1

AT IA

F ear tastes like spiced honey.

It’s thick and sweet as it moves across my tongue, and car-
ries a distinctly familiar warmth once it slides down my throat
and fills my empty belly.
“Atia,” Sapphir says in a frantic whisper. “Are you done yet?”
I shake my head and start to hum a little sea ditty I once over-
heard by the docks.
Sailors like singing, even if they should know better what kinds
of creatures it attracts.
“That melody is awfully sinister,” Sapphir says.
“I hope so,” I tell her.
She laughs and her fangs shine under the light of the moon.
“No wonder you don’t have any other friends.”
“I have plenty of friends,” I say. “They’re just all dead.”
Like my parents and the rest of my kind.
Sapphir’s laughter trickles over to me. “That doesn’t bode well
for me.”
I reach out a hand to the lake below, my fingers circling rip-
ples across the muddied water. “You’re already dead, Sapphir,” I
remind her.
Though not in any permanent way.
Vampires have that luxury. —-1
I sigh as the moon cascades over us, casting a cool glow on the —0

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 small fishing plank that overlooks the waters of this village. Its
splinters are damp enough to smell like rot. Behind us a for-
est of purple thorn trees lingers like a watchful audience, the
branches kissing a clouded winter sky that promises snowfall
come morning.
It is quiet and deserted, save for us.
“Well?” Sapphir presses. “Your kill or mine?”
I look down at the human, trembling between us.
The only fun I ever get these days is from tormenting them.
Humans who stumble from the one tavern this village of
Rosegarde has to offer, or those who sail across oceans and worlds,
seeking adventure.
It’s the adventure that I take. The hopes and the comforts—
things I can never truly have for myself—until fear is all that
remains.
And I like fear.
“I’m still feeding,” I say, as the man’s dread clings to the air.
Even seeing me in my human form, he’s scared.
The Nefas can change shapes with our whim, and while we can
appear human—perfect for inconspicuous hunting—in our true
form our hair is cast from moonlight, skin blue from the tears
we drink, and ears receding back in golden spirals. Our great
wings are made from thorn and bramble, tree-branch veined and
dressed with forest leaves.
When we fly, it sounds like screaming.
Like the nightmares we steal while the sun sleeps.
Now, though, I look like any human. The only exception being
my eyes, which turn white with magic when I feed.
-1— The man sobs beneath me, and I smile.
0—

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 The Nefas thrive on chaos and illusion, but for most centuries
we’ve stuck to nightmares. It’s safer to feed in the shadows.
That’s what my parents always taught me.
Fear is an easy meal to take while our prey sleeps, my father always
said. Do nothing to draw attention and risk the wrath of the Gods.
But I’ve never wanted to live my life rationed to the darkness
like they did. I want to bring my illusions out into the open.
Creating worlds from other people’s horrors is the only way I
know I’m real.
Besides, a girl needs a little fun.
“Please,” the human man begs, as he is surrounded by visions
of his greatest fears.
Spiders, crawling up his pant legs and down the crease of his
neck.
Earth, splattered on top of him, choking into his throat as he is
buried alive.
Conjuring them is like plucking flower petals. My mind reaches
into his, moving about memories and sifting through dreams
until I get to the root of what makes him shudder.
Then I pluck them out one by one and scatter them into the
world.
To him, it’s as real as anything.
His hair stripes white with fear.
“You must hurry and drain him already,” Sapphir says impa-
tiently. “I want my share, Atia.”
She’s always a little greedy when we hunt together.
It’s been three years, ever since I was fourteen and the man
who smelled like ash told me to run, run as fast as I could from the
screams of my parents. —-1
—0

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 Those years have spanned many villages and forests, but the
human realm is small and closed in, just five elemental kingdoms
making up the land. So my path has crossed with Sapphir’s more
than once.
The first time was far on the other side of the Earth Kingdom,
high in the reaches of the tree mountains. What I thought was
an excellent place to hide turned out to be Sapphir’s preferred
hunting grounds for unsuspecting campers.
She pounced down from high up in the branches with her teeth
bared, leaping onto my shoulders and sending me rolling down
a large hill.
I smacked my nose against a rock and the blood gushed onto
my shirt like a waterfall.
Sapphir sneered and licked her lips.
Then my scent caught the air and she wrinkled her nose.
“You’re not human,” she said, as if I needed reminding.
“And you’re not going to live past today if you do that again,”
I shot back.
I may have been young, but I didn’t have any fear left in me
after what I saw happen to my family.
Sapphir smiled, fangs like pure white daggers that grated
along her lips. She said: “Little monster, do you want to share
a meal?”
So we did.
We found a group of campers who’d come to forage, and we
delighted.
After we parted ways, we’d always find each other again, in new
towns and new forests. It’s almost like having a friend, except the
-1— only reason Sapphir hasn’t tried to kill me is because it would do
0— nothing to satiate her hunger, and the only reason I haven’t fed

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off her fear is because a monster’s fear doesn’t taste the same as
a human’s.
It’s more like a truce than a friendship, but I treasure it all the
same. Sometimes it’s nice to have company in the shadows, to
duet in torment.
To know that I don’t always have to be alone.
“I’m hungry,” Sapphir says.
Other times, like tonight, it’s nothing but an irritation.
“I know,” I tell her tightly.
She always is.
Sapphir likes to eat humans, like all vampires. And she won’t
simply drain their blood, as the old stories say. She eats every-
thing but the bones.
Even their toes.
I shudder a little at the thought.
I don’t think humans would taste very nice, all sweaty from the
day with dirt under their fingernails. Especially ones like this,
stinking of stale ale and someone else’s perfume.
Besides, killing is a surefire way to get cursed.
There are rules for the night and the things that crawl in the
shadows. There are even rules for the shadows. Monsters can
wreak havoc among humans and each other, feeding on fear or
sadness or blood.
But killing is forbidden.
The Gods and their Heralds put that rule into place centuries
ago, after the great war, when the God of Eternity was killed and
my kind were banished to this world. That’s why most vampires
just drain a little blood here and there. It keeps them under the
Gods’ radar. —-1
Not Sapphir. —0

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 She knows that breaking the rules comes at a price, the magic
that binds us shattering like glass, and she doesn’t care. It works
in different ways for different monsters, but for Sapphir it means
the youthful glow her vampirism should give her fades away.
She ages rapidly, looking like a teenager one day, then a woman
headed for the grave the next.
So Sapphir eats more often to quell it, the blood and hearts giv-
ing her back her youth, but after a time, the act of killing makes
her age again, even quicker.
So she feeds again.
Really, I’ve always thought Sapphir was quite the addict.
And one day she’ll wither beyond repair, her appetite not quick
enough to placate the Gods’ curse.
In the end, they always win.
“Are you finished now?” she presses.
The man’s body is racked with silent sobs.
He’s too scared to even scream.
I press my hand to his heart.
His fear thickens and I gulp down the last of its honey.
“It’s okay,” I promise him, twisting my voice to a lie. “It’s all
over now.”
I turn to Sapphir.
She’s crouched on the plank beside me, her stance like a wild
animal ready to attack. Her long fingernails curl into the rotting
wood, holding herself back the best she can.
I don’t know how old she truly is, but right now Sapphir looks
my age. Seventeen, with long black hair floating down her shoul-
ders in large curls. Even so, I see the streaks of gray beginning to
-1— appear, and on her beautiful brown skin a wrinkle creases the sides
0— of her eyes. Another dimples her chin and cuts across her cheeks.

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 She’s aging before me.
My chest tugs.
If Sapphir were to die, I would truly be alone again.
“Have your fun,” I say to her.
Sapphir’s fangs grow large with her smile.
“Wait, wait.” I hold up a hand and get to my feet, dusting the
lake dirt from my legs. “Let me leave first. I really don’t want to
watch.”
“It won’t last long,” Sapphir says.
Her eyes turn red with hunger and I quickly walk away, not
waiting for what comes next.
I’ve never had much taste for blood. Most monsters delight in
it, but I’ve always thought tearing people limb from limb is a little
overboard.
Chaos is so much more appealing than carnage.
Bones crack behind me and the man barely has the chance to
cry out before Sapphir screeches. The next sound I hear is the
gurgle of his blood in her mouth.
I shake my head and resist the urge to look back.
If she doesn’t hurry, the Heralds are going to catch her, and
they’d love nothing more than to curse her twice over.
I wave my arm and a gateway appears in front of me.
“Better her than me,” I mumble under my breath.
My gateway splinters through the forest trees, like a tear in the
papers of a book making way for the lines on the next page. It
glistens in bright blue light, brushing the nearest leaves from the
dirt floor and clearing a path for me to approach.
Opening a gateway is as easy as breathing. A quick inhale as I
picture where I want to go, and then a sigh parting my lips as I —-1
blow new worlds into view. —0

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 My father said the Nefas used to be able to hop in and out
of dimensions—from the land of the Gods to the land of the
humans—until they were kicked out of Oksenya. When the Gods
threw them to the mortals, they stifled their powers.
I think that’s what destroyed the others over the centuries.
Destroyed their spirits, long before the Gods hunted them to
their deaths.
But I never lived in Oksenya to know any different. As the only
Nefas to be born here, my gateways have only ever led to places
within the human realm.
I step toward my gate, ready to make my way home, when the
sound of wind chimes fills the air.
I hear Sapphir growl and curse loudly at the interruption of
her meal, but by the time I turn around, she’s already scurried
into a nearby brush of trees, leaving the broken body behind.
She’s quick, I’ll give her that.
The world creaks and I narrow my eyes.
I watch the shadows beside the dead man’s feet wither. They
shrink into themselves and then grow taller, coming out from the
ground and up into the world.
They mold themselves into a human form.
At first it’s just smoke in the shape of wings, with thin legs and
long arms jutting out from black feathers. Then a body takes
shape.
A face.
A boy.
A Herald of the Gods.
He hovers over the dead man and sighs.
-1— He looks young, I think. Though I know he isn’t.
0—

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 His face is sharp and soft at once, high round cheekbones set
against an angular jaw. He shrugs his shoulders and the feathered
wings that engulfed his body shrivel into a small gold tie pin on
his chest.
He’s dressed all in black, with a waistcoat tight against his slim
frame and an overcoat hanging from his shoulders. His hair is just
as dark against his narrow, hooded eyes, which echo a muted gray.
Though his skin is bright and alive, pale as starlight.
The only hint of color on him is from the pocket watch that
hooks over the buttons of his waistcoat and hangs delicately at
his side.
The Herald peers over the body, taking a moment to assess.
Then he turns to me.
“Monster of mischief,” he says.
Like I’ve just made his day longer.
I should leave.
Turn back to my gate and disappear to the small room atop the
tavern that I’ve called home these past weeks. The last thing I
need is to give the Gods an excuse to turn on me.
Yet I stay, watching the Herald as intently as he watches me.
“Vampire?” he asks, his voice cutting through the air like a
blade. “It doesn’t look like your handiwork.”
I don’t reply.
Heralds are meddlers by trade. Not just in human affairs,
but the affairs of monsters. Stupid little messengers delivering
decrees and punishments, or guiding the souls of the dead into
the After, thinking it makes them all-powerful because they work
directly for the Gods.
There is nothing I have to say to him. —-1
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 “It’s against the rules to kill humans, you know,” the Herald
says, more to himself than to me. “But I guess you’ve never had
a taste for rules.”
He kneels down beside what’s left of the man’s body, paying no
more attention to me.
“Out you come,” he says, voice husky and almost bored. “It’s
over now.”
I frown, as his words echo mine so closely.
I’d told the dead man that same thing, before he became a dead
man.
The light across his body shimmers in response to the Herald,
gathering in an orb at his heart. A glow of hope and a bright,
bright future lost.
It expels in a firework of light, exploding into form.
The man, ghostly and translucent, looks down at what he once
was.
The Herald pushes himself to his feet. He turns to me with
those curious dead eyes.
“Nefas,” he says. “You should be careful of the company you
keep. Another Herald might try to blame you for this. Then you’d
face the Gods’ wrath as those before you have.”
At this, I laugh.
The idea of him threatening me is the funniest thing I’ve heard
in years.
I tilt my chin high; his threat rolls off me like rainwater.
I won’t cower as my parents did.
“Another Nefas might kill you for suggesting that.”
The Herald’s smile is slow and cutting. “There are no other
-1— Nefas,” he says.
0— Like I wasn’t aware.

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 Like I haven’t spent the last three years alone, and the years
before that forced to hide and bend to the shadows.
“The Gods wouldn’t kill me,” I challenge. “The last of a race is
a precious thing.”
The Herald’s eyebrows lift, like he finds this amusing. If I didn’t
know what stiffs his kind were, I’d swear he wanted to laugh.
“Is that what you think?” he asks. The dead man’s soul flickers
beside him. “That you’re precious? That the Gods would ever
covet a monster?”
I’m precious enough not to be killed, I think.
After all, they let me go once before.
“Enjoy guiding your soul, cursed little messenger.” I turn from
him and back to my gate. “I imagine it won’t be the last errand
you’ll have to run today.”
“Enjoy your time, monster of mischief,” he calls back to me. “I
imagine it’ll soon run out.”
I ignore him. The words of a Herald have no power over me.
Whatever this shadow boy thinks, he’s wrong. The Gods
wouldn’t turn on me when I haven’t broken any rules.
My gateway flares before me, pulling me inward, and I step
into it without hesitation. Without looking back at the two dead
things behind me.
I let it swallow me whole and whisk me away from the night.

—-1
—0

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 2

S IL AS

I ’ve been dead—then a guide for the dead—for an eternity.

Or at least it feels that way.
I wait with the dead man and regard his body.
It’s not the worst I’ve seen.
He lies flat on the fishing plank, eyes wide and still in terror.
His neck is red, a chunk of flesh hanging loosely from his jugular.
The vampire didn’t have time to do much past killing him.
If I was any later, he would’ve been strewn across the ground
in pieces.
Now that would have rocked this tiny village of Rosegarde and
made certain the residents locked themselves in their homes for
months, barricading their doors and stapling garlic over their
window ledges.
They’d start selling stakes at the local store and preparing their
pitchforks.
It’s the same routine whenever a monster breaks the rules.
Humans gather; they riot. They tread carefully for as long
as it takes them to convince themselves they’ve scared away
whatever monster dared cross into their village. And then they
forget.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times.
-1— Not just in Rosegarde, but in many places within my territory.
0— Each Herald has a territory. We work as messengers for the

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Gods, conveying their decrees and curses to the monsters of the
land. And on behalf of Thentos—the God of Death—we also
guide souls to the After or the Never.
You’d think with all that interaction we’d be quite person-
able, but none of us work well in teams. So we broke off pieces
of the world and divided them among ourselves. The moun-
tains, the seas, the scraps of land that hover between.
All of it sectioned into tidy little territories so we can be
responsible for our own monsters and messes.
What I wouldn’t give to travel this world, to not be confined
to one piece of land. To one kingdom. To Rosegarde and all the
other tiny villages just like it that I patrol in and out of.
Existing, but never doing anything so bold as living.
I wonder if I traveled back when I was a human. I could’ve been
an adventurer or a pirate for all I know, sailing the seas from the
Fire Kingdom to the Alchemy Kingdom, pilfering from wealthy
landowners who hoarded their gold and magic.
Then again, I could have also been a librarian.
I check my pocket watch and then ensure I have the obol coin,
marked with the face of one of the three High Gods. The Charon’s
boat will be here soon, to ferry this man across the death shores
and toward his afterlife, and he will require payment.
The same routine, every time.
“Must we go?” the man asks.
I’ve already done the hard job of explaining that he’s dead, but
next is trying to convince him not to be so angry about it.
Sometimes, that’s easier said than done. Not all souls go peace-
fully. Most want to cling to their humanity. I understand the urge.
If I could remember anything about my past, I’d cling to it too. —-1
“We must,” I tell him, as firmly as I can. —0

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 I’m in no mood to bargain.
“The one with the white hair,” the man says. “Every fear that
sprang to my mind invaded the world when she touched me.
How is that possible?”
The Nefas.
Monsters of mischief and illusion, devourers of fear and night-
mare, so troublesome that the Gods threw them to the mortal
realm over two hundred years ago and wiped their trace from
every page of every story they could find.
Most of them were cursed and killed in the first decade of
being sent here. I’d heard of a couple surviving, but as far as I
knew, they were taken care of years ago.
I guess one slipped through the cracks.
And now she’s here, in the Earth Kingdom.
In my territory.
It’s just my luck.
“I thought her hair looked more silver” is all I say to the dead
man. “And believe me, I’m not happy about her being here
either.”
I flip my pocket watch closed and tuck it back into my waistcoat.
All the territories in all the world and I have to get the one
filled with monsters who don’t follow the rules.
The water beyond us ripples, and I see the carcass of a boat
come into view. It’s small and unassuming, the wood rusted and
burned with age. Its smoky oars slip in and out of the water on
their own.
Each billow from them darkens the river, transforming it
into the death currents that’ll take this man’s soul to where it
-1— deserves.
0— If a person is good, they go to the After.

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 If they’re bad, their soul is banished to the Never.
And if they fall too close to the middle, they might just end up
like me. A Herald, forced to serve the Gods.
I don’t remember anything about my past, but I know this: All
Heralds are humans who weren’t good enough for the After or
bad enough for the Never. My fate was balanced and so I am sen-
tenced to serve until it can be swung one way or the other.
My past was taken from me. Every memory. Every ounce of
pain or joy. They even took my true name.
One hundred years of service. That’s how long I have to wait
until I can earn the chance to move on to the After and regain my
memories.
I’m only halfway through, but it feels like it’s been an age.
Sometimes I get a low, twisted pull in my heart that makes me
think I’ll be stuck this way forever.
“The girl with the white hair,” the man says, as the boat docks
beside us. “What is she really?”
What is she? I think.
She’s a creature of night and shadow. A thing that wears
humanity like a mask to lull her prey in close. And she does it
well. I could barely see her true self flicker beyond it. Her wings,
unused, shedding feathers like black snowfall as she stepped
through her gateway.
The Last of the Nefas.
“She’s a monster, just like all the others,” I tell him. “She’s not
special.”
I nod to the boat as it rocks gently against the riverbed, beck-
oning the man forward.
“It’s time,” I say. —-1
I lead him onto the boat, and it steadies as soon as his feet —0

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 touch the wood, settled as it hooks onto his soul. Then I do what
I always do. What I’ve done for so many years and what I’ll have
to do for so many more: I help ferry his soul across the shores and
to the River of Death.
I take him to the one place I wish I could go.
Giving him the destiny I want so badly for myself.

abb
I flick through the dead man’s file from earlier, ready to add it to
the Library of Souls. Which is just a fancy term for a filing cabi-
net in a room of blue-gray that stretches eons long.
It lies deep within the sorting zone, which is about as exciting
as it sounds. At the mouth of the River of Death, it’s a realm mas-
querading as a building. A half space caught between the dead
and the living that only we can access.
And every time I come here, it looks new.
Sometimes I can’t put my finger on what it is, but there’s always
a vague sense of change. A lantern might flicker differently, or
a corridor might shape itself to the latest dead human’s whim.
Sometimes the floors will turn from marble to river water, slick-
ing across my shoes.
It all sounds magical and exciting until you have to navigate
the same damn corridor one hundred different ways just to put
someone’s file to rest.
Besides, however much this place shifts, there’s no denying the
gray tint it always has. Or that morbid musk I can never quite get
out of my suits.
-1— “One more down,” I say.
0—

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 I stamp the man’s file with the word delivered and then light a
match to char the edges closed.
It’s the same routine, all day every day.
If it wasn’t for my immortality, I’d probably die of boredom.
I think about filing it under D for damn, I’m sick of this, but I
remember the dead man saying his name was Jared Mores, and
since he was also torn apart by a vampire, I start to feel bad.
Knowing someone’s name always makes it hard to have any fun
in this place.
I slip the file under M for Mores and pat myself on the back for
being a good little Herald who always does as he should.
Well done, Silas. Gold star for you.
Only when I push his drawer closed, my hand lingers. My own
file is down here somewhere, lost to the endless rows.
I pull open a drawer at random and pick out a file I don’t rec-
ognize, tearing the char to flick through its pages.
Would I know my true name if I came across it?
I steel myself and close my eyes, moving my hand from side to
side and across the drawers until one brings an uneasy feeling in
my stomach.
I open my eyes and curve my fingers around the handle, won-
dering if maybe—
“It’s not in there,” a voice says.
A figure pokes out from a nearby drawer.
The Keeper of Files.
He crawls from the cabinet, gray limbs fluid as his hands slick
around the drawer to lever himself back to the floor. His suit is
tinted green and bunches up over his head, where no clear line
draws between his neck and his chin. —-1
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 He is a solid blob of a creature, no more than half my size.
A creature of riddles.
“You won’t find it,” he says, as I begin to walk away. His voice
drifts through the room like a taunt. “At least, not in the places
you’d think to look.”
I turn back to him. “How do you know where I’d look?”
“Your name would be a good start,” he says. “But since you
can’t remember it, you wouldn’t think to look there.”
I hold back my glare. “I guess you’d know what my real name
was?”
“I’m the Keeper of Files. You’re a file. Yes, yes, I remember.”
“Don’t suppose you’d tell me?” I ask, trying my luck.
The Keeper of Files tugs his lips upward in a cracked smile.
“Heralds are not meant to consider their service so woefully, young
boy of old worlds. That’s why their memories are wiped. You are
in this play now, so you must perform your lines with gusto. Yes,
yes, play the part!”
I arch an eyebrow. “So that’s a no to telling me about my past,
then?”
When the Keeper doesn’t blink for a good minute, I realize I’d
be better off talking to a brick wall.
You’re supposed to be atoning for your sins, Silas, not trying to remember
them, I remind myself.
I should be focused only on my service. Being a Herald is not
about me. It’s about the word and will of the Gods that must be
conveyed.
Blah, blah, blah.
That spiel is the first memory I have: waking up in the sorting
-1— zone surrounded by thick curtains and a man in a purple suit
0— telling me I had a sin to make amends for and that I must serve

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the Gods until my fate is decided. Then he pressed a dagger into
my hand and told me it would help to keep the villains at bay.
I later found out it was Thentos himself, God of Death.
On the few occasions I’ve spoken to other Heralds, they recall
their first day as hazy. A blur of etiquette and edicts they scarcely
remember the specifics of, but I remember every detail.
Most of all, how every strange thing Thentos said didn’t feel
so strange at all. His words and instructions—even the damn
suit he was wearing—felt like a dream I’d already had, a dozen
times over.
Only of course it wasn’t.
Dreams imply the possibility of waking up and I’ve never
woken up from this.
“Since you’re here, I need you to do me a favor,” I say to the
Keeper now, straightening my tie as if it’ll straighten out my
priorities. “Convey a message to the Gods. Let them know that
I encountered a Nefas in the Earth Kingdom, in the village of
Rosegarde. They may want to keep an eye on her. She seemed the
type to cause trouble.”
I almost feel jealous of that.
How fun it would be to cause a little trouble every now and
again.
“You saw a Nefas?” the Keeper of Files asks.
The curiosity in his tone doesn’t go amiss, but there was noth-
ing peculiar about the monster to report beyond her existence.
Not including her arrogance, of course.
But then all monsters are arrogant. They all think they’re some-
thing special when really they’re just nameless creatures, whose
mess I have to tidy up and whose curses I have to relay when they —-1
inevitably break the rules. —0

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 Nameless.
That thought makes me wonder.
Most monsters prefer distinct scratching on the forest floors or
some other calling card to set them apart, but that Nefas . . . the
way she regarded herself.
I bet she has a name.
I wonder what it tastes like.
“How impressive to escape a Nefas unharmed!” the Keeper of
Files says.
I shrug. “That isn’t saying much, since I can’t die.”
He grins. His teeth are filed to points. “Lived to tell the tale but
you want me to tell it instead,” he says. “I imagine the higher-ups
are interested in what you have to say.”
Higher-ups?
I almost laugh at the idea.
The High Gods who rule the blessed realm of Oksenya never
leave it, and the River Gods who protect them rarely abandon
their positions.
Instead, we get our messages right here in the sorting zone.
Whenever the Gods have something for us to pass on, it appears
in our respective pigeonholes as a small quill, with purple flower
petals for feathers. Only when we put the pen to sacred parch-
ment does the message write itself, ready for us to relay.
That’s not going to change because of one little Nefas.
“If the Gods want any further information, they know where to
find me,” I say. “Here. As always.”
The Keeper of Files clucks at my wry tone. “You’ll do well to
remember who you are,” he says. “Yes, yes, try your best.”
-1— The seriousness in his voice almost makes me chuckle.
0—

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 Remembering who I am is the one thing I can’t do and this
creature knows it. I’d kill to even remember my real name.
Silas is a name I saw carved on a headstone during my very first
visit to a cemetery. I took it for myself to make sure I don’t forget
that I’m somebody to be remembered too, even if I don’t know
who that somebody is.
You can’t forget yourself if you have a name.
A place like this swallows people up, turning them into mind-
less servants until their one hundred years are up.
It won’t happen to me if I keep ahold of that.
Silas. Silas. Silas.
“Did the Nefas say anything to you?” the Keeper of Files asks.
I raise an eyebrow. “Anything like what?”
“Monsters whisper many things.” The Keeper taps a nearby
file drawer with a spindled finger, the sound like a ticking clock.
“Betrayal and woe and curses.”
Each word is punctuated by the drum of his long fingers.
“Curses,” I repeat, thinking back to the encounter.
Cursed little messenger.
That’s what the Nefas had called me. And she wasn’t exactly
wrong.
“Not that such things are of interest to me,” the Keeper says
quickly. “Not in my play. Not in my lines. My only interest is the
files and nothing more.”
He stretches his arms across the various drawers in a hug.
As though he didn’t start this conversation in the first place.
Still, it makes me think.
Every monster who breaks the rules and takes the life of a
human is cursed by the Gods. Only, the great secret that the —-1
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 monsters of the world don’t know—and that only we as Heralds
are privy to—is that the rules can be broken.
The Gods’ curse isn’t without flaws. It has rules, as all magic
must.
A counter-magic, to ensure there is always balance.
If a monster wants to break their curse, they must absorb the
blood and power of three formidable beings: a vampire—to
attain their chance at new life; a banshee—to claim their daunt-
ing; and a God—to regain their magic. And of course, drink from
the River of Eternity, to reclaim their immortality.
Lucky for them.
I wish there was a hidden solution to unbind me from my fate,
but for Heralds there’s no such loophole.
Besides we can’t kill.
Not even vampires or banshees. If any Herald were to try, we
would be struck down in flames and erased from the world.
The Keeper of Files opens a drawer and then crawls inside.
“Why do you think you can’t accept your duties like the other
Heralds?” he asks, his voice muffled by the files he roots around
in. “Why do you think you are strange?”
I pause at the question.
Truthfully, I’m not sure. It would be easier if I could accept my
duty, but the gnawing in my heart is inescapable.
If I ever slept, it would keep me awake.
“I don’t think I’m meant to be like this,” I say.
“You believe the Gods made a mistake when they turned you
into a Herald.”
It is not a question.
-1— “I just know that I don’t belong here.”
0— The Keeper of Files pops his head out of the drawer and

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blinks for the first time. “A Herald can only be unmade by the
God of Death, and memories can only be unmade by the God of
Forgetting,” he says.
I smirk. “Thanks, but I don’t think pleading with a God for my
life back will work.”
“Not plead with,” he answers, gaze sharpening. “Why, you
could simply absorb their power to use for your own, then make
or unmake yourself ! What fun!”
I grimace at his cavalier suggestion of treachery.
The Keeper of Files has always had an odd sense of humor.
“Gods don’t die by mortal blades,” I remind him, brushing the
suggestion off. “I guess I’ll have to pass on trying to murder one.
But thanks for the tip.”
The Keeper of Files merely gestures to my belt, where my
dagger is fixed. Two snakes loop around the blade, their tongues
hissing at a handle shaped like wings.
My gift from Thentos when I first became a Herald.
To keep the villains at bay.
“Is that a mortal blade?” he asks.
His eyes do not leave mine.
I grit my teeth in place of gripping the dagger.
“I’m no killer.”
He cocks his head to one side. “How would you know?”
I glower.
I don’t need the reminder that my past is a mystery, or that I
could have done something truly awful to deserve the hand of
fate I’ve been dealt, but I’m a Herald now.
And Heralds can’t kill, even if we wanted to.
That blade is for defense only. —-1
So get someone to use it for you, a voice in my head says. —0

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 I nearly snort at the thought.
What being, monster or otherwise, would be desperate enough
to help me kill a God and steal back my life?
“If treachery is rejected, then I think I’m bored,” the Keeper of
Files tells me, snapping me back to reality. “Don’t hurt yourself
overthinking. And remember, your service is appreciated. It will
be for an eternity.”
He leans down to whisper.
“But shhh, don’t tell anyone I told you that.”
I adjust my tie, making sure the winged pin that allows me to
travel through the world is perfectly straight.
“There is no eternity in my contract,” I correct him. “I’ve
served fifty years and I only have another fifty until I’m free.”
The Keeper of Files tilts his head, studying my neatly pressed
suit. “Eternities are ever changing.”
Not mine, I think sharply.
I won’t allow it.
I could not handle another clump of seemingly indefinite
years, relaying the Gods’ every whim alongside so many Heralds
waiting for their chance at redemption.
Unquestioning. Unliving.
So do something about it, that voice in my head says. Find your
loophole.

-1—
0—

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