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 It could be worse," Ace said, sipping from the little tin cup in his cell as he watched me pace back and forth in the cell for the umpteenth time. "We could have no food at all."

I looked over at Ace, who was sipping his soup with ease like he was at a café instead of on death row.

"You know, the food service down here is not too shabby," Ace said. "This soup is decent. Flavorful, even."

"It's not soup!" shouted one of the prisoners with a hacking laugh that ended in a spit that clanked in the pot he'd aimed it at.

Ace set down his tin cup with a grimace. "Anyway..."

"I should have known from the moment Death dangled his pants by a single button that it was a distraction," I muttered to myself. "Why does he have to be so irresistible and...muscly... in every lifetime?"

"Is this rhetorical?" Ace wondered. "Because I'm slightly uncomfortable."

"We have to get out of here," I continued to mutter, walking back and forth. "This memory has screwed with us long enough. Here I was thinking it was actually getting us somewhere, but all it got me was right back to where I started. In a stinking cell. In a stinking dungeon. With a poop pot for whenever that "soup" hits me hard."

"Really, are you talking to me, ma chere?" Ace asked. "Because you're starting to look like a lunatic muttering at the floor like that."

"You know, not for nothing," I said, pivoting to face Ace, "but you're the ancient fart between us, and I'm really pulling all the weight here." Didn't he want to hightail it out the door of this dungeon as fast as possible?

"Come sit down," Ace said, stretching his legs out on his cot and motioning to my cot in my own cell. "You need to sit and be at peace with your thoughts."

"Agree to disagree, Ghandi," I said, watching one Death's shadow guard walk past our cell. I heard a little sneering snarl from its shadowy mouth, and I narrowed my eyes in distain right back at it.

"I've been trying to brainstorm too, you know." Ace held out his wrists with a clang of metal. "I can't do much of anything useful with these cuffs on."

I looked down at the cuffs on my own wrists. The cuffs that prevented my power from working that Victorian Death slapped onto my wrists before tossing me down here. Damn him.

"You have a brain, don't you?" I lashed out. "Maybe start using that, instead of being frustratingly meditative."

"The last thing we need right now is to be pulling our focus anywhere but....here..."

I stopped pacing and turned toward him, an imaginary beautiful lightbulb hovering beautifully over my head.

Ace smiled. "You have an idea."

"I have an idea." I rushed to the bars between us, speaking in hushed tones. "Every time I go in the in-between and communicate with Death's deep subconscious, things seem to progress. Whether it be in a bad way or a good way, but I think at this point that any way would be an improvement to where we are right now."

"You want to astral project again," Ace anticipated.

"These cuffs on my wrists stop any outward power from our hands," I said in a whisper. "But what about inside? Like my ability to connect to Death's corpse?"

"I'm not sure," Ace admitted. "All I know is if you're going to be unconscious here, then I need to vouch for you. And if you get stuck, if something happens to you­­, I won't be able to––"

"CANDLES OUT!" roared a guard. "EVERYONE KNOCK OUT AND GO TO SLEEP, OR I'LL KNOCK YOU OUT FOR YOU!"

Ace and I walked to the corner of our adjoined cells and blew out each other's candles in unison. "If something happens, I may not be able to pull you back," Ace said.

"I know the risks. I need to do this."

We couldn't reach through the bars due to the magic webbing out between our cells, but he reached his hand out, hiding his palm against the divide between us.

"Be careful, Faith," Ace said. "I'll cover for you as long as I can."

"I'll be right back," I said, but the anxiety in my chest told me that was a never a certainty in this realm.

I lay down on my cot, trying not to think about its moldy, musty odor, or how achy my body was from constant stress, or the fact that something was dripping from the ceiling on the one side of it, as a thick droplet landed on my arm. Shifted to the edge of the cot in disgust and stared up at the ceiling for dark ceiling.

I lay my hands in a resting position on my chest, trying to take slow breaths, just like Death had taught me for meditations. It was frustratingly difficult to calm my mind, so I imagined Death was meditating with me. Panic prickled my chest as I realized the once vivid image of my Death in my mind had faded to where it was hard to picture anything else by his past selves. The pain Victoria Death had caused me and the fear he'd instilled into me seemed to tarnish what I imagined. In the spiraling of my thoughts, I thought of those gems in Victorian Death's bedroom, and the look in his catlike eyes as he watched me unravel his mad plan.

But this wasn't about him. This was about Death. My Death. I needed to focus, I needed to remember him, but suddenly I could rapidly feel myself drifting away and there was no stopping where this was taking me...

My eyes opened to a new place with the uncertainty of a dream. The Golden Library. The lively version of Victorian Death's hallow dark space in his castle. I was here again.

I froze. Alexandru was ahead of me. He was leaning a shoulder against an endlessly tall, golden bookshelf, his one leg casually crossed over his other at the shins. He wore white harem-like pants that sat low on his hips and a draping white shirt that hung like a robe in the back. The top two notches along his chest were undone, showing a glimpse of smooth, tanned skin underneath, and the faded markings of tattoos that almost seemed partially dulled to a faded grey by some sort of layer of magical foundation. In his hands, he held a book, although I could tell his attention was elsewhere. Directly on me.

My breath lodged in my chest. Had I shifted into another memory?

I heard a rustle behind me, and I startled. The old woman with the jewels around her neck. The gems that Victorian Death had shown me in his bedroom. I stepped away from her, moving to the opposite side of the book aisle, and Alexandru's gaze did not waver from her. Like an indoor cat locked in on a critter through a window. He could not see me. I was invisible. That much was apparent now, especially as I looked down at myself and noticed the light glow to my silhouette.

Alexandru coughed purposely into his hand, but the old woman did not acknowledge him, buried in whatever book she was reading from the small cart of books in front of her.

"Hello, there," Alexandru said in a booming manner, his deep voice carrying through the cavernous space of the golden library.

"Shh."

"Oh, right. Library." He scratched his head. "Say, might you need help organizing those books?"

The old woman ignored him. Setting down her book, she wheeled her cart into another aisle.

Alexandru's face went slack with surprise of the rejection. He carried the book in his hands with him as he stalked to the new aisle as well.

I followed on the old woman's side of the bookshelf to stay near her perspective. She had simply moved one aisle over. To get away from him. My attention fell to the gems around her neck, and I could only imagine how he'd gotten his hands on those.

Alexandru stood at the end of opposite end of the aisle as the old woman again, standing rather gawkily, like he suddenly didn't know what to do his long arms at his sides.

"Excuse me, er––bookkeeper––"

"What do you want?" the old woman snapped.

Alexandru wiped his hand on his pants. "May I speak with you?"

"No."

"But you just––"

She walked to another aisle, one of the wheels on her cart squeaking loud and shrill with every turn. Alexandru flinched from the sound. Staring down the once again empty aisle, he pinned his lips in annoyance, weighing the open book in his hands like he might hurl it against the aisle. He shoved it onto the shelf and stormed into the next aisle again.

"Your cart is broken," he told the bookkeeper, albeit reluctantly by the frustration in his voice.

The woman set a book onto a shelf with a trembling hand. "It rolls, does it not?"

"I could fix it for you, if you would just give me a moment of your time."

"Ah, time." She turned her hooded head toward him. "What does Death know of time, I wonder? All he does it steal it away."

Alexandru's jaw ticked. "I know it is endless yet can feeble and wear."

The old woman scowled. Damn. He'd just subtly insulted her age, hadn't he?

The woman hobbled into the next aisle, and Alexandru cursed under his breath as he moved with her.

"For the record, you started that," he grated.

"An odd apology."

"Apology!" he exclaimed. "Good God, woman, to what should I apologize? Yesterday, I tried to speak with you too, and you quickly skirted behind your books and disappeared––"

"Did I not speak clearly to you two evenings ago?" the old woman returned, her attention on the next book in her hand instead of him. "You are not permitted to be in here, Guardian of the Gate. Not yesterday, not today, not ever."

Alexandru appeared a little bit disheartened. He stood there in silence for a long moment, like he didn't know what to do with the rejection, as the timeworn woman began to put her books away again.

"Rolling his eyes, he started to retreat down the aisle, but he stopped and turned back around. "I asked about you."

The old lady's weathered hand paused as she picked up her next book.

"Yes, I wanted to know more about "the bookkeeper." Alexandru crossed his arms, slipping back into his charming nature, like he knew he'd reeled in her attention. "I found you are well esteemed in this realm. Not a single angel spoke ill of you. Well, except for two other younger fledglings, but they were more wary of your...power... than anything else."

"Celeb and Elijah."

"Excuse me?"

"The younger angels you were referring to," she said. "Celeb and Elijah. It is no surprise to me the three if you have found each other. They too would be vulnerable to the Devil."

Alexandru cocked his head to the side but remained quiet. The old lady pivoted toward him and strode forward to walk past him. "You satiated your curiosity," she said. "Now I have things to do. Carry on, before I decide you are more of a nuisance than you already are."

"So that's why you dislike me," Alexandru called after her. "You think I am here to cause trouble with that Devil?"

"That is not what I said, child."

"I came here because of you. To talk to you because of your... complete aversion of me. I don't want any enemies here, Neriah."

Death could only see the woman's back, but from where I stood, and from what I could see from the bottom portion of her face, and her posture, she seemed unnerved. "How do you know that name, fledgling?"

Alexandru rubbed the back of his neck. "I know everybody's name." Then he dropped his hand to his side, another a slow, conceited smirk lifted the corners of his mouth. "Admittedly, yours took a night to come to me, which I did find rather odd––"

Neriah pushed her cart forward, the squeaking wheel louder than ever as she picked up speed.

Alexandru, leaning against the bookshelf all by himself, realized he was all by himself again, and his smirk fell fast. "Neriah!" He jogged behind her. "Where are you going?"
"Away from you, child."

"But we were having a conversation­­­­­––"

She turned and shoved her cart toward him, and Alexandru blocked his privates at the last second with a small, high-pitched yelp. "Gods, you wrinkled fiend! You almost smashed my––"

"Do not finish that sentence," the old lady warned. "You were gloating about yourself, child. Do you expected a cookie as a reward? I have no interest in vanity or any other vices of the wicked. Why must you pester me?"
He shifted from one foot to the other, appearing to be thinking of an excuse. But none came to him. "I am extremely bored," he said, at last, exhaling it out. "There, I said it."

"A troubling statement to make indeed. You only have one purpose here. To prove you are worthy of your so-called redemption. You should be guarding the gate into Heaven, and nothing more."

"I am guarding it." He ran his hand over his clean-shaven jaw. "Well, my duplicate is. I am only taking a short break. Stretching my legs. You know, immortal or not, exercise is important..."

Neriah sighed with judgement and rearranged her books on her cart.

Alexandru narrowed his eyes. "I do not understand your utter disgust in me. You do not even know me."

"I know what you have done. Therefore, I know you well enough. I know they have given you an illusion of normalcy, but you will always be what you are."

Alexandru poked his tongue briefly into his cheek, his face hard as stone. "And to think I thought angels were nice and positive. So, you know my past, then. What about my future? Is there not plenty of opportunity ahead?"

"I am not a seer, child. Unlike you, I am an angel born."

"Ah, so you stick you stick your nose up at me because you are purebred," he spat.

"Now who is making assumptions?"

"They said you took down Lucifer. That he was the most powerful arch angel, and when he challenged this realm, when all of Heaven was at his mercy, and he raged his flames upon the Elders to destroy them all, you were the one who stopped him. You are the one who brought the devil down to his knees."

"Why are you retelling me this, boy?"

"Because I do not believe one word of it."

"Ah, because I am old. And therefore, weak in your eyes."

His gaze skirted to the side, where he'd fallen on the bookshelf. "I wouldn't say weak––"

She whacked him in the head with a book.

"Ow!" he cried, touching his head as he looked down at the floor to where the book landed. "Why are you so violent, woman?"

"Death, you are as rudely veracious in every way I imagined," Neriah said. "There is a fine line between honesty and disrespect and frankly I do not think you are capable of recognizing the difference. I cannot fathom any sincere reason you have entered this library again. Could it be that you cannot bear the thought of a single person not enjoying your company? Or you've doubted your own capabilities here all along, and what I said to you the other day hurt your very fragile ego?"

Alexandru's tanned cheeks reddened at the high-boned peaks, and he said nothing.

Neriah settled her hands into the pockets of her robes. "I am aware you were plagued with hunger when you were cursed by Ahrimad, and it was difficult for you to control your...feedings. All said, I cannot overlook the way in which you treated the mortals, even if you were out of control. The slaughter you left in your wake, how you reveled in it like a madman..."

"How could you possibly know all that?" Alexandru demanded. "The Elders, they said they would––"

"And they have kept your secrets," the woman replied. "You know names, I know hearts. Yours is black as coal. My eyes are wide open."

Alexandru seemed to search her hooded face. "Your eyes are blind." He seemed to immediately regret his seething words in words as the old woman flinched back a little in surprise.

"So many centuries existing, and yet you have so much to learn," she whispered. "It is a great lesson indeed not to rely on your vision alone to see the world around you. A lesson you shall never fully understand, I gather."

"Alexandru's expression flinched with emotion, perhaps guilt. As the old woman turned with her book cart again, he reached for her hunched shoulder. "Now wait, Neriah..."

He reached for her robe-covered shoulder to stop her and froze. A strange expression washed over Alexandru's face, and he inhaled sharply. In one fast, fluid moment, Neriah tore from him with a sharp snap of her robes and slammed her palm into his chest as the colorful gems around her neck illuminated. Despite his imposing frame, Alexandru flew back from the sheer force of her hand with an impact that made the colossal superstructure bookshelf behind him creak as though it may have tipped over. He clutched at his chest with a wheezing breath and barely caught himself as books rained down around him.

Neriah kept her weathered hands out on either side of her. I couldn't see her eyes, just her wrinkled mouth, and the downward turn of her lips.

Neriah watched his panic escalade, his chest heaving with adrenaline, and his eyes wide with both fear and confusion as he fought to catch his breath.

"I suppose even the undead can experience fright attacks," she muttered.

Alexandru lowered to the ground, his fingers clutching at his throat, consumed in his breathing with wheezing, hyperventilation. It was a difficult sight to watch.

Neriah's hunched body stiffened. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she started to move toward Alexandru with an outstretched hand as though to help him, but stopped herself, her arm slowly falling to her side.

"Now, now, Angel of Death," she crooned. "Shut your eyes and slow your breath, and all will go back to normal."

Alexandru squeezed his eyes shut, and eventually his breaths slowed until he shuddered hard. He went unusually still, sitting there without a single breath, until his eyes eventually opened. Pushing back against the bookshelf, he slowly stood to his full height and straightened with a shrug of a broad shoulder as if to shake vulnerable moment off. Although he seemed highly distressed in his catlike eyes, where his vertical pupils were dilated.

His golden brows dipped inward as he stared at the old woman. "You are strong indeed," he said gravelly.

Neriah took a step backward, though not out of fear. "Do not cross me again, I warn you for the last time."

She pivoted to push her book cart, the squeak of the wheel making Alexandru cringe again. He rubbed at his chest, staring after her with a puzzled expression. I was confused too, I wanted to know more, and why this memory seemed to be haunting him. Neriah seemed like the missing puzzle piece in all of this madness of dying memories.

Alexandru stormed down the opposite end of the bookshelves to leave, he waned away like a ghost.

And the library darkened. Like a light switch turned off.

Light sucked out of the entire space in a blink of an eye. It went cold, too. As cold as a meat locker. My breath caught in the air, the Victorian-styled dress providing nowhere near enough warmth.

When I tilted my head up, the swirling kaleidoscope of stars above was now a chaotic energy of silver liquid. It poured from the tunneling vortex like Hell spitting out evil, Forsaken forming from the amorphous liquid on the ceiling with monstrous, vibrating croaks.

Oh, shit. The sudden change in the library was jarring. I stepped back to bow back into the book aisle, a sense of nostalgia washing over me from the last time I was here in the in-between. Dozens of Forsaken crawled across the ceiling, their unnaturally long limbs, and massive bodies unlike any monster I'd ever seen, and I desperately tried to think of a way back into the path of memories I was on before. Or maybe this was just where I needed to be.

"Faith..."

My skin prickled at the whisper of Death's voice somewhere near. Not trusting if it were real or not, I pinned my lips together. But as the silence stretched on a second longer, I found it ridiculous to be exactly where I'd seen Death's corpse land in the Unknown and be too afraid to find him.

"Death?" I whispered. "Are you here with me?"

Movement shifted in my peripheral, and I turned fast toward the books to my right. Through a gap in the shelves, a mirrored face met mine, and my heart lurched into overdrive. Forsaken. At my stare, it cocked its head with a stretch of dead silence, before unleashing a screech with its mouthless face that pulled an involuntary screen from my throat alongside it.

So much for not getting noticed.

Through the gaps in the book, I could see the screaming Forsaken lurched upward, the shelves rattling as it seemed to jump up onto the wooden structure from the other side. I imagined it scaling the superstructure to get to me and pivoted to tear down the aisle when another Forsaken slink around the corner, its head swiveling toward me with a menacing sound that vibrated like a rattle snake tail.

"Ah, shit!"

Suddenly the Forsaken at the end of the aisle raced toward me, and I threw out my hand, pointing at it with a finger gun. Light exploded outward, missing the running Forsaken, but hitting another mirrored creature that had been crawling down the shelves. My light burned a hole into the center of its back, and it fell to the ground with a piercing shriek. The running Forsaken kept coming at me and knocked me hard to the ground. We rolled together, and I could feel my power come forth in an explosion from my hands as a scream of terror unleashed from my throat. When I opened my eyes, the creatures head was gone, and I just kept screaming as its reflective blood poured onto my neck.

I shoved the corpse of the Forsaken off of me and stood to my feet fast, breathing raggedly. My hands were igniting with light, a bluish-white flame spreading up my arms but not burning me. The light around me spread in an illuminating glow, and I couldn't stop it as it spread along the dark aisle.

Forsaken loomed from the high shelfing above, gazing down at me. They crawled down the shelves like piranhas after a bit of meat. I was surrounded. One of them lunged at me, and I feigned left out of the way. Death's combat knowledge clicked into gear like second nature. I threw out my arm in a strong hook, light burning into the Forsaken's neck as my knuckles went clean through its throat and tore. Chaos ensued as Forsaken piled into the narrowing aisle of books, seemingly fighting each other to get to me, and I fought them off the best I could.

"Go away. You. Ugly. Freaky. Mirror. Things!"

Another Forsaken got a taste of my foot in its mouth, and where I thought I was outnumbered, I suddenly realized that some of the creatures had oddly backed off, scurrying back up the aisle with whining howls.

Whatever they were from, I didn't want to find out what it was. I cleared a way down the aisle, picked up the skirt of my dress, and booked it. But I didn't get very far, as one lone Forsaken on the ground was still alive and grabbed my ankle, its howling screams grating ear. It crawled up my body, long limbs popping and dislocating in its legs and arms. It tried to grab my face, when suddenly another larger Forsaken pummeled into the creature and knocked it off of me.

The larger Forsaken plucked me off the ground with one hand. I yelped in pain as it nearly tore my shoulder out in the process. It lowered its body as it swung me in its clutches and tossed me away. A scream lodged in my throat as I slid like a bowling ball across the ground, the floor slick beneath me with Forsaken blood. When I came to a halt, my heart was pounding through my chest, and I looked back at the Forsaken in utter confusion, as I was uninjured.

What the hell was that? I watched the two of them wrestle on the ground with widened eyes, as the larger Forsaken got a grip of the littler one's head and tore it clean off.

Then it turned and bulleted toward me.

I crawled back on the ground. Okay, so the Big Guy wanted me all to itself. 

This Forsaken was larger than life, and I imagined it was the leader. A jagged line sliced across his neck, like something had tried to lop its head off. It reached down and grabbed me by my dress––the corset I realized I was wearing and slammed me against the bookshelves like a predator trying to inebriate its prey. My head rattled as it loomed over me like a nightmare, its reflective face mirroring my fear. When it grabbed my arms, I grabbed back and squirmed beneath its grip.

"GET...OFF ME!"

Shoving my arms down hard, I freed its grip on me and shoved at its chest with all my might. Despite its size, it was weaker than I thought as it had stumbled back. The monster lifted its head at me, seeming to pause, but I wasted no time. I pointed my finger gun at it, closed my eyes, and fired. The Forsaken fell back and fell in a broken heap onto the ground.

I was finally alone with nothing more to fight. Fatigued in every sense of the word, I gathered the last sliver of my courage after that disaster and limped down the ally of books with no direction as to where to go next.

"You really have to stop doing that finger gun thing..."

My footsteps halted. I stared ahead for a beat of time. Wondering if I'd imagined it. It wasn't possible, was it?

Coldness slipped down my spine as turned back over my shoulder to look at the fallen Forsaken. It was halfway on its stomach, its head bowed toward the floor. Muscles tautened in its back as it seemed to writhe in a spasm of pain, clutching at its chest with the arm that was propping its body up.

I watched it reach back behind its head, sharp taloned fingers digging underneath its neck. And it started to peel a layer of its skin off. No, not it's skin...

Blonde tuffs of hair showed as the creature slowly peeled the membrane of its head and dropped it to the ground beside it. It lay on the ground like a mask, and my whole body began uncontrollably trembling.

He turned its head toward me, and I inhaled sharply with all the confirmation my brain needed to believe it.

"Death."

***
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