Becoming

Kali arrived first, as usual.

She appeared beside the hearth with her sleeves pushed up to her elbows and her knuckles split open. She had obviously been in the middle of something when Azrael's call reached her, and whatever it was hadn't ended pleasantly.

She looked around the living room, her gaze passing over Azrael before stopping on the big chair.

Lily was curled beneath his coat, her knees drawn up and her face barely visible above the collar.

Kali opened her mouth, then closed it.

She noticed the blood-red blanket folded over the arm of the chair and reached for it. The wool was warm beneath her fingers, warmer than it should have been. She pressed her palm against it for a moment, then pulled it around her shoulders and sat on the grey love seat.

She tucked her injured hands beneath the folds and waited.

Crash appeared a moment later, moving so quickly that he nearly lost his balance when his feet met the floor.

The constellations in his eyes were spinning wildly, streaking across his irises in long white lines. He stopped in the middle of the rug and squeezed his eyes shut.

He took a breath, held it, then released it slowly. He repeated the exercise several times before the stars began to slow.

When he finally opened his eyes, the constellations had settled into their usual patterns.

Crash dropped onto the settee and leaned his head against the back.

Finn arrived talking.

“Okay, I'm here. Nobody panic. Who's panicking? Is it Kali? It's always Kali—”

He stopped when he saw Lily.

His golden scarab had already climbed out of his pocket and was walking across his knuckles. Finn looked from the little girl in the chair to Azrael, then back again.

He opened his mouth, apparently reconsidered whatever he had intended to say, and sat on the floor beside the settee.

The scarab continued walking across his fingers.

Finn watched Lily instead.

Amara came through the hallway door, counting.

Her lips moved as she looked around the room.

“Kenji, Finn, Crash, Kali, Lily…”

She frowned and started again, checking each face as she went.

The number wasn't right.

Amara crossed her arms and positioned herself beside the hearth. She began counting again, occasionally glancing toward Lily's chair.

Azrael remained beside the chair with two fingers resting against his breastbone. He had felt each grim answer his summons, the familiar pull of their threads reaching him as they arrived.

Kenji was the last.

Azrael didn't hear him appear. One moment the window seat was empty, and the next Kenji was sitting there with the bright paper umbrella from the bar tucked behind his ear.

Finn glanced toward him, waiting for a comment.

Kenji said nothing.

That was unusual enough to make Finn look at him twice.

For a while, no one spoke.

Lily pulled her knees closer beneath Azrael's coat. She was waiting for someone to make a joke, something that would make the room feel ordinary again.

Nobody did.

“So that's the call,” Finn said finally. “The Call Call.”

“Last time he used it was the plague,” Crash said without opening his eyes.

“Which one?” Kali asked.

“Pick one.”

Azrael rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Nobody died who wasn't supposed to,” he said. “But something's off.”

“Something's always off,” Finn replied.

Azrael ignored him and turned toward Crash.

“I know what Kenji found. Crash, I want to hear what happened with your collection. You were there.”

Crash opened his eyes and sat forward.

“Three souls in an apartment. Second floor, somewhere in the suburbs. I couldn't find a cause of death.” He held up one hand. “I've collected families before. Three souls, three threads. Nothing complicated.”

“And?” Azrael asked.

“And these came out together.”

Crash turned his hand over as though he were holding the threads again.

“I reached for the first one and all three followed. There wasn't any separation between them. Like someone had tied them together.”

“Tangled souls,” Kali muttered, pulling the blanket tighter. “Great.”

Across the room, Kenji stopped turning the paper umbrella between his fingers.

Azrael noticed.

“Threads don't tangle,” Amara said, looking up from her counting.

“Then it was a very committed family,” Finn replied.

Lily giggled.

The sound surprised everyone, including Lily. It came a moment too late and ended almost as quickly as it began.

Kali looked toward her.

Without saying anything, she pulled the red blanket from her shoulders and tossed it across the room. It landed over Lily's feet.

Lily pulled it up beneath her chin, leaving Azrael's coat beneath it.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

Kali nodded.

Lily's other hand remained in her cardigan pocket, wrapped around the little plastic bracelet.

Azrael looked back at Crash.

“How many times has this happened?”

“Once.”

“Once today or once ever?”

“Once ever, Az. That's why I'm telling you.”

Azrael nodded slowly.

“Alright. Anything else that looks wrong, I want to know about it before you attempt the collection. Not afterward.”

“Define wrong,” Kali said.

Azrael looked at her.

“You'll know.”

Kali made a sound of irritation.

“You'll know,” she repeated. “That's helpful. Last time you used that call, it was a plague and we got actual instructions. Now we get a feeling.”

“Write it down,” Finn said.

“What?” Amara asked.

“Add it to the list.”

“What list?”

“The list of things that are off. It's getting pretty long.” Finn turned his hand, allowing the scarab to walk in the other direction. “We have a wing for this, Azrael. We have a staff.”

Azrael raised an eyebrow.

“I'll take that under consideration.”

“No, you won't,” Finn replied.

Crash rolled one shoulder, then the other. He stood and stretched, checking the movement of the constellations in his eyes.

“I've got three marks left on my rotation,” he said. “If another collection comes out tied together, I'm sending it to you.”

“How?” Kali asked.

Crash thought about that for a moment.

“In a box.”

Finn snorted.

Azrael sighed.

“Just tell me before you pull anything, Crash.”

“Fine.”

Amara had started counting again.

She reached the end of her list and frowned. The number was still wrong, even with Kenji sitting in the window.

She looked toward Azrael, then at Lily, and began again.

Azrael watched them for another moment.

None of the grims appeared particularly alarmed. Crash was adjusting his sleeves, Finn had begun arguing with Kali about whether a box was an appropriate way to deliver a supernatural problem, and Amara was still occupied with her count.

Kenji remained quiet.

Azrael had known them long enough to recognize the signs. They were listening, even if they weren't asking the questions he expected.

He dismissed them with a nod.

They began leaving in ones and twos, some disappearing directly and others wandering into different parts of the house.

Azrael watched Kali leave the room first, glancing back at Lily before she went.

He remembered the day he'd asked Kali to become a grim.

She had been standing in a room nobody else wanted to enter, her hands shaking while she looked at something the others refused to see.

You can say no, he had told her.

Kali had wiped her palms against her clothes and looked at him.

Who else is going to look?

Crash had been standing at the edge of a field when Azrael approached him. His hands had continued moving long after there was nothing left for them to do.

Will it slow down? Crash had asked, looking at the constellations beginning to form in his eyes.

No.

Crash had considered the answer before nodding.

Okay.

Finn had been sitting on the floor of a hospice hallway, holding a stranger's hand and making him laugh. Azrael had waited until the man was gone before approaching.

Amara had been in a room full of records, arguing with a clerk over a number that didn't add up. She had refused to leave until someone found the missing entry.

Kenji had already been working with the threads when Azrael found him.

I'm already doing it, Kenji had said. I'd like to be asked anyway.

Azrael had asked.

And then there was Lily.

He looked toward the big chair.

She had pulled the blankets up around her shoulders and was sitting quietly, her gaze lowered toward her lap.

He remembered the first time he'd found her.

Lily had been sitting cross-legged on a bedroom floor beside a little boy who wouldn't stop asking whether dying was going to hurt.

Azrael had knelt beside her when the collection was finished.

You can say no, he had told her.

Lily had studied his face for a long moment.

Can I still be little?

He had told her yes.

Azrael looked at the small figure curled beneath his coat.

He'd meant the promise. He'd meant every promise he'd made to every grim. They could refuse a collection, ask for time away, or choose to stop altogether.

He had built the house around that understanding. No one was required to stay.

And yet, in all the centuries they had been together, not one of them had ever told him no.

“You're doing the face.”

Azrael turned.

Kenji had moved from the window seat to the entrance of the hallway without Azrael noticing.

“I don't have a face.”

“You have eleven,” Kenji replied. “This is the one where you've decided everything's fine.”

“Everything is fine.”

“See? That's exactly what the face says.”

Azrael narrowed his eyes.

“Kenji.”

“It's my favorite. It never works.”

Kenji pushed away from the wall and walked toward him.

“I'm not asking.”

Before Azrael could respond, Kenji removed the paper umbrella from behind his own ear, turned it twice between his fingers, and tucked it into Azrael's hair.

The little pink umbrella looked ridiculous against the black.

Azrael reached up to touch it.

Kenji caught his wrist.

“Leave it. Now you look like someone who lost a bet.”

“And why is that desirable?”

“Because nobody takes a man with a paper umbrella in his hair seriously. You might actually get through Anamnesis without threatening something.”

Azrael looked at him.

“I don't threaten things.”

Kenji raised an eyebrow.

“Right.”

Azrael lowered his hand, leaving the umbrella where it was.

“I'm not worried.”

“I know. That's what worries me.”

Kenji turned toward the hallway.

Azrael followed.

“Fair warning,” Kenji said as they walked. “I'm going to count out loud again.”

“I know.”

“And you're going to stand there like a statue while I try not to throw up.”

“I could count with you.”

Kenji laughed.

“You'd lose your place by six. You've never had to hold on to a number in your life.”

“Then you can tell me where I am.”

Kenji looked sideways at him.

For a moment, his expression softened.

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay. Deal.”

The wall at the end of the hallway began to flicker.

A section of stone shifted, revealing the hidden chamber. Azrael stepped inside first, and Kenji followed, placing one hand against the wall.

“You don't feel it,” Kenji said.

“I feel it.”

“You don't mind it.”

“Minding it doesn't change anything.”

Kenji sighed and closed his eyes.

The pressure began building in their ears. Light bent around them, breaking into prisms that made Kenji tighten his grip against the stone.

“One, two, three…”

Azrael stood beside him with his hands at his sides, watching the light shift.

Kenji continued counting, pausing whenever the pressure became too strong.

At thirty-four, the chamber settled.

He cracked one eye open.

“Thirty-four. Better than last time.”

“Don't talk. Count.”

“Show-off.”

Kenji straightened and stepped through the ancient door.

Azrael followed him into Anamnesis.

The tapestry began moving before Azrael had finished bowing. Threads shifted across its enormous surface, and a wave of movement traveled from the floor into the vaulted darkness above them.

Azrael watched the familiar patterns form.

Anamnesis had always answered him. Its threads hummed whenever he entered, sometimes quietly and sometimes loudly enough to fill the chamber. He had never needed to translate the sounds into anything else.

He simply understood.

Kenji bowed more deeply and remained that way for several moments.

Nothing answered him.

When he straightened, he glanced toward Azrael.

“It won't speak to me.”

“I know.”

Azrael looked across the tapestry, searching for the older sections where the threads had stopped moving.

“Walk me to it.”

Kenji led him through the vault.

They passed long stretches of humming threads, moving farther into Anamnesis until the sounds grew quieter and the weave became darker.

Kenji counted his steps.

At one thousand, he glanced behind him.

Azrael was following without difficulty.

Kenji continued.

Another thousand steps brought them to the ancient bundle he'd discovered earlier.

He stopped and pointed.

Before Azrael could ask a question, they heard it.

A single drop of water.

The sound came from somewhere in the darkness, but there was no water in the vault.

Azrael raised one hand toward the tapestry.

He didn't touch it.

The threads moved against the air above his palm, and he listened.

Kenji waited.

After a moment, Azrael lowered his hand slightly.

“It's not waking by accident.”

Kenji glanced at the ancient bundle.

“What isn't?”

“The thread. Anamnesis says it's answering something.”

“Answering what?”

Azrael held his palm closer.

The hum changed, traveling through his fingers and up his arm. He stood still until the sound settled into something he could understand.

“A soul,” he said.

Kenji frowned.

“A soul?”

“One pressing against the weave from the other side. It's too bright for a thread. The old threads are responding to it.”

Kenji looked toward the ancient bundle.

“A candle.”

Azrael turned his head.

Kenji watched the tapestry.

“That's what your sisters call them. Brief candles. They say they've lit a handful throughout history.”

“I know the story.”

Kenji nodded.

“A soul that burns too bright to fit into a normal thread. A mortal who lives an ordinary lifespan, then burns out.”

“The official story,” Azrael replied.

Kenji looked at him.

“You've heard something different?”

“I've heard that a candle is a god, or the beginning of one, born into a mortal life.”

“Born mortal?”

“Yes.”

Kenji considered that.

“And one of them is here? Now?”

Azrael held his hand against the air again.

The tapestry hummed, and the sound traveled across the vault, away from the ancient threads and toward the newer sections.

Azrael followed its direction with his eyes.

He could see the patch Kenji had discovered, the one where a single thread separated into three branches before binding together.

Something moved within the weave.

For a moment, Azrael saw water.

Cold water, with gulls moving above it and a stretch of coastline disappearing into grey distance.

“A coast,” he murmured.

Kenji looked toward him.

“Where?”

“Somewhere cold.”

The tapestry moved again.

This time the vibration traveled from the floor and up Azrael's arm, settling against the familiar pressure behind his breastbone.

Azrael closed his eyes.

The weight he'd been feeling since the bar changed.

He pressed his free hand against his chest, waiting for the sensation to pass.

It didn't.

“Azrael?”

He opened his eyes.

“That's all it said.”

Kenji studied him.

Azrael lowered his hand, keeping his expression still.

Kenji didn't look convinced.

“I've heard that sound before,” he said.

Azrael turned toward him.

“When?”

“Six centuries ago. Give or take.”

Kenji looked toward the ancient bundle.

“I was walking the Records when I heard a drop of water. Just one, somewhere in the distance. I thought a pipe had burst.”

“You thought a pipe burst in Anamnesis?”

“Yes, Azrael. I thought a pipe burst.”

Azrael raised an eyebrow.

Kenji ignored him.

“Then we heard about a girl in Scotland. Nobody could read her thread.”

Azrael stopped smiling.

“Nicnevin.”

“Before she was Nicnevin,” Kenji corrected. “Before she was a goddess. She was a baby in a cold house, and your sisters called her a brief candle.”

Azrael looked toward the tapestry.

“Fifty years,” Kenji continued. “That's what they told us. Sixty at the outside.”

“She's still lit.”

“She's still lit.”

Kenji took the paper umbrella from behind Azrael's ear and turned it between his fingers.

“I never told you about the sound.”

“No.”

“You never asked.”

“No.”

Kenji looked at him.

“Your turn.”

Azrael turned his attention back to the ancient thread.

It pulsed once, sending the sound of another water drop through the vault.

“I don't have one.”

Kenji glanced at Azrael's chest, then returned his attention to the tapestry.

“Okay.”

Azrael knew he didn't believe him.

“The others don't hear about this yet,” Azrael said.

Kenji raised an eyebrow.

“Because?”

“Because Lily's at the edge. Crash can't hold his stars still. Kali's blanket is warm again, and she doesn't know why.” Azrael looked toward the older threads. “They have enough to worry about.”

“That's a reason.”

“It's a reason.”

“It's not the reason.”

Azrael sighed.

“No.”

Kenji nodded.

“I wasn't going to tell them anyway.”

“I can't tell you more than that, Kenji.”

The words sounded strange the moment Azrael said them.

He turned toward Kenji, who was still watching him.

Can't.

Azrael remembered standing in his sisters' sitting room, demanding answers they had refused to give him.

We don't have the answers you want.

You mean you don't have answers you can tell me.

He'd accused them of hiding something. They had insisted they didn't know enough to explain.

Now he stood in Anamnesis, looking at Kenji, and realized he was doing exactly the same thing.

He opened his mouth.

Kenji shook his head.

“Don't.”

Azrael closed it.

Kenji turned toward the tapestry and spread his hands.

The constellations in his eyes began to spin, settling into an ancient pattern. Amber light spread across his fingers as he reached toward the bundle.

“Let's see what else it's hiding,” he murmured.

Kenji took hold of the ancient thread.

It moved beneath his fingers.

Azrael stepped closer as the line began to unspool, drawing away from the bundle without breaking.

Kenji followed it.

The thread stretched through Anamnesis, leading them back toward the newer sections of the tapestry. As they walked, the surrounding threads grew still.

The usual hum began to fade.

Azrael stopped and looked around.

He had visited Anamnesis countless times. The tapestry had always hummed, even when it had nothing to say. Now he could hear Kenji's footsteps against the stone.

The silence was becoming uncomfortable.

“Kenji.”

“I know.”

Kenji continued following the thread.

Another drop sounded through the vault.

Then another.

The intervals were growing longer.

They walked until the ancient thread reached the newer patch, where three branches had bound together in a knot.

Kenji stopped.

The amber glow surrounding his hands brightened as he traced the thread into the knot.

The weave began to move.

Azrael stepped closer, watching the threads separate beneath the bound branches. They shifted slowly, creating a narrow space between them.

Something began appearing in the opening.

Letters.

Kenji leaned forward.

“Azrael.”

“I see it.”

The letters continued forming, each one glowing against the dark fabric.

Kenji read the first word.

“Juniper.”

Azrael felt the weight behind his ribs move.

It had been sitting in the same place for hours, pressing against his chest whenever the threads behaved strangely. Now the pressure shifted, and he drew a sharp breath.

A second word appeared.

“Vance.”

Azrael moved closer.

The letters beneath the name continued forming, slower this time.

Kenji leaned toward the tapestry, reading them as they appeared.

“Harrow Point.”

He paused.

“Maine.”

Azrael stared at the name and location.

Something moved inside his chest.

He couldn't identify the sensation. It wasn't pain, and it wasn't the pressure he'd been feeling earlier. Whatever had settled behind his ribs seemed to be pulling in one direction now.

He looked down at his right hand.

It had risen toward the tapestry without his noticing.

His fingers were shaking.

Azrael watched them for several seconds.

Your hands aren't shaking, Azrael, but they want to.

Lachesis had told him that only hours earlier.

He had checked his hands afterward, twice, and found nothing wrong with them.

Now he couldn't keep the trembling still.

Kenji noticed.

He looked at Azrael's hand, then toward his face.

Neither of them spoke.

Another drop of water sounded in the vault.

Azrael felt something answer inside his chest.

A beat.

He froze.

Another drop followed, and the sensation came again.

His chest had never kept time with anything in three thousand years. Yet there it was, answering the sound from the ancient thread.

Kenji lowered his hands.

The amber light faded from his fingers, and the constellations in his eyes slowed.

He looked toward the name woven into the tapestry.

Juniper Vance.

Harrow Point, Maine.

Somewhere far away, on a cold stretch of coastline, a light moved across dark water.

The name stayed lit.