Contrary to the events that had passed, I did not feel like I had died. My wound was gone, and though my limbs were a little weak as I was helped upright, it was not the same soul-sucking weakness I had experienced before. I was a marvel; they made certain to tell me, over and over, as we left the cold, sterile room.

Questions pelted me like rocks, but I kept my tongue to the roof of my mouth and my jaw hard. When the questions ended, someone rambled on about the rest of my mission, but I wasn't all there. Certainly not enough to retain anything.

So it was that I was left in the hands of my unfortunate shadow—the guard who had arrested me, whose name I had never deigned to remember—and taken all the way home with him and his equally noisy wife.

"Why am I here?" I asked, slumped against the carriage window. I couldn't make out much of the outside, but the glass was cooler than the wall. The whole thing jostled on the cobblestone road. I was still thinking of Death and his small but difficult request: find my grave. Then there was the whole reason for my dying, the spy mission, my conniving uncle, and the stupid school. I felt sick.

"During your time at the academy, we will be your handlers. Your surrogate family, if you will." The man always answered first. Sometimes he went on longer because he loved the sound of his own voice. I was never free of such awful people.

"This is not a prison," the wife added. Somehow, she had softened her face and voice since the night at the theater, though I'd be dense to believe she had forgotten the dress I'd ruined. "It is to help conceal your identity, offer protection if you need it, and make it easier for you to report what you hear."

"And so you can keep an eye on me." So my mother can be properly tortured for my failure. "Did you draw the short straw or something?"

He sniffed, his lip twitching like I had struck a nerve. "If you've found your voice now, shall I take us back so you can answer the queries of your king and his scholars? There is much we wish to know about the return from death."

Yes, like how it felt to come back and if I could sense the magic within me and what I saw beyond—and so many other things of which I had no desire to speak. I gritted my teeth.

The woman cleared her throat. "Celestine dear, Elias and I are not your enemies."

"Keep telling yourselves that."

She shuffled on the bench, no doubt glancing at her husband beside her for support. Her skirts were so noisy and full, taking up half the carriage. At least her hair was modest this time, pinned back in a simple bun at the base of her head with slight dark curls framing her face. "I don't believe I've introduced myself to you. It seems appropriate that I should."

"Don't bother." I cared for her name about as much as I cared for her olive branch of friendship.

"I'm Yvonne," she said anyway. Nothing I said ever had weight. Except when I happened to mouth off too much. Or apparently on matters of my death.

I kept my silence because it was the only thing that frustrated her more than my ruining her clothes that time.

In a matter of torturous hours, the carriage humbly rolled to a stop. Elias and Yvonne exited first, Yvonne's skirts bustling around her as she was helped down the step. Then they both turned and offered me a hand. I first had the thought to ignore them, but the weakness in my knees made me think otherwise. Hating myself, I allowed them to help me down.

In the center of the capital, it was the palace which towered over everything around it, its spires visible from anywhere. Here in the southern side, it was barely visible afar. Instead, Aetheria Academy stood tall and proud over the city. It too was like some kind of palace with cold stone walls and pointed roofs atop ivory towers. Its windows glittered in the sunlight with malice and contempt for all the worms who crawled in the dirt beneath it. Worms like me.

Yvonne's hand on my arm steered me away. "This way, Celestine."

Our carriage had stopped outside a modest townhouse, and the footmen were already busy unloading luggage and dragging it inside. Yvonne ushered me through the door and into a small foyer. The house could have swallowed the entirety of the apartment I shared with Mother, yet it was still tiny in comparison with the palace.

To our left was a seating room, no doubt where guests would be received. It connected to a dining room and a quaint kitchen. On the other side was a small study and library with a large, rounded window with a view of the squat gardens and the stupid academy in the distance. Up the stairs were two bedrooms and their connected washrooms, another more private seating room, and an office. On our tour, Yvonne told me the laundry room was in the basement but that she doubted I would have much need to visit it.

"Make yourself at home," Yvonne told me later as she showed me to my room. Her smile was soft. I found no malice within it, which made me want to disappear even more. "Let us know if there's anything you need."

I was left in my own bedroom, a thing I had never had, and found that it was already full of trunks for me to unpack even though I had nothing. On closer inspection, their contents were a mix of hand-me-downs from Yvonne (or sisters, I suppose, since some trunks were tagged Anna and Erika—and Yvonne and Elias both seemed too young to have a daughter, much less two, old enough to give me her hand-me-downs) and fresh, new clothes. There were boots, flats, dress shoes, house shoes, shoes shoes, and more shoes. My vanity was practically dripping in jewelry. Most of it was silver, meaning someone had paid a modicum of attention to my tastes, but there were a few gold bracelets and pearl earrings.

The more I unpacked and struggled to find a home for, the more overwhelmed I became. A headache pounded behind my eyes. I gave up eventually to visit the washroom for a hot shower—the kind that reminded me I wasn't dead but could be again if I was boiled alive. I left my dirty, bloody dress from the palace on the floor where it belonged. I hoped never to see it again.

When I dressed, this time in plain slacks and a loose shirt, the only things I returned to my person were my bell earrings and the flower.

Death had sent it back with me. I remembered the frailty in his expression when he had seen it. Was it really going to lead me to his grave? And what would happen when I got there?

No, more than that, why did Death have a grave at all?

My lack of knowledge somewhat embarrassed me, but I supposed that was the real reason any normal person would go to an academy like the one I was being sentenced to. Maybe I could learn something of use there.

And be a good spy, of course.

Footsteps whispered outside my door just before it opened, revealing Yvonne on the threshold. Her eyes widened as she glanced about the room. "Oh my. Has a storm blown through here?"

I pinned the flower to the waist of my pants and covered it with my shirt before I stood, kicking a rumpled dress under the bed. There were clothes strewn everywhere, trunks half emptied, and a general explosion of, well, everything. Sorry, I almost said, but I bit my tongue. She wasn't my mother. I didn't owe her an apology. "Can I help you?" I asked instead (it seemed more peaceable than some of my other reactions).

"Come down and eat with us. Elias and I have more to tell you." She didn't wait for me to agree before she left, skirt twirling around her legs.

I rolled my eyes but followed obediently. The last thing I wanted to do was sit through an entire meal with the two of them. Hadn't I suffered their presence enough?

But then again, I wasn't sure I had eaten since I had died. Perhaps not at all today from the way my stomach was growling. If I squirreled my dinner away to this room, I'd only be depressed by the silence. Maybe it was better to be bitter and angry than sullen. I was, after all, striving to be a harder, meaner girl, the kind that no one would ever ask favors from again if she survived.

The kind who could be executed a second time if she grows too cruel, too powerful, and too arrogant. I shook the thought off easily enough. That kind of ego was beyond me, and I hadn't felt a touch of power at all since I'd awoken. Maybe Death had only sent me back to be his errand girl. Maybe this whole plan would blow up in my uncle's face because Death had a bizarre sense of humor.

I was only going to be frustratingly obnoxious, not cruel.

So I thumped down the stairs and flopped unceremoniously into my designated seat, which was unfortunately across from Yvonne and next to Elias at the head of the table. There was more space and smooth wood than would even fit in the kitchen in my old apartment, yet for some reason they still had us all sitting close together like we were a real family.

"How are you feeling, Celestine?" Elias asked. A woman in an apron put a salad in front of him, then Yvonne, then me. He stabbed his fork into the bowl of greens with such aggression that I almost wondered if my efforts to be annoying were already working a little too well.

"I don't feel any magic if that's what you're asking," I said. "You can tell the king to call it all off. I must be defective."

"That's... not what I was asking about. I meant are you recovering your strength?"

"Oh. Well, I walked down here just fine, didn't I?"

He nodded as he crunched on his greens. For a moment, he allowed us all to eat in silence, though I could tell from Yvonne's gaze that she was burning to make friendly conversation. I was determined to make only frustrating conversation. She would not win me over.

"In the morning, I will take you to the academy. I have already seen to your registration, but there will be some paperwork for you to sign when you arrive. Classes start the day after," Elias began, rattling off a bunch of dull facts like holding them all in over the course of one salad was too much for him. "You will have to pick a track to study."

"Is there a track His Honorable Majesty wishes I would choose?" I fluttered my lashes, my tone practically overflowing with honeyed sarcasm.

Elias only sniffed. I liked to think it was an amused sniff, at least. "No. You are free to choose whichever track suits you. All His Majesty asks is that you root out the suspect before—"

"Six months have passed, I know." I rolled my eyes and stabbed my own fork deep into the remains of my poorly dressed salad. A fat blueberry at the bottom of the bowl was the unfortunate victim of my fork, and it bled sweet violet juice all over itself. "Wouldn't that be easier if I were boarding at the academy? I'd be surrounded by students then."

"It's safer this way," Yvonne said, smiling softly. "If you were discovered and caught in the dorms, Elias and I wouldn't be able to protect you."

"You mean you wouldn't be able to monitor me and prevent my escape. Don't worry about that. My leash is pretty tight already." The tongs of my fork pressed deeper into the blueberry. I twisted them and mashed it against the curved edges of the bowl. I shouldn't have left Mother. I should have stayed and clocked Elias in the face when I had the chance. Maybe then we'd both have made it out and none of this would have happened.

It was almost ironic. I had always feared being put to death and shackled in my magical life after, reduced to a thing to be used by someone else. I had feared death, of course, but I think I'd feared returning more than death itself. Irrational, maybe, yet it was exactly that which had come true.

Elias let out a pent-up sigh, and I caught a stray glance between him and his wife as his shoulders began to relax. "Listen, Celestine, I know we got off on the wrong foot. I was following orders and you were caught in the cogs. But this is—"

I scoffed, pushing to my feet. "If you intend to apologize, keep it to yourself. I don't care what your excuse may be. In fact, I hope you go to bed every night knowing it was you who walked an innocent girl straight to her death. You knew I was innocent too, but you lied about it. You are not a good man, no matter how many gifts you give me, how much protection you promise me, or how soft you make your voice."

"Celestine—"

"I will go to that school and weed out your target, but know that I do not do it with loyalty or pride or care or anything besides anger in my heart. I am petty and cruel, and I will not be any less than what I am. You cannot buy me with sweet words; you cannot change me by striking me. Instead, I wish you would think of my death any time you approach me. Remember that I touched the grave, and it was you who sent me there."

Elias and Yvonne stared at me—one with a face of stone and the other with the gaping mouth and watery eyes of a fish. "Are you quite finished?" Elias asked, his tone such that I almost felt silly for my outburst.

I gritted my teeth. "Indeed I am. Goodnight."

"I haven't dismissed you."

I left anyway, my blood hot. He called my name again, but I ignored him as I stormed up the stairs, so loud that everyone in the house would know I was headed up them. However, the moment I slammed the door behind me, my anger left in a rush. I collapsed against it with a sob, my eyes so wet and weepy that I could see nothing but the sea of my tears.

It hit me then, truly. That I was dead. But what was even more terrifying was that my mother might believe that I had been buried, never to rise again.

I cried. It was silent at first, a kind of awful, quiet grief. Then I well and truly wept in such a violent and terrible way that I did not dare move from my puddle on the floor.

I had no idea how long it was before I was overtaken by weariness, before my sobs subsided and my breathing evened. I was vaguely aware of the shadows passing beneath my door and the voices in the hall. I thought I heard a knock, but by then I was already gone.

I cannot write a nice dinner scene.