The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(10)
Neven and I, huddled in my bed with our ears pressed to the wall, heard everything.
But now Neven was busy packing his jeweler’s tools and deciding which socks to take with him when he left his entire world behind for me, so perhaps Corliss had been wrong.
We finished packing in a matter of minutes. I’d taken only some clothes, an extra knife, and a book of Tennyson’s poems. I wished there was a way to carry all my books with me, but in the end I’d randomly chosen one from the precarious piles around my desk, and hadn’t been overly disappointed to see Tennyson’s name printed on the cover. He’d written a poem called “All Things Must Die,” so it was little surprise that his work appealed to a Reaper. But he’d also written of Ulysses, who had left home in search of a better place, not unlike what I was trying to do. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world, he’d said. But “late” was relative when you could turn time, and the cold metal of the clock still clutched in my sweaty palm told me that I was already far too late.
Into the inner pocket of my bag, only big enough to fit a few sheets of paper, I crammed the pictures of Japan that I’d ripped from library books. I hadn’t told Neven that this was my final destination, too afraid that he’d say no to something so far away and foreign. After all, there was a big difference between traveling across the Channel and traveling across the world. Maybe I could show him the pictures once we were safe in France, and maybe he’d be just as enchanted as I was.
“Okay,” Neven said, wrapping a scarf around his extra pair of glasses and placing it in his suitcase. “Okay, okay, I think that’s everything.” He latched his suitcase and turned toward the door, then froze and dropped the luggage, eyes going wide. “Oliver!” he said, rushing up to the loft.
“Oliver?”
Neven shoved aside his sheets and hefted an enormous gray cat into his arms.
“Another stray?” I said, pressing my eyes closed. “Neven, I’ve been storing poisonous plants in here.”
“Oliver just sleeps,” Neven said, waving his hand dismissively and tucking the cat under one arm, grabbing for his suitcase with the other. “He’s lazy.”
“And morbidly overfed,” I said. “We’re sneaking him out, too, I suppose.”
“I can’t leave him here!” Neven said. “We’re never coming back!”
I sighed. “Fine. But if he makes too much noise, you better leave him. I’m not dying over a stray cat.”
“He’s fine,” Neven said, squishing the limp cat tighter against his side.
I rolled my eyes and tightened my grip on my bag. “Are you ready?”
Neven nodded. Oliver blinked.
I opened the door and stepped out into the catacombs.
We hurried through the tunnels, not even daring to breathe. In this hushed hour between darkness and daybreak, the spectral planes parted and the monsters came out in the world above. For this reason, most Reapers were already asleep in their quarters or waiting for the day shift to begin. Only a handful of High Reapers were allowed out during the twilight hour.
Our footsteps slapped wetly against the stones as we moved through the tunnels that glowed at only half light, some of the lanterns left extinguished until the guards came to relight them when the hour had passed. Our shadows rolled across the walls as we walked, dark and contorted in the weakly changing light.
I was just about to turn a corner when the sharp shadow of another Reaper announced their presence from the adjoining hallway. Stronger Reapers must have overridden my time lock, as they could if they drew close enough.
I swept Neven into an alcove and extinguished the nearby lanterns with a wave of my hand, pulling darkness over us like a thick blanket. I hugged my bag against my chest with one arm and nudged Neven’s suitcase back with my knee until he got the hint and tucked it flat against the wall. Despite all the stereotypes that female Reapers were more frivolous, I had packed only clothes and a book while Neven had tried to cram half his room into a suitcase, leaving us with a dense and somewhat lumpy shadow. I wished he had packed lighter, but when my brother was giving up his home for me, I could hardly begrudge him a few extra pairs of socks.
With Neven pressed against me, the panicked pounding of his heart echoed through my bones. I couldn’t verbally reassure him without risking other Reapers overhearing, so I squeezed his arm in a way that hopefully told him it’s all right, they won’t find us. He swallowed and held his breath.
Two Reapers rushed around the corner a moment later and flew past us. They hadn’t seen us through my wall of darkness. Neven let out a quivering breath and huddled closer to me.
The Reapers stopped at the far end of the hallway, just outside our room. They tried the handle and found it locked, then one of them stepped back while the other pressed his hand to the door.
The black paint on the door flaked and shuddered to the ground, like a serpent shedding it skin. Then the wood itself began to rot, fading into sickly shades of gray-green and cleaving into chunks that crumbled to the floor. Without a word, they stormed into the apartment.
I dreaded to think what that Reaper’s hands could do if they ever touched my skin. Just like with objects, High Reapers could steal from my own lifespan if they turned time on me and only me.
This was the great danger of upsetting High Reapers. With time as powerful and volatile as it was, only Ankou’s chosen few and their descendants were allowed to ascend as High Reapers and learn how to wield time not as a tool but as a weapon. The Low Reapers collected souls, and the High Reapers maintained order among the soul collectors.