“Malgenia, have you been killing your suitors?”

“Is that an option? Oh! Can I have suitors then?”

“No daughter, killing your suitors is not an acceptable response, no matter how far beneath you they might be.”

“What if they were equals though, could I kill them then?”

“No…ugh…Malgenia, why would you want to kill…no, no I’m not even going to ask that question. What I came here to find out is why you do not seem to have anyone who is attempting to court you. Even with your…condition, you should not lack for viable candidates. Not with the prestige of our house behind you.”

“I have plenty of candidates.”

“Not for your experiments. As potential marital partners.”

“What would I need those for?”

“Do you not wish a household of your own to govern?”

“Do I? Mother makes it look like a distracting bother.”

“It would allow you considerable latitude and influence.”

“Over?”

“Our peers.”

“I don’t have any peers.”

“You need only reach out. I am certain there are scores of scions of the other houses who would be delighted to make your acquaintance. They might even share your…interests.”

“Oh. But I already know a group of people who share my interests.”

“Really? And which families do they belong to?”

“None that I know of.”

“They’re part of the rabble? Where did you meet common trash like that?”

“At the High Temple’s mortuary.”

“What in heaven’s name were you doing there?”

“Pledging myself to divine service? What else would I be doing there?”

– Malgenia’s father learning that his daughter would be rejecting her family’s title and lands to pursue her passions, and later discovering that there was nothing at all he could do to prevent it.

Buh.

What?

No, really.

What?

I had plans.

I had a scheme that would fix everything.

I knew it would work too, because I could absolutely count on Responsibility hating me.

She’d always hated me.

I mean, we loved each other too, but, but that was just a Deaths thing.

I could taste her lips still.

“I’m guessing it’ll take you some time to work out a new plan,” Responsibility said, the faint smile on her lips mocking me for being too flustered to form coherent thoughts, much less words.

Or was she?

Should we go back to the kissing?

What?

Where had that come from?

And why were the other Deaths just rolling their eyes at me.

And WHY was Diyas smiling that secret knowing smile at me!

Responsibility did turn to leave at that point and I jumped to my feet.

I didn’t have a plan. Not anymore. I didn’t have a reason to get up either. I had, in point of fact, no idea what I was doing.

“Come back,” I said. “Not now. I…yeah, tomorrow. Come back tomorrow. We’ll…”

Be able to think straight by then?

Probably not.

I could still feel her lips.

Definitely not.

“You’ll have to come get me again. I can’t exactly chose to come here on my own,” Responsibility reminded me. Because all thoughts of pretending to be Malgenia had flown right out of my head.

“Right,” I said, because she was. “I’ll come get you.”

“Okay,” she said with a quick nod before adding. “I won’t tell anyone. Obviously.”

“Yeah. That would be…”

“Bad for both of us.”

Us.

I liked that word.

No one says anything, Beauty said privately to me and the other dead Deaths. There will be no teasing.

Why would we tease her? Inhibition asked.

Because we teased each other mercilessly, Reason said.

And it sucked. Beauty was adamant about that, which was strangely relieving.

It also distracted me from Responsibilities departure.

Which was good.

I needed to think and obviously having her around was preventing that.

Should I go after her? I asked my Deaths. I could have asked Diyas but the gods tended to be pretty averse to specific advise like that. Or maybe only Diyas was, I hadn’t met many other gods.

I’d suggest not, Beauty said. But it’s a call you’ll need to make.

If you believe there’s something you’re ready to say to her, something that you’ve put enough thought into then, certainly, but otherwise take this as a reprieve to find your balance first. Believe me, blurting out the first things that can tumble out your lips is not going to make the impression you might hope it would.

When did you ever…oh, Inhibition said and I could tell there was a whole lot of history they’d never shared with me in the ‘oh’.

Okay, but…I started to say and ran out of words.

But what?

Did I want to tell her she was supposed to hate me?

Did I want her to hate me?

Did it make any sense that she didn’t?

What if she was just toying with me?

Getting back at me for being so cruel as to bring her into all this!

Yes! That was…

Not at all what that was about, Reason said.

No, sorry, it’s not that simple at all, Beauty added, seeming delighted at the quandary it left me in.

She wasn’t lying, Inhibition said. And she didn’t say that to hurt you.

Well empty heavens, what in Malgenia’s deepest hell was I supposed to do with that?

Whatever you like, Diyas said, as helpful as only a deity could be.

I didn’t bother dignifying her answer with a further reply.

Did you know she was going to do that? I asked, making an immediate liar out of myself.

Mortal choices are always their own. As answers went it wasn’t one, but whatever.

I was still tempted to run after her.

But I didn’t.

Instead I sat there, not exactly alone in my garden, but lost well and truly in my own thoughts.

Responsibility couldn’t love me.

We loved Clarity.

I wasn’t even slightly unsure of that. Responsibility had agreed with me far too readily on the subject far too often, including when I’d mentioned wanting to preserve Clarity from all of whatever it was I was asking Responsibility to be a part of.

So she couldn’t love me.

I screamed, both in my thoughts and audibly in the Garden. It was a generous mixture of confusion, frustration, and exasperation. 

This wasn’t supposed to be simple. I knew what we were proposing was going to be the most difficult thing any of us could possibly do. Maybe even including Diyas. I had no illusions that we might fall and fail. That things could turn out very badly, but the troubles were supposed to begin after we started the Assumption ritual.

Finding a Death I could work with hadn’t seemed all that challenging.

In part because I knew Responsibility was out there.

Had I always planned for it to her? Well, not consciously, but who else could it be?

“There are still, what, thirty of so Deaths at the moment? Even if you don’t want to ask Clarity, that still leaves a lot of options,” Inhibition said.

“No,” I said, bleak dejection washing over me as the reality of the situation thudded into me like the heartbeat of the dead word. “It has to be her.”

“Are you sure?” Reason asked. “It wouldn’t be hard to make one of the other Death’s hate you. You could tell a very careful version of the truth. Paint yourself to her like you do to yourself.”

“I know,” I said. “I could.”

“But that’s not an option, is it?” Beauty said. She gave me a one-armed hug of comfort from my side. “It was always going to have to be her wasn’t it?”

Yes.

But why?

“If I make one of the Death’s hate me, they won’t hold back,” I said. I really wanted to run after Responsibility.

“Isn’t that what you were asking of Responsibility?” Inhibition asked. “If she holds back, if she doesn’t fight you for the power, there’s no chance that you’ll both be able to claim it.”

“There isn’t,” I said. “But if we both go all out, she’ll win, most of them would, and if that’s all that they want, then they’ll destroy me and they’ll be stuck with the same problem I have now. It won’t fix anything.”

Why could I only see that clearly now?

I got up and started walking. I needed to be away from those thoughts. 

The Deaths remained manifest – it was safe for them in my…in Malgenia’s Garden, and I needed their companionship, even if I was fleeing from it. Even Diyas remained, joining our little group on the macabre tour of our surroundings.

“And with Responsibility, it’ll be different,” Inhibition asked, or gave me a chance to confirm what she already knew. I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t sure I could, or that I could explain why.

“Because she does love you,” Beauty said. “Because you’ve hurt each other before, and you’ve forgiven each other as well.”

“But that was for Clarity’s sake!” And that was true. “She didn’t like to see us fighting.”

“And is that why you forgave Responsibility?” Reason asked.

“I didn’t forgive her. We fought a lot,” I said, and I knew I was lying again.

“Do you hate her then? You said she hated you, but did you put her in this position because you hate her?” Inhibition asked. She sounded honestly curious, but the thought of that being true made me sick.

I didn’t want to punish Responsbility, I didn’t want to hurt her at all. I needed her.

And why was that?

Because.

Because what?

Because.

“We should check the ritual again,” I said. Who was running away from thoughts she didn’t want to think? Me? Couldn’t be. I wouldn’t do that. Definitely not.

“The ritual?” Reason asked.

“Yeah. Do we really understand it fully? None of us are Malgenia, maybe we missed something. We should know what all our options are.”

It was a good, solid plan.

The other Deaths weren’t looking at me skeptically at all.

Definitely not.

“She has a point,” Diyas said, coming to my rescue as only a deity can. “With the Malgenia usurping the dominion of Death, there’s no one in the world who can claim to be her equal. Insight’s original idea still has merit but if a simpler method of safely unraveling Malgenia’s power exists, we would be well served to find it. Doing so would mean we wouldn’t need to put either of our living girls at risk.”

Which…which wasn’t at all unreasonable.

I’d be searching for any other alternative and from Diyas said it seemed like I stumbled into a pretty great one.

More research!

“I’m going to be doing most of the work, won’t I?” Reason said.

“Don’t start with that,” Beauty said. “You know we’ll help you.”

“Yeah! It’ll be like our old study sessions!” Inhibition said.

“But with less stabbing,” Beauty promised.

Which was weird, since Responsibility and I didn’t tend to stab each other during study sessions. We each wanted to do well (to beat the other) and with Clarity leading the session, there was a certain mesmerizing quality to them. I’d thought I loved studying but I was only partially right about that.

So why was Beauty promising…

Oh. OH! 

“Wait you stabbed her?” I asked, remembering their earlier comment about fighting over Inhibition.

“It was mutual,” Reason said.

“Mutual after she started it,” Beauty corrected.

“I made amends!” Reason objected as though it was a long standing point of debate between them.

“She did,” Beauty conceded and took Reason’s hand in her own.

I turned to check with Diyas to see if she knew whether all of the Deaths were as messed up as the group we were stuck with only to feel a tug myself.

It wasn’t on my hand on the back of my shirt.

It felt like someone was pulling at my soul.

Which was disturbing. Not as disturbing as fighting Malgenia had been, so my baseline was a bit out of whack but still not a feeling I was fond of.

Nor was I fond, at all, of the fact that Diyas wasn’t there.

Not “she wasn’t walking beside me”. No. Someone had pulled her away from me and that was very much not supposed to be possible!