Page 78 of The Unseen Hour

“You will still need the song to accomplish that. Before I get to that part, though, let us start at the beginning.”

Orion reached for my hand.

“I’m sorry, Starlight. I didn’t want you to feel it or hear it for the first time during the hour. With thousands of Shades singing, it might have been overwhelming.”

I shook my head at him.

“Don’t worry. It was … beautiful, but disconcerting. I’m glad you showed me, though. You’re right. I’d rather know what I’m in for. Should I … do I need to attempt it now?”

Death was the one to step between us this time.

“No. Not now. The song will come naturally, and you won’t need it until the hour. Instead, I have a task for the two of you. It involves taking an item from Charon, and it’s the beginning of my plans to unravel his precious hour.”

CHAPTER 34

“We’ll help you defeat him,” I swore, holding a hand out to Death without thinking. I hastily put it down when the deity didn’t respond, recalling her warning about her deadly touch. “I promise.”

Death held her hands up, interlocking her fingers as they crackled with electric current.

“Excellent. I’ll tell you what we need. What I’m sharing with you is a well-protected secret. All the deities have our own methods of intervening in Rayus. Charon’s Shades and my Reapers are some examples. I was the original, but greatness breeds imitation. I have an item that connects me to my Reapers. It essentially binds some of my power to them, so that they can act on my behalf. Charon has something similar. Two things, actually. He’s nothing if not cautious.”

“What are they, these items that help connect your kind to ours?” Orion asked, stepping toward the deity.

Death tapped a crackling finger on her chin.

“I have a much larger scythe, similar to the smaller ones my Reapers carry. Charon will have followed a similar pattern. Items connected to the ability his Shades are granted. Retrieve those, and then I’ll tell you how we can use them. By the time this next Unseen Hour is over, the Shades will cease to exist.”

Death grinned, and Orion nodded along, but I gnawed my lower lip.

“Then what will happen to them?”

Death turned back in my direction, her mask creating a blank look.

“Freed Shades would return to the realm in which they belong. Mine. Their souls will be at peace. Able to enjoy their eternities instead of existing as barely existent shadows.”

“And us? We’ll be able to return to our lives? I do still have the antidote for the Thipp’s, which is how we all ended up here in the first place.”

“That won’t help you, but I can. Get me what we need, and I will handle the rest. I do not have the purview to return life, but you aren’t really dead, so it's only a small obstacle. I’ll take care of that part of the plan, and you all retrieve what we need.”

Purpose sparked to life in my chest. This is what I had been waiting for. If I couldn’t find my father on my own, then I needed something else to focus on while Death searched for his soul. The goddess would succeed where I had failed; I was sure of it.

The deity held both her hands out, palms up. I watched, entranced, as she laid out her plan.

“This victory relies on a two-fold strategy. First, you must retrieve the items that Charon has kept secreted away in the Ether. Reunite them, and we are halfway there. Second”—she lifted her left palm—“we use both to stop the hour. But for now, we will focus on step one.”

I fidgeted, thinking as I did so how Mother would have chastised the restless movements. I couldn’t help it. Stillness had never appealed to me.

“What do we need to find?” Orion asked.

I pictured the mighty sword Death was sometimes depicted with in Emrys. Perhaps they merely had the wielder wrong, and gods did carry weapons. After all, the Reapers had the scythes that their art associated with Day. From what I could tell, those in Emrys and the other countries had been right on at least portions of our lore.

“The first item you will be looking for is … a baton.”

I stopped fidgeting, eyes scrunching.

“A baton?”

Death nodded, silvery mask glittering under the blue and green lights that cast the faintest glow at this edge of the forest.