xi.

Her tone sparked a flame of anger. I raised the blade again, pointed it at her, bared my teeth.

“You steal us,” I growled. “We pray to you, we tell our children about you. We believe, we trust you. We share stories of the Mortuary’s kindness, live in hope that you’re at least trying to help us, but you’re not even teaching your bonedressers to try. You only pluck us from the ground like weeds, and when we die you make us watch you do it to others, forever.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk. Warm tears ran down my cheeks and dripped off my chin, and somewhere within Fayne stirred to take their control back.

But Bearer Avida watched me with something other than pity, something other than disgust or even worry. Sorrow. No—understanding.

“We tried,” she said, so quietly, her voice made a whisper by the weight of guilt weaving its way to the surface. “Oh, Enair. We tried so hard, for so long. But the door is now closed, and we can do nothing about it.”

I wiped the tears away with my sleeve, hiding the frown of confusion. The knife slipped from my grip, and I didn’t bother to pick it up again. I let Fayne push through my defences, if only for a moment, if only to say, “tell me the truth.”

“It closed.” There was worry in her eyes and a shrug to her words, a silent acceptance of the inevitable. “Perhaps because too many people passed through. Perhaps because somewhere along the line, telling and retelling the story, someone let some piece of it slip away forgotten. We may never know.”

They never asked—but then, neither did Fayne, and still they brought me here. Accident, they said: true enough, but the intention of it didn’t change the outcome. I couldn’t interact with others without stealing a body first, but I was here. I could speak with them, I could show them my memories. I leaned down and picked up the knife, not for a moment looking away from the Bearer.

Let me out, Fayne pleaded from someplace beside my mind, beside my soul. Let me fix it.

If we opened the door again, we could pass through. We could see our families, instead of withering away all alone and watching them wither too.

“Take me there,” I said.

Bearer Avida nodded a slow, contemplative nod, but her eyes betrayed worry again. “I could. But you must let Fayne go.”

I swallowed. This was more than just returning home to Marco and the living. This was a chance to make Lyan and all the others, so many others, come home too. The knife hung in my hand, useless by my side.

Kindness, Fayne had said. They aimed to be kind.