The clock struck thirteen. 

Deep beneath unconsecrated ground, the soirée had begun, and Kallon Blackmoor stood on the other side of campus, toeing the edge of the property. Leaving without express permission was forbidden, as was ignoring his invite to the party.  Not that he minded missing the latter. He never was the type to enjoy schmoozing with those who opposed him. But the brood expected the deathkeeper’s presence, and directly defying the brood often resulted in imprisonment, or death. The least Kallon could expect was an order to meet with the disciplinary committee—if he didn’t make an appearance before sunrise.

The glistening dark told him he had little time left, but he couldn’t resist the sweet pull of bergamot, nor the acidic taste growing at the back of his throat.

The death he’d sensed in the library earlier that week was close enough to taste.

It’d grown stronger by the hour, but within the last few minutes, it’d become unbearable in its proximity. 

He drew in a breath to savor before stepping over the boundary, the soft ground sinking beneath his boots. He walked as quietly as the squelching marsh allowed until slurping caught his ear. A satisfied sigh followed. A voice. 

“Took you long enough,” she said. “I admit I thought you’d collect me much sooner.”

Kallon stepped around a bend of bushes to see a woman seated on the ground, her back facing him. She held something in her lap. Her silver hair, usually pinned up, lay in tatters around her shoulders. The ends had frayed into see-through wisps. The beginnings of a ghost’s unraveling. 

“Helena,” Kallon spoke to the headmistress, “do you know that you’re dead?”

She tilted her chin to look over her shoulder. “I can see your horns, Mr. Blackmoor. Of course I know.” Her eyes trailed up, up, up into the sky, where he felt his horns grow far and long. “The rumors do you an injustice. They’re much larger than I was expecting.”

Kallon didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth: the more elaborate his horns, the more sin a monster committed. The worse their fate.

“Where I’m going, is it bad?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. 

She sighed and turned to look over the muddy marsh instead of the school grounds she had spent her life cultivating. A career cut short. A life taken. 

Kallon would’ve asked her who murdered her if it wasn’t for the fact that murder victims could never remember their last moment’s of life. Not only were their lives taken, but their death was stolen from them, too. They were left only with the feeling of injustice. And hunger to live again. 

Helena hunched over whatever she held in her lap. “I was going to do great things.” 

“You already did.” Kallon stepped toward her. 

“More things, better things,” she growled. “I was so close.”

“I know.”

“Let me stay and finish—”

“You can’t.”

Murder victims were the ones most likely to go mad, driven by time stolen from them. If Kallon didn’t collect her soon, she could turn into a ghoul. 

“Please,” she begged as he closed in. 

One more step and he’d be right behind her. The citrus scent was dizzying now. Kallon could taste nothing else. Think of nothing else. He could not wait to hold it in his hands. 

“How am I any different than Nathanial?” her voice broke through his trance. 

He blinked. “Nathanial is a friend.”

“And I am your teacher.”

“Not anymore, Ms. Petrigrue.”

Before he could collect her soul, she whipped her torso around to face him, and only then did he see what lay in her specter’s lap. 

Her own body. 

The clothes soaked with mud, a thick drag line coming up from the marsh to where she sat now. She had pulled herself out. A ghost made solid by consuming flesh. 

Helena’s specter had eaten her right cheek. Plucked out a few teeth. Swallowed those, too. Her specter reflected that. 

She’d become a ghoul already. 

No wonder she’d managed to stay so solid, speak so fluidly. She would consume herself if it meant staying alive. 

Kallon had to end this now.