A lot of people tended to say something profound when they were dying, these calming strung together thoughts that really made no fucking sense to me. Things like ‘Death was easy. Life was hard.’ When really that couldn’t be further from the truth. Death was the end. It was permanence. Beyond the veil where I wavered was an endless existence of drifting. Would I retain my mind? I had no fucking clue, but I didn’t trust it. Not one bit.

Here in this place of existing and not, there was no pain. At least not physically. I walked, but there was no floor. There were no people. No voices. No whispers. Not even that all too famous bright light everyone liked to claim they saw.

There was nothing.

Nothing but me and endless darkness.

I lifted my right hand and called forth my fire. Against the murky black depths, it was bright. So bright that I winced before extinguishing it. As much as it sucked, the darkness was better. The beast agreed somberly, shifting inside me.

That seemed strange to me. That here I was, wherever this was, with a body I was certain wasn’t actually real—that the beast would still exist within me. If this was some corporeal dream, surely she could have her own body? Or would she even be here at all?

Again, I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t trust it.

Something just seemed wrong.

Do dead people normally have this much presence of mind?

“You’re not dead.”

My head snapped up and I turned, looking in the direction the voice had come from.

Standing in the darkness, a glowing white figure dressed in blood and leather walked forward.

Voodoo Doughnut girl.

My would-be assassin-turned-savior.

“Where are we?” I asked, my voice echoing off of non-existent walls. This was weird…

The mercury-eyed woman crossed her arms over her chest and flicked her long, sleek ponytail over her shoulder. The ends were white, not purple as they had been only hours ago. Which meant—

“We’re not real, you and I.”

She smiled, not quite cold, but calculating nonetheless. In her eyes were secrets that many had died for, ancient truths I could only hope to learn. This woman was old and powerful. She was unlike any demon I’d ever known.

“Very good, Daughter of Hell. We aren’t real. Not in the sense you are thinking, anyway. This place is the in-between. The veil.”

Ice slithered through my veins. So I was that close to death—but what was she doing here? Wouldn’t it be more fitting to find Julian? She cocked her head, examining me with a peculiar interest.

“It would be more fitting to find Death here—were you going to die. As it is, he’s currently occupied with removing the spike from your stomach. Nasty poison, that is, but you’ll be fine.”

Okay, now this was really beginning to freak me out. The Horsemen had said I was picking up on their thoughts. That I was projecting my own. But if I didn’t have a body, and we were in the veil—shouldn’t I have been able to shield myself or something? Was that even a thing?

The woman continued to stare at me. Somehow calling her that didn’t seem like enough. She was certainly not a girl, but nor was I sure she was a demon. Blood magic wasn’t a gift that demon-kind held. Which made me think that, like me, she was something other.

Something…different.

“Who are you?” I asked. She considered me for a moment.

“My name is Sin, but that’s not the question you want to ask.” She spoke with more than confidence. It was an eerie wisdom. The distinct sense of knowing that the person before me was not all she seemed.

“What are you?” I corrected. She nodded; that was the question she expected.

“That’s a secret. One you are not ready to know.”

I frowned, blowing out a steady breath. Okay, back to the riddles, I guess. Her vagueness didn’t bother me as much as it should have. She was supposed to be an assassin, after all, one that not so long ago was sent to kill me. Yet…neither the beast nor I sensed danger from her. While she was dangerous, that knife point wasn’t currently aimed our way. That didn’t mean I trusted her, but an ally didn’t necessarily need trust to be worth listening to.

“I was stabbed. I’m pretty sure that’s why I’m here. What it doesn’t explain is why you are too. Which makes me think it has something to do with me. Why are you here?”

She inclined her head and rocked back and forth twice on her feet before coming forward. Closer.

“It’s hard to explain, given that I don’t understand it completely myself. Last time I saw you, we entered a blood oath, with you owing me a favor. I sealed the oath, closing a tiny sliver of my magic inside you. That sliver was supposed to stay there. Dormant. Waiting until I called upon you, where it would ultimately be released back to me.”

“Okay,” I drawled. “But I nearly died and you’re the one I’m seeing. I’m not sure how a tiny sliver of magic does that.”

“You entered the transition less than twenty-four hours later”—she paused when I opened my mouth to ask how she knew that, but then closed it as soon as I thought about who I was dealing with. Of course she knew.—“And proceeded to make your presence known all across New Orleans.”

She shot me a less than amused look and I, unlike the beast—whose fault it was— at least had the good graces to blush and look away. It had not been the smartest of choices.

“I’m still not seeing the correlation here—”

“Sometime between when I left you and when the Horsemen called me in to find you, you started using magic you shouldn’t hold. Magic that is very dangerous for you to possess, should my master find out.” She raised both her eyebrows, prompting me to follow her train of thought. Willing me to come to…

I came up blank.

Sin sighed, uncrossing her arms to roll her shoulders back.

“You somehow took that tiny scrap of magic inside of you and synthesized it.”

Oh…was she saying that I copied her magic? How was that even possible?

“Um…you do realize that I’m a demon, right? Demons can’t use—”

“Most demons can’t use blood magic. A select four that we both know of can. They were created that way so that they could bind you. As they tried. However, you were able to break it—not because of your sheer strength—but because you possessed an inkling of my magic and multiplied it. The blood oath is still in place. You did not absorb it or break it. You simply…copied it, as you say.” She frowned, and I got the feeling this woman did not show her emotions easily. Something about this troubled her.

“You said that it’s dangerous for me to have it…” I started, a little unsure with how to phrase this.

“If my master learns what you possess, we are both dead. There is not a world where your guardians will be able to hide you that she will not find you,” Sin replied swiftly, without sparing me anything. I grimaced at the implications. Clearly, I wasn’t dead now but that could always change at the drop of a hat. Things tended to do that in my life.

“Then I hide it. That shouldn’t be hard to—”

“You will not be able to hide it. The Horsemen already suspect, given how strong your telepathy is. The thing you call mind speak, where you are able to listen in, is something that I exclusively can do. Which only leaves one option…”

I took a step back, raising my hands in front of me. I seriously did not like the sound of that. Anytime someone used ultimatums, it tended to end with something about killing or torturing me. I didn’t care who she was, or how real or not this body may be. If I wasn’t dead yet, I was going to attempt to stay that way.

“Listen, you may have helped me out a few times, but I…” My voice trailed off when she lifted her hand and began to draw.

Was she—no.

No. That was not possible.

I know I said and thought that before, but this—her—I couldn’t even finish that thought before the shapes she drew became indigo-colored symbols in the air. A moment later, I felt a pop in the space around me.

I shook my head, not liking the sudden onslaught of dizziness.

“What did you do…” I muttered, pressing my palm flat to my temple and rubbing it in circles.

“Silence. I ensured that neither your thoughts nor your bonds with the Horsemen would give you away. After you wake, they will no longer be able to hear your thoughts, nor will you hear theirs. Should you try to speak about it, you will find yourself unable to. It will be like this meeting never happened.”

I backed away, trying to shake my head, but found myself getting more and more dizzy. How was that even possible? How was any of this possible?

“They cannot know, Ruby. No one can. You are the future of Hell, and I am not willing to sacrifice that or the future you will buy me by allowing you to get either of us killed.”

My world spun in circles as the heavy fog in my brain dragged me down...down…under. It wrapped around me like a blanket, lulling me to sleep.

But I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t. Not without knowing one thing first.

“Are you a…” The final word never left my lips. It seemed the ability to talk was now one I also did not possess.

Sin stared at me with heavy resignation and a tinge of sadness in her eyes.

“Goodbye, Ruby. Until we meet again.”

And with that, my eyes fell shut and my consciousness faded.