The Deal

Lily's last breath sounds like a whisper. Like she's telling me a secret.

I lean closer, holding her hand so tight my knuckles ache. "Stay with me. Please, Lily. Please."

But she's already somewhere else. Somewhere I can't follow.

The candles gutter. All of them, at once, like something just sucked the air from the room.

"We had a deal."

The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. Deep. Ancient. Cold in a way that has nothing to do with temperature.

I don't look up. I can't. Lily's fingers are still warm in mine. She's still here. She has to still be here.

"Look at me, Iris Kade."

My name in that voice sounds like a death sentence. Which, I suppose, is exactly what it is.

I raise my head.

He stands at the foot of her bed. Tall. Dark. A face like a theorem, every angle solved for beauty, none for warmth. His eyes are the color of old ash.

Death.

I knew he was real. I summoned him myself, three months ago, when the healers ran out of options and I ran out of hope. I offered him everything, my soul, my service, my eternity, all of it, in exchange for my sister's life.

He accepted.

And now she's dead anyway.

"You cheated."

The words leave my mouth before I can think better of them. My voice cracks, raw with grief, but the fury underneath burns steady.

He tilts his head. The movement is too slow, too deliberate. Not human. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." I'm standing now. When did I stand? "We had a deal. My soul for her life. My soul, which you claimed. Her life, which you were supposed to save."

"I was supposed to try." His voice carries no emotion. No defense. Just fact. "I did try. The disease was beyond even me."

"Then give me back my soul."

His face altered. Not interest, exactly. More the expression of a collector encountering an unfamiliar specimen. "That isn't how bargains work."

"I don't care how bargains work." I'm moving before I know what I'm doing, grabbing the candlestick from Lily's bedside table, the brass one, heavy, solid, and hurling it at his skull.

He catches it.

Of course he catches it. He's Death. He probably could have stopped it with his mind. But he doesn't. He plucks it from the air with the boredom of someone swatting a moth, and then he looks at it, and then he looks at me.

"Did you just throw a candlestick at my head?"

"I'll throw the whole table if you don't give me answers."

"You have answers. You simply don't like them." He sets the candlestick down on Lily's dresser. Gently. Like he's afraid to damage it. "The bargain was for my attempt. I attempted. I failed. Her disease has no name in mortal tongues because nothing mortal created it. It came from beyond, and beyond is not my domain."

"Then whose domain is it?"

"No one's. That's rather the point."

I want to scream. I want to break something. I want to tear this beautiful, terrible creature apart and see if death can die.

But Lily's hand has gone cold in mine.

I hadn't noticed I was still holding it.

"She's gone," I say. The words come out hollow.

"Yes."

"Because of something that shouldn't exist."

"Yes."

"And you couldn't stop it."

"No." A pause. His ancient face went briefly, terribly human. "I'm sorry."

I laugh. It's an ugly sound. "Sorry. Death is sorry. That's convenient."

"It isn't convenient at all. I haven't felt sorry in millennia. I'd forgotten what it tasted like." He studies me. "You're not afraid of me."

"Should I be?"

"Every mortal who has ever stood where you stand has begged or wept. You threw bronze at my skull."

"I buried my fear with my parents. What's left is just teeth." I look down at Lily. At her peaceful face, the way she looks like she's just sleeping. "I've already lost everything."

"Not everything." His voice drops lower. Softer. "Your soul is still forfeit. You're coming with me regardless of your feelings on the matter."

"To where? Hell?"

"I don't manage Hell. That's a different department." He almost sounds offended. "My realm is... simpler. Quieter. You would serve there until your term is complete."

"My term? I gave you my soul. That's supposed to be forever."

"Souls are not currency. They're more like... collateral. A soul freely given can be returned when the debt is paid." He tilts his head again, and this time I see something other than ancient apathy in his expression. Calculation, maybe. "Though your particular debt may require... renegotiation."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I have a proposal." He steps closer. The temperature in the room drops another ten degrees. "Your sister's soul is currently in limbo. A gray space between peace and suffering. Most souls pass through it quickly. Hers will linger because her death was unnatural."

My grip tightens on the bedpost. "How long?"

"Decades. Perhaps centuries. Time works differently there."

"That's not fair."

"Existence rarely is." Another step. He's close enough now that I could touch him if I wanted. I don't. "But I can move her. The blessed fields, where souls who deserve peace find it. She could rest there. Happy. Free."

"In exchange for what?"

"Seven years. Serve me for seven years, and when your term ends, your sister will have eternity in the light."

Seven years.

I don't know what serving death looks like. I don't know if I'll survive it. I don't even know if he's telling the truth.

But if there's a chance, any chance, that Lily won't spend centuries in gray nothing...

"If you're lying to me..."

"I don't lie. It's inefficient." He extends his hand. His skin looks like marble in the candlelight. "Do we have a bargain, Iris Kade?"

I look at Lily one last time. At my baby sister, who I raised when our parents died, who I protected from everything except the one thing that mattered.

I couldn't save her life.

Maybe I can save her soul.

I take his hand.

The cold burns. The world tilts. The last thing I see is Lily's room spinning away, replaced by endless dark.

"Welcome to eternity," Death says, and his voice echoes in the void. "This should be interesting."

I open my mouth to tell him exactly where he can put his interesting.

The dark swallows the words.