“You cannot see him, otherwise,” he said in a crisp voice.
I frowned, slipped off my boots. Slippers went on. The butler took my shoes from me, holding them away from his body and between his fingers, as if they carried some disease.
“This way,” he said, and led me up the stairs.
I caught glimpses of halls, rooms, none furnished—doors that were closed that I wanted to open. But I kept my hands to myself and followed the old man to a set of double doors, also white marble, which he tugged open with the lightest of touches.
“Maxine Kiss to see you, sir.”
I heard no greeting, but the butler gestured for me to enter.
I did, and found my grandfather.
CHAPTER 29
A couple years back, I got a letter in the mail.
It was from the New York law firm that had handled the affairs of several generations of Kiss women, and which was doing the same for me, though I rarely checked in—except when I needed information on some random property I’d vaguely recall my mother saying we owned.
There was a note, brief: “For delivery on this date, at the request of Jolene Kiss.” It was clipped to another envelope, this one sealed, and slightly battered with age. I recognized my mother’s handwriting on the flap—no one else wrote my name with quite that flourish.
A single sheet of paper was tucked inside. More of my mother’s elegant writing. I was startled, a bit breathless with the discovery. I remember sitting down on Grant’s couch, bathed in sunlight, my tattooed hands shaking just a little. I had the armor by then—I’d traveled in time. But this was another kind of breach from the past.
I should just die and be done with it, I read. That’s the proper way, to let a daughter move on with her life, instead of coming back from the grave. But you’ve always been a bit different, and experience has taught me that you don’t mind conversing with the dead. And I find that I don’t mind sending letters to a daughter who in my life is still in diapers but who will one day bear all the burdens of being a woman.
You won’t have an easy life. You’ve had a taste of that by now, and more. You’ll discover things, if you haven’t already, that will make you question me and this life you’ve been born into. Feel free to be angry. I’m dead, after all. It won’t bother me.
But you did come to me once, by accident. You, as an adult, with that particular ability to cut through time. You were afraid, you were sick, and I couldn’t help you then. I hope I’ve judged the delivery of this letter so that I can help you now—which won’t be much help at all.
There are miracles, Maxine. Even in death, and betrayal, and grief—there are still miracles. Cling to that, cling to hope. No matter how terrible things get, or how helpless you feel. Hope is what will save you, again and again.
So get up. Get up off that floor where I found you.
Fight, Maxine. Fight for your life.
Fight for other lives that haven’t been born.
Fight for your hope. Fight for your heart.
You’ll find a miracle if you do.
I promise.
MY grandfather.
My grandfather, as he had appeared when I first met him, years past. Trim, long legged, elegant. Dressed in sleek tan slacks and a cream-colored cable-knit sweater. Quite polished. Clean-shaven, his gray hair swept back. He was pale and sat in a soft chair with a brown blanket thrown over his legs.
Yes, the epitome of torture and evil.
Until I saw his eyes, then it was no joke. I knew those eyes. I knew the hunger behind that glittering black stare, and it was old and bottomless, and utterly implacable.
“Greetings, my dear,” said the old man, with a faint smile. “So delightful finally meeting you. Imagine my surprise when I learned that I had family.”
“You’re not my grandfather,” I said, feeling the boys spreading out around me. “You’re just wearing his old face.”
That faint smile widened, and it was so much like Jack—so much, yet not—I felt off-balance, dizzy. I’d passed through the mirror into another universe, and here was my grandfather, as he might have been. Cool and bland, and polished like a stone. He scared me, and it wasn’t just because of his eyes. He terrified me, even—and I was grateful for Dek and Mal, coiled tight around my throat.
“He has kept you quite in the dark, hasn’t he?” His hands smoothed out the blanket in his lap, and he turned his gaze on Zee and the boys. “Reaper Kings. We meet again. You’re weakened this time, which fills me with no small amount of pleasure.”
“Don’t remember you,” Zee rasped.
Delight touched his mouth but not his eyes. “I was there the entire time, hiding in plain sight. Reduced, ignored, betrayed . . . but ever present. You knew me, little Reaper King. Yes, you did. I was the architect of your prison.”