Matthew hates violence.

  Especially the sort he wasn't personally administering.

  The name cards arrive at the Soul Management mailboxes—one hundred and eighty-one souls, all scheduled to die on the same day.

  The grim set of Billy's jaw, the silence in the room, and the way the cards are separated into trays tells him everything. The segregation means there is a tray with names of children. His fingers scrape the edge of the table as he stares at the them.

  "How many?"

  "There are twenty, Boss. Kindergarteners. Some...younger."

  Matthew's mouth begins to taste like old copper.

  Children aren't supposed to die. They haven't even seen what the world could do yet—haven't had their first kiss, haven't pulled their first lie, haven't known the way love turns mean. And sure, sometimes it's mercy. Sometimes a kid's short life is the cleanest way out. But more often it is a lesson—a scar carved into the ones left behind. A nasty reminder of what you can lose.

  Seven days from now, a building downtown will be blown up. An act of domestic terrorism. Two trucks loaded up with enough hatred and ammonium nitrate to erase the place from the skyline.

  A hundred and eighty-one lives on a clock, ticking louder every minute.

  And when the body count gets this high, the Head Reaper is supposed to show up.

  But Billy knows—it isn't the number or the protocol that draws Matthew in so deeply. It's the children. They're the sore spot in his otherwise nonchalant and merry demeanor. The most vulnerable of souls, he calls them. To him, they deserve the best: the kindest smiles, the gentlest voices, and—if all else fails—the prettiest faces.

  The day of the bombing finally arrives.

  Matthew and three teams descend on site, their presence invisible to humans yet loud enough in the afterworld to make the air itself hold its breath.

  It is a strange sight if only one can see. A group of suits in black scattered at dawn, hovering around a nine-level federal building as if mounting a mass funeral in secret.

  Unable to flee from the carnage about to unfold, the building stares back: white concrete, nine ugly stories of bureaucracy. All the offices look the same—except for the third floor, where someone thought it clever to stick a daycare center between death and taxes.

  Matthew's eyes rest on the glass facade, looking through six hundred souls inside, whose lives are about to be changed—and for some, to be taken.

  Then, the two trucks roll in, boxy and patient. Men step out. The kind of men who look normal right up until they don't. Matthew's hands curl into fists so tight they tremble.

  He can't do anything. Rules. Reapers aren't allowed to interfere.

  You can only watch. You can only clean up.

  He checks his watch, in thirty minutes, the reaping will begin.

  The teams fall in line, and he breaks them into triage groups: the first—immediate fatalities, second—delayed departures, and third—young souls.

  "Last group, you're with me."

  Nobody argues. When the Boss picks his assignment, you smile and nod and count your blessings.

  It is the first boom that shakes the city awake.

  The second one forces it to scream.

  The entire glass fa?ade shatters, the shockwave rattling nearby structures, breaking everything fragile. Suits watch as the explosion rips through nine floors of concrete, and black smoke billows out like a demonic cloud—the kind that makes you wonder if it might just swallow the world whole. The cars in the parking lot below are in flames, and every alarm goes off in every octave, pleading for help.

  No one dares to breathe or speak as they behold the ruin—a grim tapestry, not woven by demons or Type 2 rogues with hollow eyes, but by human hands, trembling with power and cruelty against their own.

  The reapers deploy like clockwork, calm and methodical as the world lost its mind.

  Matthew leads his team toward the mangled remains of the daycare. As they get closer, the smell of melted crayons, plastic toys, and something sharp underneath it all—burning flesh—lingers in the air.

  The souls begin to emerge, walking out of the wreckage, some crawling, their small forms coated in the dust of their own death. He sees them—the children—infants, no older than one year. Little souls, delicate and lost.

  One by one, the reapers lifted them, soothed them, carried them. The job is to make it gentle.

  It is always supposed to be gentle.

  Billy goes ahead of him and scoops up a toddler with shaky arms, the youngest one on the list. Too young to even recognize his own name; when the reaper reads it from his card, he simply coos at him.

  Matthew follows carefully through the rubble, boots crunching on something that might have been a toy truck or might have been something worse.

  And then he sees her.

  A little girl. Pink sneakers still strapped to her crushed legs. Still breathing—barely. Her blood darkens the concrete around her like a halo gone wrong.

  He kneels next to her, and she looks up at him. The look in those eyes says she can probably see him, right on the edge of crossing over. Her soul's already halfway there.

  Matthew reads her name card. Four years old. Soon, the blood will drain from her small body, and her soul will slip free—light and stubborn.

  He reaches for her hand and calls her name, so softly it could lull someone to sleep. And when her weak little fingers clasp his, that's when it happens.

  A memory, old, cruel, and cold inside him, snaps open—so forcefully it pins him to the broken ground.

  ****************************

  He had been twelve when the weight of the barony crushed down on his narrow shoulders like chainmail on glass. The title of Baron was announced over still-warm corpses, his mother's ring pressed to his palm with blood not yet dried on her gown. He didn't cry. Not when they told him she screamed his name with her final breath. Not when he saw his father's spine snapped over the banister like a broken staff.

  Instead, he turned to the cradle.

  To her.

  Marion.

  She was four then. Smaller than a sword. With eyes too wide for the world she'd been born into. He remembered the way she reached for him, even through her sobs, not yet understanding what death had taken, only who remained.

  He knelt before her, then and there, with fingers that still shook from holding their father's bloodied blade. He swore to protect her, not in the flowery vows of courtly knights, but in the silent language of Highcourts—steel, resolve, and fire under frost.

  And he kept that vow.

  Because she wasn't just his sister.

  She was all that was left.

  —

  They said the women of Highcourt were different. Not delicate blossoms pinned to silk-lined cages, but flame-forged heirs. The bloodline did not bow to sons alone. So, he raised her as such. Not as a shadow of a man, but as a storm in her own right.

  She had the same tutors he did. The same drills. She sparred with boys twice her age and debated with councilmen who'd rather see her married than educated. Marion learned to ride before she could braid her own hair, learned to argue royal tax codes before she bled her first moon.

  And when the whispers started— "He's raising the next Warden," "He wants her to rule in his stead," "She's no lady, that one"—he did not silence them.

  He smiled.

  Let them talk.

  She would not be bartered like some perfumed prize for the sake of alliances. She would be courted with treaties, not compliments. Feared before she was adored.

  Because she was not raised to be adored.

  She was raised to survive.

  —

  And when one wanted to live, one learned to be a sword.

  Matthew would make her one.

  One night, he summoned her to his study. The fire crackled in the hearth. She stood tall, in the uniform of Highcourt, not a single ruffle or silken bow to be seen. She looked like their mother. No—like what their mother should've been, had the world not clipped her wings.

  "There's a boy in the dungeons," he said. "He tried to slit your throat in the orchard."

  She blinked, startled. "He's just a child."

  "And so are you," he answered cold. "He meant to kill you. You'll make sure he never gets the chance again."

  "I've never—" She swallowed. "I've never killed."

  "Then let this be your first." He placed the sword in her hand. The steel was clean. The hilt small enough for her grip. He had it forged that way. "Make it quick. One stroke. Do not let him rise again. If you feel mercy, then do not prolong it."

  Her fingers trembled. But her spine stayed straight. He was proud—and sickened by that pride.

  "This is justice, Marion. Not bloodlust. Not cruelty. He meant to end you. End us—the Highcourts. And our house endures not by mercy, but by resolve. Remember that."

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  She hesitated at the door.

  "I am not like you, Matthew."

  "No," he whispered. "You're better. But you must survive first."

  And when she left, blade in hand, Matthew sat alone and grieved. Not for the boy in the dungeon. But for the little sister he had lost, the moment the title fell heavy on his twelve-year-old head and he had no choice but to raise an heir instead of a child.

  —

  The door shut behind her with a whisper. It was almost polite, the way it closed—like a final breath, or the hush before a sword was drawn.

  Matthew stood there for a long time.

  He did not follow her. He could not. Not because he didn't care, but because he did. Too much. If he followed, he might stop her. And that was something he could no longer afford. Not now.

  The boy in the dungeon would be dead soon.

  And a different kind of death would follow Marion back.

  Not the kind that left blood or burns. But the kind that stained the soul in silence. The first kill was never clean, no matter how sharp the blade.

  He poured himself a cup of wine—red and bitter, like old regrets. His hand shook slightly. He masked it by moving deliberately, like all noble men do when they want to hide the trembling.

  She would come back changed. He knew that.

  He remembered the first time he killed. A man twice his size. A would-be usurper. Matthew had been eleven and a squire. His knees had buckled after, in the snow behind the royal keep. Alone, shaking, sick. He hadn't told anyone.

  And no one had held him after.

  He thought of holding Marion when she returned. Of telling her she had done well, that it was necessary, that she was brave. But those were the comforts given to daughters. Not heirs. And he had not raised her for comfort. He had raised her for the world.

  Still...gods help him, he loved her.

  From the moment she was placed in his arms, small and squalling and his, he had felt it. That there was nothing—nothing—he would not do for her.

  But love had edges. And his love was sharp. Forged like armour, wielded like a blade.

  Let the other noble ladies be soft. Let them weep and wither behind the lattice screens of courtly life. Let them barter their lives for titles and lands and husbands with polished smiles.

  Marion would never be one of them.

  She would be something else entirely.

  He walked to the tall window overlooking the courtyard. Below, the guards moved, setting the prisoner on the block. A hush fell. Then—a single sound. The fall of a body. Clean. Final.

  One stroke.

  Good girl.

  Matthew didn't smile. He couldn't. Pride and sorrow twisted in his chest like twin serpents, biting each other until neither won.

  She had done it.

  She would live.

  And she would never be the same.

  The Highcourts had a legacy of strength. A legacy written in blood and iron. But tonight, Matthew Highcourt made a bargain with the gods: that if they were cruel, let them be cruel to him.

  Not to her.

  Never to her.

  But the gods never listen.

  And she was already walking back.

  —

  The corridor back to the keep was long.

  Longer than it was before.

  She had walked with steady steps, her boots echoing across the cold stone floor like a war drum no one dared play. Her hands were clean. She had made sure of that. The blade had done its work in one swing. Matthew's voice had whispered in her memory— "If you must strike, do not falter."

  The boy hadn't begged. That was the worst part.

  He hadn't pleaded or cried. Just looked at her with wide eyes—afraid, yes, but not of death. Of her. Of what she had to become.

  He had been sixteen.

  She was younger.

  She remembered that, over and over, as if the math might spare her. As if numbers had ever done anything but count bodies on a battlefield or heirs on a parchment.

  The doors to the solar creaked open.

  Matthew was there, standing by the tall window, where the snow had begun to fall. He looked like a statue—stone-carved and silent, back turned as if watching the ghosts walk across the courtyard.

  She stopped just inside.

  "I did it," she said. Her voice was hollow, not broken. She refused to let it break.

  He didn't turn immediately.

  When he did, he looked at her—not with triumph. Not with sorrow.

  With the kind of quiet you only saw in men who had lost too much too soon.

  "You were swift," he said. "That was mercy."

  Marion swallowed. "It didn't feel like mercy."

  "No." He walked toward her. Slowly. "It never did."

  She had wanted him to hold her. She had wanted to be a little girl again, just for a breath. Just to be his sister—not his heir. Not the blade he had forged from the ashes of their parents.

  But she stood tall.

  "I thought I'd feel powerful," she admitted. "Like the stories. But I just feel...cold."

  Matthew placed a hand on her shoulder. Not soft. Not rough. Steady.

  "That's how you know you did it right," he said. "If you'd felt nothing, I'd worry. If you'd enjoyed it, I'd fear for you. But this..." His voice lowered. "This is what justice tastes like. Not glory. Not heat. Just the cold."

  Marion nodded. Her lips parted, but no words came. There were no right ones. Not tonight.

  She met his eyes.

  "I hate you a little, for making me do it."

  He nodded once. "Good."

  "Why?"

  "Because it means you still have your soul."

  She looked away, blinking fast.

  He let her.

  But as she turned to go, he spoke again.

  "Marion."

  She paused.

  "One day," he said, "they will speak your name in the courts of kings and the whispers of traitors. And none will dare forget what you did today."

  She didn't answer.

  But she walked taller.

  And outside, the snow kept falling.

  ****************************

  A touch pulls him out of it. And suddenly, the memory becomes blurred, that face that he seems to know by heart disappears, and just a name remains.

  "Mister," says the tiny voice that stops him from recalling.

  It's the girl with the pink sneakers, staring at him while she clutches his sleeves.

  He stares at her, then back at the cold hand of her mortal body still holding Matthew's thumb.

  She is dead now.

  He reaches for her pale face and gently closed her lifeless eyes staring into the wreckage. Then, he turns to her soul. "Hello, Mikey."

  "How'd you know they call me that?"

  He holds her tiny face in his palms, trying to pull away her focus from the chaos that is now screaming to be heard, "Do you like to go somewhere nice with me?"

  She pouts. "I'm not supposed to go with strangers. Mommy said I shouldn't."

  He gives her a smile—a warm one, like a hug from someone who loves you. "That's true, you shouldn't go with strangers. Your mommy taught you well." He draws her gently to him, "My name is Matthew. You know, one of the angels asked me for a favour today, they asked me to pick you up and bring you to that special place you like."

  "No way," She says, "you know about the beach?"

  "You always go there, right? Mommy and Daddy brings you there...with balloons and your favourite chocolate cake." Softly, he puts his arms around her, her small frame completely enveloped. Then he whispers, "Happy Birthday, Mikey."

  She would've been five today.

  From a distance, sirens begin to blare, the world is starting to move from the shock as help rushes to the scene.

  There are three people already standing in front of the rubble, two of them wearing blue scrubs, the other a civilian. They are covered in dust, with cuts too on the sides of their faces, and their hands. They have been closed by when it happened. One of them starts looking at the unconscious people in the sidewalk, he takes out his pen and marks the victims on the wrist. Then he moves to the other, an old man with a bad cut on his head.

  A reaper crouches down beside him as he is doing CPR. "Damn it, Ben! You gotta wake up buddy..."

  His eyes are red from tears that are warning to fall, but he continues not wasting a second. He knows the old man.

  The reaper watches with cold eyes, waiting. And then, the soul departs from the body.

  "You need to tell him to stop." The old man tells the reaper, "He's a good kid you know, doctors are busy people and yet he doesn't miss buying me coffee every morning. No one cares for a homeless old man, but he did. Jimmy did."

  "Don't worry about him, Sir. He is bound to be a saint."

  "Well, don't take him yet." Ben says worried.

  The reaper's lips curl softly, "No, Sir. It's not yet time for him. But you on the other hand," she offers her arm, "I'm afraid we have to go."

  Ben takes one last look at the doctor, who is now crying as he tries his best to wake him up. "You're a wonderful lad, Jimmy. But there are people who need your help, don't waste your time on the dead."

  As if Jimmy has heard him, he wipes his eyes and collects himself. He pulls out his wallet and takes his calling card. He writes "emergency contact" on top, then he puts the card inside Ben's jacket pocket.

  "You always hated the thought of the city burying you into some unmarked grave." He holds his hands one last time, "Rest now, I'll make sure to find a place where you can see the trees."

  Ben takes the reaper's arm, "I'm ready."

  —

  The guides come back to the Veil.

  Great turn out, all one hundred and eighty-one souls accounted for and not one lost during transport.

  Clark spots Matthew while loitering—gallivanting, really—around the main lobby, nursing a cup of coffee she doesn't need and pretending she isn't bored out of her mind.

  She pauses mid-sip.

  He's surrounded by children. Souls, recently departed, small hands clinging to the hem of his coat, eyes wide and confused. They probably haven't yet grasped what being dead actually means. And Matthew—Matthew is kneeling down to speak to them gently, his voice low and warm, like a lullaby draped in velvet. The kind of voice that could make a kid believe everything will be alright.

  It's hard to reconcile this man with the one who not long ago unleashed pure fury on a rogue host, burning with wrath like a blade unsheathed.

  He catches her staring.

  "You actually worked," Clark calls out as he approaches, brows raised in mock disbelief. "School bus?" she assumes.

  Matthew gives a soft, tired smile. "Local terrorists bombed a federal building," he replies simply.

  There's something in his voice—grief wrapped in restrained anger. She hears it clearly, and she doesn't tease him for it.

  "There's a charming little circle in Hell waiting for people like that," she says casually, like she's talking about the weather. "Luxury flames, full-body torment, no parole. You want me to call ahead?"

  His eyes meet hers, and the corner of his mouth lifts—just a little, but enough.

  "No. not yet." He quietly says, "But when the time comes, can you do me a favour and escort them yourself? I know you're working for Ghost Crimes and you're not exactly fetching sin—"

  "I will." Clark tells him, "I'm going to make them cry, when I collect them."

  Matthew smiles at her, as if an understanding has been met. He steps closer. "It healed up nicely," he says, nodding toward her face.

  She touches her cheek instinctively, where Clarence's blade had once cut her. There's no scar now, not even a memory on the skin.

  Matthew doesn't ask if she's alright. He wants to, but he knows it isn't his place. So instead, he lets his gaze drop to her outfit.

  "And a longer skirt today?" he notes with a raised brow. "You finally learned your lesson on proper uniform?"

  Clark flashes a grin and shifts her leg forward. A long slit up the side reveals a scandalous amount of thigh. "What lesson?"

  Matthew laughs, a real one this time. "One of these days, you're going to give Clarence an ulcer."

  "If he doesn't have one already," she quips. "I'm clearly underperforming."

  He shakes his head, amused. "You want me to walk you?"

  She doesn't answer. She just falls into step beside him, and together, they head down the corridor toward the Elite Squad wing.

  "You're thinking too loud." Matthew stares at her, hands inside his pockets.

  "No, I'm not."

  She stops walking and faces him, "Did you know about A—"

  "Yes." Matthew answers.

  "I wasn't even finished."

  "You were going to ask about Azazel. What he offered you on your seventh year." His voice lowers. "Yes, we knew. After Clarence proposed the terms to you, he had to speak to the prince himself for the stamp on your transfer."

  That stops her cold.

  It shouldn't shock her—everything in the Veil is wrapped in ritual and blood and contracts—but the image of Clarence standing before Azazel makes something crawl in her chest.

  "Who else knows?"

  "Top-brass and probably, Anya. That girl can hack through anything."

  Clark exhales, masking the tight twist in her chest with a grin, "Is that why he can't stand me? Because I was almost a demon?"

  Even from the beginning, she has seen it—the way Clarence looks at her like he is always in pain. Like every breath she takes offended him. Like he is one wrong word away from violence. And Clark cloaks the discomfort with a grin, turning unease into seduction and sharp words because defiance is easier, safer than the truth.

  "You should ask him that yourself."

  "I don't think that's possible. Last time I asked about something, he almost stabbed me."

  Matthew flashes her a lopsided grin, "But may I ask, why'd you say no? You could have been ruling Hell by now."

  She is almost hurt that he can believe she has come to bend, to kneel before a prince. Her voice, when it comes, is quiet but resolute, forged in the furnace of refusal.

  "I didn't come to Hell to rule."

  She may have descended willingly into the pit, but not to rise. Not to wear a crown.

  Everyone in the Veil knows of her famous refusal to reincarnate. But no one ever asks what she lost in making that choice.

  She moves into their pristine halls like a storm wrapped in silk—sharp, untouchable, the kind of soul others assume is handpicked by the cosmos itself. She lets them believe it. Lets the myth breathe. That the Veil came for her. But the truth is far darker than that. It's not the Veil that has sought her. She has clawed her way here, not as the crown jewel of fate, but as a soul willing to be broken just to stand among the dead.

  In Hell, you begin at the highest circle when you torture the damned. A scourge isn't allowed near the Second Circle, not even after a decade of loyal service. She breached it in a month.

  By her sixth year, they let her pass into the Ninth.

  And in her seventh...she is invited beyond. She has been granted permission to serve in any circle she prefers, and she always takes the deepest and most wicked places.

  That's where the Princes start to notice you—where your name might slip into their mouths between sips of blood wine and casual executions. Where offers are made, and doors creak open to those willing to kneel or burn.

  They offer her power and a title. She tells them no. What she wants is freedom—and a recommendation to join the Veil. She has not forgotten it, the real reason she refused reincarnation. But she doesn't tell Matthew that.

  They reach the door of the Ghost Crimes Team office—merciful timing, a clean escape from Matthew's question.

  But when Clark reaches for the handle, her hand stills midair. That feeling sinks in again. She cannot shake it. That confrontation with Clarence in the training room hasn't allowed her to sleep.

  And it gnaws at her now, more than she dares to admit.

  "Do you want me to dramatically carry you inside in my arms, or you can walk inside on your own?" Matthew asks, as if reading into her hesitation.

  Now that is a question she much prefers answering.

  "I can walk. No need to trouble yourself."

  Matthew watches her go in, and suddenly, she reminds him of someone.