The man hauled me to my feet with his fist in my hair, cackling with his friends. Darren screamed—hoarse though it was—as they collected him too. All while Death watched over us silently. Unmoving. Sickle at the ready. He held my gaze, and I almost asked who he was waiting for.

It didn't matter. Perhaps it was time I decided for him. Clamping my teeth together, I summoned the kitchen knife once more and stabbed it into my captor's ribs. The man howled; I froze at the sensation of his flesh breaking beneath my knife, then I let go of it—but he didn't let go of me.

"You wench!" He choked the words out through the scrape of his next breath. Up close, his breath was foul, worse than the stench of dirt and blood that clung to him.

The room was suddenly silent, all eyes on me. My panic had turned my own breathing ragged, and I stood panting but firm. My glare was steel. The knife had disappeared again, and so I summoned a bit of flame to the tips of my fingers and raised them for all to see. "Let go of me," I hissed, "or it'll be your face next. I'll bet it hurts having your eyes burned from their sockets."

The man stared back at me, but a flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. One of his companions shifted away. "She's already got the gift. She's useless to us."

"Don't be daft," the man hissed. His grip had weakened, and he curled one arm against the wound in his side as it slowly oozed. Still, he laughed. "This just saves us a vigil. Take both—just in case."

"She's wearing a guard's cloak. If we take her, they'll look for her."

"Then move quickly." His nails dug into my scalp. He sneered down at me. "You'll put that fire away and heal this up if you know what's good for you."

"No," I snapped against the quiver in my voice. "I will do no such thing." Then, expanding the flames so that they roared hot around my fingers, I shoved my burning hand up against his dirt-smeared face. Fire licked at his cowl, his hair, his skin, and he screamed in agony. This time, he dropped me, desperate to put out the fire. It spread, clinging to him, feasting as it grew.

The other men backed away in fear as I brandished my hand. With it, no one could tell I was shaking. I grabbed Darren's wrist with my free hand and sprinted toward the exit.

"Get her!" The man yelled. His goons barreled down the hall after me.

I pulled Darren close, extinguishing the flame, and burst out the entrance into the cold night air. Darkness enveloped me, but I could see tiny lights in the distance, barely visible up the hill. "Elias!" I called out, loud as I could. The night echoed my voice back to me. "Elias!"

White-hot agony pierced my leg, and I fell screaming. Tall grass scraped my chin. Darren's hand slipped from mine. My breath came halting and shallow as I tried to push myself upright. It was too dark to see, but every movement in my left leg sent fresh pain lancing up my side.

"Celestine!" Darren shook my shoulder. "They're right behind us!"

"You have to keep going!" I shoved him in the direction of the road. Somehow even that made my leg hurt more. "Get Elias's attention. Bring them here. Go!"

"But you–"

"Go!" I shoved hard enough that he stumbled. That time, he took off running and didn't look back. It was a good thing too; the men had caught up to me, and I was hauled roughly to my feet by an iron grip on my arm. As soon as my injured leg took my weight, it buckled, throbbing around the area where I had been struck. In the lantern light, I glimpsed a bloody crossbow bolt sticking out from my thigh, wicked sharp. My vision swam. I tasted bile in my throat just before I looked away.

The man holding me cursed under his breath. "This is more trouble than it's worth. Kill the kid. We need to get moving."

"What about the ritual? The book didn't say—"

"To hell with it! The girl will do fine."

I heard the click of a bolt sliding into place. "Don't!" I cried, but the other man was already firing. Darren's scream rang out across the field but cut short. His small body collapsed into the weeds.

The cry that wrenched from me was terrible and ugly, a shrill thing that had both men cursing me to shut up. One tried covering my mouth; I bit his hand and tasted blood, then I twisted out of his hold. He wrestled me, lifting me from the ground as he pinned me against his chest. I kicked and struggled and screamed all the while begging Elias heard me. Even if he couldn't make it to me, I needed him to be able to make it to Darren before Death did.

He would have to hurry. The black-cloaked figure, frail and slightly hunched, was already gliding toward the boy, murmuring to himself. "You musn't go this way. They are all so young, so young. You must go to the grave."

That was the last I heard of him before I was dragged back inside. I think I was still screaming for Elias—or trying to, anyway. One of the men hit me upside the head, serendipitously striking so near to the place Vesper had hit me that twice as much pain resonated across my skull. I could have sworn my vision flickered with twice as many spots. But I held firmly to consciousness, fragmented though it may be.

Inside, the first man was kneeling in the room I had escaped from, painting a ritual seal across the floor in precise lines and circles. All of it was meaningless to me. His middle where I'd stabbed him had been hastily bandaged by the fourth and final member of the group who watched me like a hawk. The burns on the first man's face were still red, slick, and ugly. He would be scarred forever. My chest swelled with pride enough that the throbbing in my skull faded momentarily.

One of my captors shoved me to my knees. A fresh wave of nauseating pain rolled up and over me as the bolt shifted in my leg. I bit my tongue. The other hurried to a small box in the corner, one they must have carried in with them because it hadn't been there before. From it, he produced bones and a thick journal.

The scarred man rose shakily to his feet, heaving in a tired breath before hobbling over to me. He grabbed my face again. This time, his dirty fingers were slick with blood too. The stench of death wafted from him. "You will heal me."

I drew up all the saliva in my mouth and spat straight in his face. He recoiled with a sharp cry where it touched his burns. When he whirled on me again, it was with an anger so intense that mine seemed like a candle flame in comparison. "Get her up."

"We really should get going. Clear out the circle. There were lights in the distance—surely they heard her screaming!" said the sensible man with the book and bones. His buddies ignored him, hauling me again to my feet.

The scarred man grabbed hold of the bolt in my leg and twisted it. It shifted against flesh and sinew, burning me from the inside out, and my whole body jerked at the pain. I cried out. The room tilted around me, and I was no longer certain I could find myself within it.

"Heal me, girl!" he demanded again. When I only shook my head, he threw me to the floor in the center of the ritual ring. I collided with the cold stone as a doll might, limp and hollow. Though I was breathing too hard and shaking too much to be anything but living.

The frantic man pulled his cowl higher and continued to insist they flee, and thus began an argument about whether it was worth it to take me. It was then that I realized how terribly amateurish and unorganized these men were, and even through the haze of my pain I couldn't help but wonder what drove them here. While they argued, I lay there watching, my gaze drawn to the book at the center of everything. Ritual. Book. Power.

I don't know what possessed me to move, but something did and it was agony. I was panting from merely sitting up; woozy at the thought of standing. But I called on whatever edges of my magic remained and performed a spell I'd barely practiced—to steal their book and exchange it for an equally weighted fake. I'd taught it to myself to steal people's desserts in the cafeteria, succeeding only once on Seraya's favorite cheesecake.

I pulled the magic, molded it together, gritted my teeth against the aching inside me. Black spots grew increasingly larger at the edges of my vision. My head was screaming and so was my leg. I was drowning. I wanted that book.

A weight materialized in my outstretched hand just before I flopped uselessly against the floor once again. At the same time, a cacophony of voices finally ended the pointlessly arguing of the men, and then the gilded brilliance of armor filled the room. The guards had finally come. At their head was Elias, and his face took on a terrible darkness the moment he caught sight of me.

The men tried to run, but with the hallway blocked and the windows barred, they had nowhere to go. They were swiftly apprehended—save for one, the quiet one, who produced a jagged bone knife from the folds of his cloak and slit his own wrists. "If I cannot complete the ritual, I will not remain here." He too was hauled out with the rest while one of Elias's men tried to stop the flow of blood. I didn't think his escape would be as easy as he'd hoped.

"Celestine, look at me." Elias turned my face toward his, studying me with a stern frown. His gaze lingered only a moment on my leg. He couldn't look at it either. Then he lifted me up, and I curled my arms around his neck. I hoped he couldn't tell how bad I was shaking, but I had no way to hide it either.

"The boy," I murmured, my words slurring slightly. The dizziness had caught up with me. At most I could grip the book and cling to Elias; that was all that kept me from crying.

"He's dead," Elias said. I must have stiffened, because he quickly added, "but there's still a chance he could come back. We're going to take his body back to his parents so they can hold the vigil."

"Vigil." Someone must have held a vigil for me. I wondered how long it had lasted. Hadn't Elias been there when I'd woken? Maybe he had been there for all of it, keeping watch over me. The thought comforted me, and I relaxed slightly.

He stepped out, carrying me back into the night air. The chaos had faded somewhat, leaving a somber quiet behind. Two carts had been brought to the edge of the road, one which the criminals were being loaded into. Darren was gently lifted into the other. I could no longer see Death lurking about.

"Think of something that keeps you awake." Elias shifted his hold on me, lifting me up slightly. The movement jostled my leg, and I stifled a pained moan. "Do you know any healing spells?"

"I'm not proficient, but I think I could manage."

"By the looks of things, magic would be a better solution. The ride back is short but uncomfortable. I can take the arrow out when we get back. You'll bleed too much if I try to do it now."

After that clipped explanation, its edges shaky with panic, he placed me in the same cart as Darren. One of the soldiers had covered him in a cloak, but I could see the blood leaking out from under it. As we began to rattle down the road, I took his hand and squeezed. Its warmth had already faded. I knew him to be with Death.

<><><>

It was longer than twenty-four hours before Elias and I received word from the boy's parents. Darren had not awoken again. His parents were beside themselves with grief. We were told of the arrangements made for Darren's funeral, and that he was to be buried in the cemetery. The same from which the bones had just been stolen.

I did not cry when I first heard, for both Elias and Mother were there. I thanked the messenger. I must have looked quite pathetic, too. No one could meet my eye. When I limped my way upstairs to my old room, it was in the shroud of silence that always follows the loss of life. It wasn't until the door shut and I'd fallen against it that I began to cry.

I was pathetic and weak. I was not a thorn in any sort of useful way, and all I had done was escalate matters. I could not save one boy who needed me.

I didn't know how I'd save my mother, much less myself.

The journal I'd stolen mocked me from its place on my desk. I was too sick to read it, but the hollowness inside me was begging me to.

I hurled it across the room in a moment of ugly rage, and I hated how the crash of leather and parchment against the wall satisfied me—but only when I imagined that I'd struck the faces of those men. What use was my second chance at life if I could not defend others from the rot in this world?

After a time, Mother entered the dark room and held me while I cried. She did not tell me it would be okay, because it never would, but she told me that I must continue anyway. "I love you, Celestine," she said. Then she kept her silence, because often silence was better than words.

And in that silence, I realized how foolish I'd been to think I could determine who Death came to reap. For whatever reason, he had made me a spectator, not an actor. What then was I meant to do?

I had a feeling the answer waited for me at the grave of Death.