Julie Kagawa meets Scythe in this
captivating and evocative journey into Death’s domain as one soul collector
seeks her place in the underworld of 1890s Japan. Book 1 of a planned duology.
Death is her destiny.
Half British Reaper, half Japanese
Shinigami, Ren Scarborough yearns for the acceptance she has never found among
the Reapers who raised her. When the Shinigami powers she can no longer hide
force her to flee for her life, Ren and her younger brother—the only being on
earth to care for her—travel to Japan and the dark underworld of Yomi, where
Ren hopes to claim her place among the Shinigami and finally belong.
But the Goddess of Death is no more
welcoming than the Reapers who raised her, and Ren finds herself set on an
impossible task—find and kill three yokai demons, and maybe, just maybe, she
can earn a place in Death’s service. With only her brother and an untrustworthy
new ally by her side, Ren will learn how far she’ll go to win the acceptance
she craves, and whether the cost of belonging is worth any sacrifice.
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Chapter Two
At
the far edge of London, somewhere between nightmares and formless dreams, the
Reapers slept by daylight.
The
only way to enter our home was through the catacombs of the Highgate Cemetery,
through a door that no longer existed. It had been built there long ago, when
the Britons first came to our land and Ankou carved a hole in their world so
that Death could enter. But humans had sealed it shut with layers of wood, then
stone, then brick and mortar, all in the hopes of keeping Death out.
By
the nineteenth century, humans had mostly forgotten about the Door and what it
meant. Then, when the London churchyards began to overflow with bones, the
humans had searched for a place just outside of London to bury their dead. By
chance or fate, they’d built their new cemetery right on top of the Door. It
turned out that Death drew all of us close, even if we weren’t aware of it.
No
streetlights lit the path through Highgate at night, but I didn’t need them to
find my way home. Before I’d even passed through the main gate, Death pulled me
closer. All Reapers were drawn to him, our bones magnetized to the place of our
forefather. As soon as I entered the cemetery, a humming began just under my
skin, like a train’s engine beginning to whir. My blood flushed faster through
my veins as I brushed aside the branches of winter-barren lime trees and
low-hanging elms. My boots crunched shattering steps into the frosted pathways
as I ran.
I
stumbled through jagged rows of ice-cracked tombstones on uneven ground and
through a village of mausoleums, finally reaching the gothic arched doorway of
the catacomb entrance. The pull had grown unbearable, dragging me along in a
dizzy trance as I descended the stairs into the cool quietness of damp bricks
and darkness. The labyrinth would have been unnavigable if not for the fervent
pull.
At
last, my hands came out to touch the wall where the Door used to be, but now
there were only damp bricks and an inscription on the arch overhead that read
When Ankou comes, he will not go away empty in rigid script. I dug one
hand into my pocket and clutched my clock, pressed my other hand to the bricks,
then closed my eyes and turned time all the way back to the beginning.
Time
flowed through the silver-and-gold gears, up into my bloodstream and through my
fingertips, dispersing into the brick wall. Centuries crumbled away, the mortar
growing wet and bricks falling loose. One by one, they leaped out of their
positions in the wall and aligned themselves in dry stacks on the ground,
waiting once again for construction. Objects were easy to manipulate with time,
for I could draw from their own intrinsic energy rather than siphoning off my
own. Rather than paying in years of my own life, I could borrow years before
the bricks crumbled and quickly repay the debt when I put them back.
I
stepped through the doorway and the pull released me all at once. I breathed in
a deep gasp of the wet night air, then turned around and sealed the door behind
me. The bricks jumped back to their positions in the wall, caked together by
layers of mortar that dried instantly, the time debt repaid.
The
catacombs beyond the threshold spanned infinitely forward, appropriated as
resting places for Reapers rather than corpses. Mounted lanterns cast a faint
light onto the dirt floors and gray bricks. It was almost Last Toll, so only
the last Reapers returning from the night shift still milled around, their
silver capes catching the dim light of the tunnels, but most had retreated to
their private quarters for the morning.
I
turned right and hurried down the block. The low ceilings gave way to
high-arched doorways and finally opened up to a hall of echoing marble floors
and rows of dark wood desks. Luckily, there was no line for Collections this
close to Last Toll.
I
hurried to the first Collector and all but slammed my vials into the tray,
jolting him awake in his seat. He was a younger Reaper and seemed perplexed at
having been awoken so unceremoniously. When his gaze landed on me, he frowned
and sat up straight.
“Ren
Scarborough,” I said, pushing the tray closer to him.
“I
know who you are,” he said, picking up my first vial and uncapping it with
deliberate slowness. Of course, everyone knew who I was.
He
took a wholly unnecessary sniff of the vial before holding it up to the light
to examine the color, checking its authenticity. The Collectors recorded every
night’s soul intake before sending the vials off to Processing, where they
finally released the souls into Beyond. He picked up a pen from his glass jar
of roughly thirty identical pens, tapped it against the desk a few times, then
withdrew a leather-bound ledger from a drawer. He dropped it in front of him,
opened the creaky cover, and began flipping through the pages, one by one,
until he reached a fresh one.
I
resisted the urge to slam my face against the desk in impatience.
I
really didn’t have time to waste, but Collections was a necessary step. I
didn’t consider myself benevolent in times of crisis, but even I was above
leaving souls to expire in glass tubes instead of releasing them to their final
resting place, wherever that was. And besides, a blank space next to my name in
the Collections ledger meant a Collector would pay a visit to my private
quarters to reprimand me. The last thing I needed was someone realizing that
I’d left before Ivy could even report me.
But
when the Collector uncorked my fourth vial and held it up to the lamp, swirling
it in the light for ten excruciating seconds, I began to wonder if I’d made the
right decision.
The
bells of Last Toll reverberated through the bricks all around us, humming
through the marble floors. In this hazy hour between night and day, the church
grims came out in search of Reaper bones to gnaw on. Night collections had to
be turned in by then, while day collections had to be processed by the First
Toll at dusk.
The
Collector sighed as he picked up my fifth vial. “I’m afraid I’ll have to mark
your collections as late.”
My
jaw clenched. “Why.”
“It’s
past Last Toll, of course,” he said.
My
fingers twitched. The lamp on the Collector’s desk flickered with my
impatience, but I took a steadying breath.
“I
was here before Last Toll,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“According
to my ledger, your collections still have not been processed,” he said,
spinning my fifth vial in his left hand.
I
sighed and closed my eyes. Of course, I knew what he was doing. Chastising a
“latecomer” would earn praise from higher management. It was the easiest way
for him to climb the ranks—to exert his power over the half-breed. He would be
praised for his steadfastness and gain a reputation as a strict and immovable
Collector, while I could do nothing to complain. I could explode his lamp and
send glass shards into his eyes, but that wouldn’t make him process my vials
any faster. The fastest way to get out of there was subservience.
“Forgive
me, Reaper,” I said, bowing my head and dropping my shoulders. I let my voice
sound timid and afraid. “I apologize for being late.”
The
Collector blinked at me for a moment, as if surprised that I’d given in so
quickly. But he looked young and power-hungry and not particularly perceptive,
so I wasn’t too afraid that he’d see through my tactic. As expected, he sneered
as if I truly had offended him, finally beginning to process the fifth vial.
“It’s
a great inconvenience to both Collections and Processing,” he said, “though I
wouldn’t expect a half-breed to understand the workings of the educated
Reapers.”
The
only believable response to his goading was humiliated silence, so I hung my
head even further and tried to make myself as small and pathetic as possible.
It wasn’t hard, because the memory of the night’s events was still wringing my
heart out like a wet rag and my skin prickled with nerves so fiercely that I
wanted to claw it all off and escape before Ivy could find me, yet here I was,
brought to my knees before a glorified teller. I imagined being a High Reaper,
being able to reach over and smash his face into his blotter and shatter his
owlish glasses into his eyes for delaying and insulting me.
His
lamp flickered more violently and he paused to smack it before finally
finishing with my last vial. He placed all seven in a tray and pressed a button
that started the conveyor belt, sending the souls down to Processing. The
moment he put a black check next to my name in the ledger, I stood up straight
and turned to leave.
His
hand twisted into my sleeve, yanking me back.
I
shot him a look that could have melted glass, but he only pulled me closer.
“There’s
the matter of your sanction,” he said.
“My
sanction,” I said, glancing around the office to see how many people would
notice if I simply twisted the Collector’s neck. Too many.
“For
your tardiness, of course,” he said, smirking sourly. From his position
stretched across the desk, the lamplight caught in his glasses and turned them
into two beaming white moons.
The
standard punishment for failing to make curfew was a night on the pillory,
hands and feet nailed to the wood and head locked in a hole that was just
slightly too tight, letting you breathe but not speak. The other Reapers could
pull your hair or pour mead over your head or call you a thousand names when
you couldn’t talk back. But the worst part wasn’t the nails or the insults. It
was the Reapers who did nothing but look at you and sneer like you were nothing
but an ugly piece of wall art, like they were so perfect that they couldn’t
fathom being in your place. And far worse than that was my own father and
stepmother walking past me and pretending not to see.
“Come
back at First Toll,” the Collector said. “We’ll find a nice place to hang you
up by the Door.”
It
took every ounce of restraint I had left to keep my expression calm. This was
the part where I was supposed to say, Yes, Reaper, and bow, but he was lucky
that I hadn’t smashed his glasses into his face with my fist.
As
if he could smell my defiance, he pulled me closer. His glasses fell out of the
lamplight, revealing a deep frown.
“Scrub
that look from your face,” he said. “Remember that I’ll handle your collections
in the future.”
The
future, I thought.
Luckily,
I didn’t have a future.
The
light bulb flashed with a sudden surge of power, then burst. Glass shards
rained down over the desk, forcing the man to release me as hot glass scored
his hands. Some of his paperwork caught fire, and he frantically patted out the
flames with hands full of shards.
“Yes,
Reaper,” I said, bowing deeply so he wouldn’t see my smirk as he sputtered
about “bloody light bulbs, I knew we should have kept the gas lamps.”
Then
I turned and rushed off to the West Catacombs.
Excerpted from The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker,
Copyright © 2021 by Kylie Lee Baker.
Published by Inkyard Press.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Photo Credit: Greg Samborski
Kylie Lee Baker grew up in Boston and has
since lived in Atlanta, Salamanca, and Seoul. Her writing is informed by her
heritage (Japanese, Chinese, and Irish), as well as her experiences living
abroad as both a student and teacher. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing and
Spanish from Emory University and is currently pursuing a Master of Library and
Information Science degree at Simmons University. In her free time, she watches
horror movies, plays the cello, and bakes too many cookies. The Keeper of Night is her debut novel.
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