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 My breath caught in my throat.

Caito's white robe was almost ethereal against the blue hues of the nightmarish arena, his hands calmly clasped behind his back. 

In my mind, the clock had struck twelve. Now I was faced the consequences forced promise to save Death.

"I must say, I am profoundly impressed with your efforts, Faith Williams," Caito said, taking a step toward Ace and me. "I thought I might find you torn to a thousand pieces by the warp of the Unknown."

"I appreciate the strong confidence in me," I drawled sarcastically.

Ace looked between me and Caito, confused. "And you are?" he asked Caito.

Caito's posture grew rigid and almost military like as he acknowledged Ace with a cold look.

 "Caito. Guardian of the Unknown."

He really loved that title of his.

Ace's eyes swept over Caito's figure. "There is no Guardian of the Unknown."

"It is self-proclaimed." Caito smiled, although it didn't reach his eyes, before turning his body slightly toward Ace. "I was wondering when we might cross paths in this realm, Kalace."

"I didn't know I had a fan," Ace quipped. "Would you like an autograph?"

"Ace," I muttered, the graveness of this situation giving me anxiety. "He's here for me."

Ace laughed. "Is he, now?"

"Yes, I am," Caito answered. "We had a deal. And you would be wise to stay out of it." Caito snapped his fingers, and suddenly the large coin he had given me appeared in his hand, although it appeared smaller now.

"You're telling me that giant ass hockey puck you made me carry was a normal coin all this time?" I asked.

"That coin," Ace said with, suddenly losing his cocky attitude. "That is an obol."

Caito turned the coin over between his fingers, "Indeed. My ancient coins have great power. They can be used to cross through this divided realm."

Ace paled significantly. "The fee of the ferryman."

Caito grinned. "Indeed." He flipped the coin in his hand, and just like that, the arena washed away around us. My eyes widened as the forest where I first landed in the Unknown unveiled itself, the gloomy sky above crackling with lightning. "I am afraid I have lied to you, Faith Williams. My name is not Caito. It is Charon."

"Merde," Ace muttered.

"Okay, what the fuck is going on?" I demanded.

"He's the Ferryman of Hades," Ace said, his voice hoarse. "He guide the dead to the afterlife."

"Not anymore," Charon sighed. "Not since I was replaced by another deity and cast away into the Unknown. For my own reasons, I try not to travel through the warps of past time. One can get tangled and sick of the mind so easily here. When you told me the Angel of Death's soul was stuck the in-between, I figured I'd give you a chance for my own amusement. I didn't think in a thousand years you'd actually survive."

"What the hell?" I raged. "You tricked me!"

"I offered to take you back," he said with a shrug. "Now three days have passed, and you have not found the Angel of Death's corpse. I'm afraid I must collect what is due to me. You."

"You're supposed to be neutral," Ace seethed. "Faith is human. She belongs in the mortal world!"

"She can breathe in the Unknown," Charon said. "I watched her heal herself with my own eyes." He turned his head to the side. "And perhaps," he whispered eerily to himself, "she has the power to reverse my situation..."

"Reverse what situation?" I asked, incredibly freaked out by this creature.

Charon turned back to us, his eyes darker. "I have been trapped here for over a hundred years. I am immortal, but even the Unknown has its grip on me." He lifted up his sleeve, his skin partially reflective. "Without the river Styx power, I will become just like them. The Forsaken that haunt this realm."

"You want to leave, then?" Ace asked. "I'll free you, but only if you break this ridiculous deal with Faith." My stomach felt cold at Ace's clear desperateness. He was afraid of Charon.

"Leave?" Charon pushed down his sleeve. "I don't want to leave. I want to stay. Down in the Underworld, I was a slave to the river Styx. Here, I am adored."

I thought of the Three Crawlers, how they'd tried to help me in a dream. I'd seen their faces in the reflection of water and knew they were human once. "They don't adore you," I said with disgust. "They're afraid of you."

"Well, they should be," Charon said bitterly. "Who do you think keeps their lost souls here?" Lightning struck the sky in shockwaves, casting over Charon's beautiful face and flashing it momentarily to that of a skeleton with a haggard grey cloak.

Ace grabbed me fast. Blackness plunged around us, a sharp whistling sounding very frightening silence. I could feel Ace's hand on my arm, but I couldn't see him, and I just kept falling. Suddenly it felt like my body was vacuumed into one direction, a force purging me out in an explosion of light and sound, and I was back in the forest where I first landed in this hell.

I went airborne, my body taking another beating as I slid across cold, wet leaves.

I looked up around the ground, realizing I'd been tossed right back into the Unknown's eerie never-ending forest. The distant howl of monsters made me lift myself up fast from the bed of damp leaves, my chest heaving fast. "Fuck!" I shouted.

Sound crackled as Ace tossed a little ways ahead of me. He gave loud curse and rolled over onto his back with a groan. Half his face was covered in mud and his suit was absolutely ruined.

"Before you say anything about my shady deal with yet another skeleton guy," I panted out. "Let the record show, I did almost find Death's corpse because of it."

Ace tilted his head down at himself. "My suit," he said miserably. He grabbed his cane on the ground with a tight knuckled fist and stood, shaking a leaf off the lapel of his jacket. "What a putain! His power suppressed my magic, but I felt a brief crack in his hold on me and took it. He is not as strong as he could be."

Monstrous howls sounded again in the distance. We both snapped his head toward the noise.

"Shit." Ace slid out his pocket watch and glanced at it, before stuffing it back into his pocket. "Let's try this again, ma chère." He touched my arm, his eyes glowing briefly, but nothing happened. He threw his hand out in anger and a blast of wind tossed a whirl of wet leaves from the ground. "The bastard is jamming my magic."

"Please tell me you have a plan D, E, and F. Because I strongly  feel like A through C were slaughtered with that Caito is Charon twist."

"That's because they were."

"Cool. Awesome. Fantastic." I stared into nothing. "Charon...he isn't like Ahrimad and Death, is he?"

"No, he's a psychopomp."

"You can say that again," I muttered.

"Psychopomps are neutral spiritual guides to the afterlife," Ace continued to explain. "In a way, it makes sense why Hades might send one here in the Unknown, where souls need guidance the most, but it seems Charon has his own intentions with his self-declared guardian role here."

"He's turning lost souls Forsaken," I added in a realization.

Aggravated, Ace ran his hand through his muddy hair, and appeared deep in thought for a solution. "Phoebe was right. I should have worn a horseshoe around my neck for good luck. This is a mess."

"Phoebe? Death's mother?"

Ace's violet eyes snapped up to mine. "Yes..."

I frowned, not really sure why he wasn't elaborating and acting weird now. "Isn't she unstable and demon-y?" Last time I'd seen her, she'd risen out a big marble bath of Layla's blood. And Ace, her, and Malphas were all under the rubble of the mausoleum.

Ace wiped his hand over his clean-shaven jaw and held out his hands, his fingers tracing invisible lines in the air. A portal flickered in front of him, before burning out. "Now isn't the time to discuss this, ma chère––"

"Whoa, whoa, wait a tic. What the hell has happened while I was gone?"

"A lot," he said. "A lot has happened."

I reeled that over with a bad feeling in my gut.

"Time...it passes differently in the Unknown," Ace continued, thunder rumbling from the forest canopy. "There is no measurable difference, but usually what feels like a day in the Unknown can be weeks in the human realm, sometimes even months."

My heart pounded in my ears. "I––I don't understand. How long have I been here?"

Ace's hand lifted to hold onto my shoulder, his eyes steady against mine. "Faith, mon ange. You jumped into the portal a year ago."

I just stared at him. "What?"

He released a bated breath. "Eleven months and twenty-three days. I never stopped looking for you."

Tears filled my eyes, but I numbly blinked them away. Eleven months. Nearly a year of my life had passed in a blink of an eye, including nineteenth my birthday. "What about my family? My parents...they must think I'm––"

"Malphas handled it," Ace assured me. as he turned to start beginning another portal with a swipe of his hands through the air with determination. "Your parents, even your friend Marcy, believe you are fine. He altered their memories."

A small, mirthless laugh escaped my mouth. Of course, he had. "You still trust Malphas?"

"I have to," Ace said grimly, his jaw tight as he concentrated on his task. "I've needed him to stabilize Phoebe. He has given me no reason not to trust him these past few months."

I had so many more questions about that, but I felt rushed for time, the howling coming closer. "What about the Seven? Are they still alive?"

"Yes," Ace said, his face darkening. "But they have all succumbed to their curse. Only two of them are still aware of their actions, so we have preserved the rest in prisons."

I remembered the Seven needed Death to be stable for their own curse to stabilize. They were connected in some way because when Death was weakened by the loss of his scythe, the Seven's animalistic nature came through just like his started to.

Thinking about Death made me think of his memories. How far I'd come to getting what I wanted, and yet how far away it still seemed to be.

"I can't go home anyway," I said, pressure building behind my eyes. "I was so close to saving him, Ace."

"I know." Suddenly Ace seemed to get a grip on the portal and threw his arms out, widening floating reflective iris before us. "Alright, in we go," he said, digging into his pocket for his watch. "Take my watch for guidance, ampoule. Use it as a conduit and get back on Death's path."

I gripped the warm pocket watch in my hand, the shiny gold chain wrapped around my dirty fingers. "What about you?"

Ace stepped back from the portal, his violet eyes focused on something ahead through the never-ending trees. "I'm going to stay back. Keep Charon off your tail for a while."

Realizing what is happening, I became panicked all over again. "Ace..."

"Don't worry about me. Charon and his little army of mirrors can't keep me down. But don't think you won't owe me another favor after all this." He gave me a little crooked grin, and although Ace's words maintained his confident bravado that he had this under control, I could tell he was feigning it a little for me. 

"Find Death's corpse and bring him back," Ace said with a kiss on my cheek, when I couldn't find the words. "No matter what. Do you understand me?"

I turned and stared at the portal, feeling like the world was falling to a terrifying hush. This was happening too fast. I was going back. I was going back, alone.

"Oh, and ma chère," Ace chimed in behind me. "See you on the side."

My hand curled against his pocket watch, a small smile almost pulling my dry lips. I gave Ace a meaningful look over my shoulder, like a potential goodbye. Taking a deep breath, I strode forward and walked through the portal toward uncertainty. 

***

I landed mid-stride into a cold, dark space. One that smelled absolutely rancid.

Unlike the last two times I'd walked through a portal, the transition between the Unknown forest and this memory had been almost instantaneous and smooth. Covering my nose, I looked down at Ace's pocket watch in my hand, realizing this thing was powerful and helpful as hell. And then I glanced around me, realizing I would definitely, absolutely need all the help I could get from it.

Since I was currently in a prison cell.

"Perfect," I muttered.

"Oh, Cordelia," said a male voice from behind me, my body stiffening up at the sound. "You know you can't be down here, my devious little sphinx..."

I gasped as someone who smelled of alcohol came up behind me and touched my bare arm. My fist went back out of instinct, blindly hitting him in a low region. I could feel my power unleash behind the blow, although I only saw the smallest, weakest spark of light emit from it. The man tumbled over far too easily from the hit, his lean body slamming face first into the steel prison bars, before he face-planted onto the ground.

"Holy shit," I muttered.

"Oy!" the man screamed in delay, the sound of small bells jangling as he shook his head. "I think you broke my face," he slurred out, his voice a few pitches higher and strained. "And my jolly stick..."

My breath came out in gasps as I turned to face my "attacker." He was on all fours on the ground, his head lowered as moaned in pain, blood profusely dripping from his face to the stone. I realized in horror by the old stains on floor this was not the first blood to land on the ground. My eyes skimmed his clothing, over the odd black and green stripped jumpsuit and his jester-like hat with three large drooping black and green horns with bells on the end. Realizing this man was belligerently drunk, I felt a little guilty for knocking him over like that.

"Are you alright?" I asked hesitantly.

He shook off my help and clumsily collapsed back onto the floor, clutching his face with his hand with a groan. "Damfino ove!" he muffled.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said, damn if I know, love!" he shouted, tearing his head up. My eyes widened at his familiar face. Though, his eyes were brown, rather than the exotic bright pink I was used to. I knew with certain of Death's Seven Deadly Sins, his would be Lust.

"Romeo," I breathed out.

***
HOOOOOOOO I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS PART! IT'S ABOUT TO GET LIT AFFFFFFF!!! LMAOOO

HOW'S EVERYONE LIKING THE STORY SO FAR??? ANY GUESSES WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT??????? POOR ACE BUT WE KNOW HE'S A KING AF AND HE'LL BE OKAY AGAINST CHARON. I HOPE????

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