Or was it like she was learning: she was still very much herself, just … different in a few ways. Weaker. Less able to control her world. More willing to trust something intangible like hope, maybe even love.

"If true, yes," past-Death said. "So now I owe you what, a hand?"

"Whatever."

"It won't be mine."

"I'm fine with that."

"Well, that doesn't explain the skeletons, unless that's a trick of Darkyn's no one knows about that Deidre picked up?" she asked, turning to the wardrobe with weapons.

Jared shook his head and growled. "No. It makes me think we are better off in the closet."

"I didn't think demons were cowards."

"I'm not a coward. A survivor. You seem to forget you aren't immortal anymore. As a demon in the underworld, I've got the same chance of surviving as a puny human, except I can fight."

"Whatever, demon. Is this what you're looking for?" She threw open the doors of the wardrobe. Gabriel kept a plethora of weapons he'd mastered over the years: swords and knives of different sizes and different blades, axes and maces, whips, bos, nun chucks … There were exotic weapons she didn't know the names of he'd likely found in the fairy realm of Elisia, demons' weapons in black metal, and a few other ancient human weapons.

"I'm in love," Jared breathed. He pushed her unceremoniously out of the way and gazed at the collection, wide-eyed and drooling again. "Most of these are collector's pieces."

"Pick what you want," she said, unconcerned. "If we don't make it out of here alive, it won't matter what those things are worth."

He murmured and marveled, needing no audience, as he picked up a weapon to study it, replaced it with reverence demons showed only for tools of killing, and moved to another.

Past-Death returned to the pile of skeletons. "I know what did this." But thinking about it made her head hurt.

She'd seen Deidre run away with a young woman, no doubt a deity. One capable of doing this.

"C'mon." Jared gripped her arm and hauled her up. "You need to practice."

"Practice what?" she grumbled.

"Killing." He pushed her arms up and wrapped a leather belt with delicate filigree around her waist, this one containing sheathes for a few weapons he'd lined up on a chunk of marble.

There was a time when a single touch caused men to drop at her feet. Past-Death had never feared taking a life; it had been a sacred duty, one she performed up until the day she left. Death was sacred, as was life, though she doubted she was going to like the way demons killed.




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