, “sounds like bad luck and coincidence to me. Nothing more than that.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that a lot. Sora’s been trying to convince me of as much since I confessed the fear to her.” I shrugged. “But whether it’s bad luck or something else, I’d rather not risk it.”

“If it helps,” he said, his eyes narrowed as they focused on mine, “I was honest last night. I’ve never heard of someone having a death curse. And death is sort of my industry.” He winked. “Some might even call me an expert, in fact.”

“You’ve said yourself that after The Undoing, you’ve hardly kept up with how much the world has been changed by magic,” I said. “So how could you know? Maybe curses and omens appeared in the epilogue of your life, not the meat of it.”

“But this supposed curse has chased you long before The Undoing, hasn’t it?”

True. There was something about having undeniable evidence though—magic was real—that just solidified the thereness of the curse. “Yes, but magic existed before The Undoing. The Undoing simply revealed what was always there. Made it incontrovertible.”

“Sure.” He dropped his hand over the rim of the hammock, letting his fingers trail over—and through—the blades of grass. “Sounds a bit like you want to believe in the curse though. That you want it to be true.”

I sat up straighter. “Why would I ever want that?”

“Gives you an excuse to keep people at arm’s length, doesn’t it?”

I blinked, breaking the hold of his stare.

“It’s strange though,” he continued. “You speak of death as if it’s a person. As if it’s alive.”

I narrowed my eyes and nodded, though I couldn’t bring myself to expand on that. To put into words that I knew I was right. That I’d met Death, seen him with my own eyes—caught between a dream and reality, in the cracks and crevices where a memory started to blur. That I knew him to have dark hair and amber eyes, and a crooked mouth built for taunting.

I’d just never been able to say the words out loud, as if giving them voice would make them irrefutable.

Until then, Death could exist in some liminal space, where he was perhaps less powerful.

“So,” Kieran continued, his eyes sparkling with so much life that it was hard to remember that he was dead, “if we assume Death is a person—and, you know, also real,” he tipped his chin down playfully, “don’t you think it would be a bit below their pay grade to spend their time haunting some girl, cutting off her connections, one by one, until she’s left all alone? For the sake of what—cruelty? Boredom? It’s just—and don’t take this the wrong way, Agony,” he squeezed my calf, “but this theory of yours seems a bit self-involved, don’t you think? To assume someone with that kind of power over the world would use it to torment a young girl before she’s even born.”

He was teasing me, that much was clear. But there was also something in the way he spoke so plainly about the absurdity of the curse that eased something inside of me I’d never been able to ease on my own.

Not since the days when Amto Amani would hush my fears and couch them in what she always assumed them to be—manifestations of grief, a pain so amorphous that I couldn’t contain it. And so, I let it bloom and blossom—into a being so unwieldy I could never shake myself loose of it.

Maybe it was because Kieran was dead. If anyone could speak of death, could slash through the truth of it all, it would be him.

Whatever the case, I leaned back in the hammock, watching the web of leaves high above us, as a small sliver of a life-long tension started to unknot and unfurl itself, before it slowly seeped from my body.

17

MAREENA

Present Day

“You’re not seriously going to follow me tonight, are you?” I whisper-yelled from the corner of my mouth, trying not to attract too much attention to the fact that I was talking to myself. Luckily, the street was mostly empty.

“Like I said,” Kieran’s lips twisted into a dark grin, “you’re my charge. I’m tethered to you until my work is done. Even if you’re on a date.”

“It’s not a date,” I said, patting the invisible wrinkles from my skirt as a couple across the street shot me an odd look. “It’s dinner with a friend.” After another quick look at the couple, I relented, no longer caring if strangers thought I was talking to myself. Odder things had happened in the last few years, and I didn’t know them. “I thought after our conversation earlier that this might be a good idea—that maybe this would fix the,” I gestured abstractly in his direction, “you know, situation.”

“Situation being,” he arched his brow, “that you’re being tailed by a devastatingly good-looking guardian, you mean?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He smirked. “Didn’t have to.”

“You’re insufferable.” I shook my head. “Maybe I should cancel. Reschedule for another time.” Sora hadn’t been at the apartment when we’d returned. Other than a hastily scrawled note taped to the front door of Frank’s alerting our customers that we’d be closed for the evening, but that breakfast service would start as usual, she hadn’t left word of where she was. “It’s not too late to get something together for the dinner service.”

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