Page 73 of Reaper's Quest

Bolting to a stand, I shook my head straight. “You said no secrets, but I suspect you have plenty.”

I glanced at Aoes. I should stay my tongue, but anger burst and exploded like a powder keg inside of me, and I could no longer contain myself. “From now on, I think we’d each work better on our own.”

Chace’s nostrils flared, yet he offered no retort.

Vexation was an easier emotion to embrace than whatever strangeness attempted to take root in my head…or heart. So, yeah, I would cling to the vexation.

Spinning on my heels, I headed for the door. Irritated with myself or Chace…I wasn’t sure which…I needed to put distance, lots of distance, between us. For…reasons. I needed a cathartic release…and wanted to reap something. A lot of somethings.

Maybe even hurt something.

But I’d start with the reaping.

At my back, Chace called to me, but I ignored him. I had become an igniting tinderbox of emotion, and I didn’t know why. I required a distraction, sought to throw myself into the task.

I slammed the pub door behind me and stormed deep into the citadel.

Today, I would master the maze and find my way across the riverof mutated molten lava to the palace nestled upon the center hilltop. I would find the key to unlocking the curse and then reap myself a royal. Possibly several. Maybe all.

Fueled by anger and frustration, I traversed the maze of city streets with unexpected ease. My vigilance in learning the citadel landscape played a part. But trusting my gut without the interference of my head added a winning factor to my seamless navigation.

I would have given in to my blind fury days ago if I’d known it would lead me straight to the palace grounds.

The entrance, a long bridge behind a spiked iron gate and flanked by stone towers, now stood little more than a block away.

Beyond a flowing river of fire and many-tiered walls rose the palace, adorned with colored glass and carved stone?finials shaped like sprouting water, columns decorated as if covered with vines, antefixes depicting fire, and acroteria showcasing snow flurries riding a wind. The pentagon-shaped building rose to a tall, pointed roofline and heaven-reaching steeples anchored each of the five corners.

Something inside of me hummed, calling me to one spire in particular.

Four of the towers appeared warm and somewhat inviting. Glowing lights in the windows and green vines clinging to the sides. The fifth held a lonely and forgotten vibe, even without the murder of crows covering the tower’s crown. All openings set in that tower looked like pools of ink, aside from the flicker of light shining in the highest window. The same window from which blackness spilled and surrounded the opening like flowing liquid defying gravity.

The reaper side of me recoiled at the wrongness. Thatwindow was where I wanted, maybe needed, to go, but whatever occupied that space on the other side wasn’t wholly right.

In that room, far above the city, was where we would start to fix the reaping issue plaguing the Citadel of Veritas. That unholy flicker of wrongness had to be connected to the key Mr. Aldine had mentioned. The key in the castle, and the key to fixing theunreapablesituation.

Our quest led there.

My gut couldn’t be mistaken. Not about that.

With my head high and shoulders set, I marched straight to the main entrance and the row of guards armed with bayonet rifles.

19

In addition to the unusual red of my hair, I had inherited another gift from my maternal side. A rare gift we never spoke of openly in public, as it, at present, remained undocumented in the reaper’s handbook and could easily be misunderstood. An ability I seldom used, if ever. But one I could utilize to slip past the castle’s outer defenses.

I shifted my appearance into a noncorporeal shape.

In the form of mist, I swept past the palace gate guards and…

Slam.

An electrical current jolted through my being. I wavered, my misty form widening for balance.

Like the citadel’s front gate, a protective barrier surrounded the palace. And unlike the one at the front, this barricade only repelled me. It didn’t transform me.

Thank the reapers.

I could have unknowingly, and rather stupidly, walked straight into a monster-morphing trap.