V

The road was dark and foreboding, the kind I didn't normally like to wander down, even in the middle of the day. And right now, it was the middle of the night.

"Kaye, that was my foot," Ben muttered in my ear.

"Well, if you would watch where you're walking, I wouldn't be anywhere near your feet," I snapped back.

"Just keep moving, and keep it down. We don't know what we're up against."

While Ashling slept soundly in her bed, Ben and I were out in the streets, performing the perfunctory security sweeps around the city. We hated leaving our Subject alone--even for ten minutes--but protocol demanded that we take these precautions.

So now we were scanning the surrounding streets, looking and listening for any sign of an approaching threat. Ashling, of course, had no idea where we were; she slept quite peacefully in her elaborate bedroom back at the house.

I shivered in the cold. Again, something I wasn't used to, feeling temperature. Back at Headquarters--in our unchanging immortal state--we'd never felt hot or cold or anything in between. But here, with mortality and the Revolving taking their toll on us, we were entirely exposed to the elements.

Trembling again, I moved closer to Benji, secretly wishing that some of his warmth would leap from his skin to mine. As if he could read my mind, he moved in closer, too, our arms touching in the darkness.

"Do you sense anything?" he whispered. "Any hostile people? Any animals, even?"

I closed my eyes for a second and focused on my sixth sense. Combined with Ben's, it nearly overpowered my mind, and I was abruptly consumed by flashes of mental color, each one uniquely depicting someone--or something--else's emotions. The harder I concentrated, the more defined each became...

"Nope," I replied. "The only people around here are sound asleep."

Ben chuckled. "Except for that guy," he gestured toward the nearest house, a daunting fortress upon a small hill. "He never sleeps soundly. Too many women to keep him occupied."

Awkward. But funny nonetheless.

I rolled my eyes and pushed my best friend with my shoulder. "Ew, don't listen, Ben. That's terrible."

"Ha!" he laughed loudly. "If they're going to be so ostentatious about it, I have the right the listen in."

"You are absolutely disgusting." I shook my head.

"No, you're just ridiculous and boring."

"And you're just a stupid, adolescent boy, Benjamin."

He was silent for a moment, apparently taking in the current situation in the house. We walked together in the comfortable quiet...

"Tell me something," he finally spoke, in a voice so soft that it blended with the misty air. He didn't continue.

I waited for him to finish, as we rounded the last corner before Ashling's street. When he didn't, I slowed down a bit, giving him time...

He shortened his steps, too, and then suddenly stopped. We were just behind an ivy-covered brick wall, of the ones the fenced in the neighbor's extensive property.

"Tell me," he said again, moving me closer to the wall, moving faster and faster until I felt the bricks on my back.

I wasn't sure what he was doing. My senses were on overdrive, all of his emotions mixing with mine, confusing me, making me crazy.

I leaned into his advance, letting his warm hand wrap around my arm, letting him stare me in the eyes with a look that could have melted my heart.

He waited until his face was less than an inch from mine before he finished his thought.

"Tell me what you remember from being alive."

I felt entirely extinguished, my eager flicker dead. That was what he wanted to know?

"Umm..." I stammered. "Not much, actually."

He laid his forehead on my shoulder, sighing heavily. "Same here. I wonder why. I feel all of their emotions, all the time... I kind of want to remember what it felt like, you know?"

I nodded, suddenly understanding what he meant. He and I were both going through the same thing. Every time I looked at him, I longed to recall those human emotions.

I could feel them. I knew how it felt to be sad, to be happy, to be afraid. But it wasn't the same. They were dulled, less intense, entirely overshadowed by the call of our Revolving, by the summons of our Guardian duties...

By the knowledge that we were dead.

In the same movement, Ben and I folded our arms around each other, grasping at the chance to feel something real. Our partnership was real, wasn't it? The deep attachment we felt had to be something similar to the power of a human emotion.

So we stood there, intertwined, his face buried in my hair and mine in his jacket.

And despite the drive to defend poor Ashling, we didn't move until dawn.

IV

The sun rose right on schedule, blinding me straight through the pale, opalescent shades. I sighed and kept perfectly still in my bed, the sheets soft and cool compared to the rays that now caressed my face. I knew that somewhere in this beautiful contentment there resided some mundane task waiting for me, some training assignment that Benji and I had yet to complete; but even the thought of the most difficult projects couldn't draw me from my tranquil slumber...

And suddenly--just as suddenly as I had the three days previously--I remembered where I was, and exactly what was waiting for me once I awoke.

I sighed again, but this time it held no sense of peace. Because for the past three days, I'd spent every waking moment in the company of Ashling O'Connor.

Brilliant young mind? She undoubtedly possessed one. Fiery sense of creativity? Yes, that too.

Strong instinct for self-preservation? Not so much.

I groaned and rolled over, checking the time on my clock radio. Seven in the morning. Later than I'd slept any other morning in this bed. No sound dared to disturb the silence in my room, and I revelled in the absolutely stillness--loving it, cherishing it. I covered my face with the blanket to block out the light...

"Wake up, slug. Ashling wants to go to the zoo, and I'm not letting you wheedle your way out of this one."

I flinched at the cold as Ben ripped the covers from my grip and pulled open the curtains. If I had thought the light blinding before, I'd been entirely underestimating the power of the sun. This new light, unadulterated and undeterred, stung at my vision with a vengeance.

Slamming the pillow over my face, I muttered a low oath at Ben; his overly sensitive hearing--as well as his touchy pride--caught every word. I'd abandoned him the day before when Ashling had wanted to take us to her favorite shoe store, and apparently he was as close to forgiving me as he was to allowing me to stay in bed any longer.

"Seriously. You'd better be ready in a half hour. I'm not going to stand and watch gorillas pick termites off of each other for six hours unless you're with me."

In spite of the harsh tone and the rough way he tore the pillow away, there was something sweet about his wish to have me by his side. Well, bittersweet, at the very least.

Twenty-seven minutes later, I found myself in the backseat of Stan's black car, squeezed into the middle seat between two very contradictory companions. Benji was taciturn and brooding, his foul mood from the day before still holding strong. Ashling, however, was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Ooh!" she squealed, her voice hitting decibels I thought the human race to be incapable of reaching. "The penguin exhibit opens today! Oh, gosh, wouldn't it be absolutely wonderful if we saw them swimming? Or perhaps the bears! I've always thought that bears..."

Ben elbowed me in the side, forcing my attention to his face. He rolled his eyes and smirked at me. I sighed, knowing that today would be one of the longest days I'd ever endured.

She wasn't ignorant, and she honestly wasn't that irritating. She was just so happy all of the time. So giddy, so buoyant, as if gravity simply weren't enough to hold her down.

What made her tough to tolerate was the fact that her own body--the vessel her beautiful soul was forced to occupy--was set on destroying itself. Her immune system quite literally did not exist, leaving her helpless and hopeless, as far as a Guardian was concerned. And then there was the small matter of her being the only daughter to a wealthy, affluent millionaire, one whose distracted oversight had permitted her to be kidnapped no less than four times to date. She was also an astounding magnet for traffic accidents, cooking burns, near-fatal trips and falls...

An uphill battle for me and Ben, one might say.

But my extra sense perceived nothing but exhilaration from her now. She'd confessed to me only the night before that Ben and I made her feel safer, just by following her around. To that I had replied that she should still be vigilant and cautious.

She'd giggled, of course, and hugged me tightly before bidding me goodnight.

Stan drove on, his eyes catching mine in the rearview mirror; it was not hard to see that he was fighting back laughter at the young Miss Ashling. I pretended to be vaguely interested in what she was saying, nodding in all the right places and such.

Benji's hand brushed against mine, our knees so close together in the tight car that his arm had been casually laying on my leg. I started, but he stayed exactly where he was, his fingertips gently resting on top of my hand. Almost as if the movement had been deliberate...

"Kaye, did you hear me? They've got HUGE snakes at the zoo! Kaye?"

Ashling's voice pulled me from my abstraction, startling me further and causing my hand to jump. Ben's long fingers shot away from mine quickly.

"That sounds great, Ashling. Tell me, which ones are your favorites?" I said all this without a single glance in her direction; my perplexed eyes sought only Ben's attention, an action unrequited on his part.

In this moment--despite our extraordinary senses and the closeness of the car--I felt further from my partner than I'd ever felt.

And for the first time since I'd died and become a Guardian, I wished wholeheartedly that I could once again be human.

III

"Aw, ew."

It was pouring. The torrential downpour temporarily distracted me from the task at hand, a welcome but irritating interruption. My hair was dripping only seconds after Ben and I left the comfort of the black car.

It was a weird sensation, having wet hair. In the time-defying realm of Headquarters, Guardians never needed to shower. Some did purely out of habit, but it wasn't necessary.

Clean is a permanent condition when you're half-dead.

But now my hair was absolutely soaked--as it hadn't been for months--clinging to my thin red shirt with a tenacity I had almost forgotten it to be capable of. I supposed that now, in this world, I would have to resume all of the tedious human habits from before...

"You kids here to see Miss Ashling?"

The male voice startled me, capturing my attention from the sight of Sam driving away. Ben and I eyed the man with instant suspicion--a smart Guardian's first reaction--but relaxed a bit when we realized that he was every bit as harmless as the worms on the sidewalk.

"Are you?" he asked again, growing impatient. Ben and I dropped our scrutinizing stares and focused on speaking normally.

"Yes, sir. We're the... Um, we're..." Ben glanced at me wildly through the corner of his eye, trying to remember what the paperwork had said.

The paperwork! Shoot, it was still in the car. We'd have to get it from Sam tonight.

"We're the foreign exchange students," I supplied in a artificially bubbly voice. "From... Canada."

He gave us a brief, bewildered expression--making my nervous heart race even faster--but then sighed and beckoned for us to join him beneath his giant umbrella. Ben and I grabbed the bags we'd brought with us and followed him into the house.

I was shocked that the lie had worked. I was pretty sure, no, positive that Canada and Michigan didn't have an exchange program. Honestly, what would be the point?

But the man had swallowed it in its entirety, and I was not about to argue the point. He led us up two flights of stairs and down a winding hall, opening a door on his left without questioning the movement. Would I ever know this enormous house as well as he did?

Well, I sure hoped we had that much time...

After gesturing that we proceed through another door at the end of another hall, he smiled vaguely and nodded his head. He might have intended it to be a kind gesture, but in the eyes of two terrified neophytes, it was purely menacing.

Ben and I crossed the threshold slowly, cautiously, our keen senses searching the room for any potential threat. Nothing. Not even another human presence.

Except the girl that stood before us.

"Oh my god, you came!" she shrieked, clearly excited to see us. But we couldn't focus on her reaction, because the entire world had suddenly become a very, very different place.

Colors were amplified and sound had new meaning. Millions of thoughts flowed through my head all at once, materializing in the air. I could see everything I felt... Every concept I'd once considered abstract had suddenly turned concrete.

I looked at Benji, and noticed that he, too, could see his own emotions, tangible as the bags still in our hands. Purples and greens and yellows and pinks swirled around us both, capturing the very essence of our two souls. We could see everything the other was experiencing, too.

The revolving had begun; I knew, instinctively, that this was it. This girl was our Subject, and our mission was clear. Protect her or die trying. Do whatever it takes, and nothing less.

As quickly as the colors had begun, they faded, slipping into the shadows of my vision until I could only sense their presence. Every single emotion in the room--every thought, every desire--was as obvious to me as the colors on the flowered wallpaper.

How odd.

"And Ally said you wouldn't show. She said that if you didn't get a letter back within two weeks, you'd been rejected from the program. I can't wait to prove her wrong..." the girl continued, oblivious to the metamorphosis that had just occurred in front of her face.

"So do you have a cool accent or something? Funny remarks to make about how weird America is? Come on, there's gotta be something that you don't have in Ireland..."

Ireland? The word sent Ben's brain into a panic. I could see what he was thinking, and it was definitely an amber shade of anxiety.

This was going to take some getting used to, all the twisted lying and vibrant colors and strange men with umbrellas. How long was this world going to last for us?

Part of me--the sane, moral part--wanted it to last ninety years, until Ashling was old enough to pass on peacefully. But the tiny part of me that craved the comfort of routine was begging the clouds to separate and swallow this girl whole, just to end the awkward golden feeling of apprehension that bounced around the room.

If the threats to my Subject's life didn't get me, the confusion certainly would.

II

He sat across the desk from me with a stern look plastered on his face. He had to be no older than forty, but his hair was a salt-and-pepper shade of brown and his forehead had more wrinkles than my irresponsibly unironed blouse. I fidgeted in my chair as his eyes scanned my fearful expression.

"Samson, I didn't call you here for a lecture. You already know you're here for the assignment."

His tone was gentle, yet nowhere near soothing enough to keep me from panicking inside.

"But the assignment was for me and Benji, and you made him wait outside, sir..."

"I know," he sighed. "I need to discuss something with you first, Samson."

Terror filled my heart. The Boss did not grant personal visits; he was a busy man, after all, and had little time for the trivial crises of neophyte Guardians.

That's why it made absolutely no sense for me to be in his office by myself at this moment.

"I got a call from Paranormal this morning, Samson. It was a bit unexpected, I must admit, but not entirely unwelcome in light of... things."

"What things?" I caught myself interrupting and tried to quickly apologize. "Sir, I'm sorry, I--"

The crinkled blue eyes before me scrunched into a small smile, and his hand raised to stop my flow of unnecessary verbiage.

"Just let me finish," he said softly, somewhat amused. "When you first joined our ranks, young one, there were doubts about you. Solid doubts, the kind I cannot ignore, as the leader of this organization."

I kept my mouth firmly closed and tried not to take offense to his words. I'd heard of those doubts long ago, after all.

"But, despite the rumors, I decided to let you enter into Training with the other new Guardians, the ones we'd had marked since birth. I couldn't let a preternatural accident destroy your chances at an afterlife; from what I've heard, it's almost impossible to cross over when you've been dragged back a second time.

"The Paranormal agent who had unintentionally brought you to my door was reprimanded for his mistake but not for the situation that his error created. We wanted to wait and see how you turned out."

I wondered what point he could possibly be making with all of this. I'd known that my induction had been a complete accident; in fact, I could remember it. I'd somehow died--that was the one fuzzy part--and then there had been a giant black tunnel. No white light, like they say in the movies. I'd been so afraid...

But then I'd run into something. Something solid. This object had shouted out loud and tried to shake me off, but I clung tightly to it, too scared to go down the black tunnel any longer. Before it could gather enough strength to push me away, our beings had merged, and I'd ended up on a concrete floor.

It was then that I'd heard the chaos all around me, the shouts of people I'd never known who seemed to actually show concern for my well-being. They'd scraped me off the concrete, dragged me down a few bright hallways, and explained what had happened to the best of their ability.

"I've always watched your work, Samson. Even your most reckless exploits. I must say, despite the trouble you've caused in the past, I'm impressed. Not just because you're good at what you do here, but because you've done it all from a disadvantaged position."

I remembered now how often I'd happened to run into the Boss during my months of training, how he'd been like an ever-seeing, ubiquitous eye. He'd spoken to me more frequently than any of the other neophytes and was continuously working to maintain our communication; though we'd never sat down face-to-face in his office, we'd conversed on numerous occasions.

"And now I've spent an hour on the phone, coming up with ways to fend off the Paranormal Department because they want to take you off my team."

"What?" My mouth fell open.

He smiled fully now, and I was surprised to find that the gesture eased a bit of my apprehension. "You and I both know what you can do, Samson. You're not merely a Guardian of the living; you are capable of working with the dead, too."

I stared at him in blatant confusion. "How do you know that? I've never worked with the dead."

"You haven't? Oh, so I must be imagining the time you sent the Ms. Andrea Platt back to her grave. Or the instance when you directed an entire community of lost souls down to Paranormal to be carried over."

I flinched. "No offense intended, sir, but I had no idea what I was doing in either of those situations. I did what was natural; I helped them."

"Exactly!" he said with exuberance, his hand hitting the table. "It's natural for you to work with both the living and the dead! You go by the title of Guardian, but you could make the transfer at any time to Conductor--I'm sure Paranormal would welcome you with open arms."

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "Again, no offense, but they're a bit bizarre in Paranormal. I don't think I would fit in very well..."

The usually stoic Boss laughed out loud, his teeth gleaming in the fluorescent light. "And that's all I needed to know. You will stay in my department, then?"

"Of course."

"Then the issue is settled. Paranormal can kiss my--"

A knock at the door cut short the Boss's attempt at profanity. A stocky man, dressed in dark black, proceeded to enter the room with haste, followed closely by Benji.

The man gave us both a grin and spoke in a raspy, grandfatherly voice. "Sir, I don't mean to rush you, but we have a very small time gap, and I would like to get these two on their way before that gap closes."

"Certainly, Stan. Your directions are here," the Boss said, handing him a slip of paper. Stan then left the room, leaving Benji and I alone with our employer.

"Sit, Wright. You and Samson have some reading to do on the way."

The three-ring binders he handed us were nearly an inch thick, notes and leaflets tumbling out from every direction. I groaned under my breath; Ben stared at his in horror.

"Please, before you go, open the manila folders on top and read the summary of your case. I cannot stress how important it is to know this summary by heart, to have it forever carved in your mind. It will be your lifeline for the next, well, life."

I did as the Boss instructed and peeled back the cover of my folder. There were only two pages, and the print wasn't too small, but it still took me longer than it should have to read every detail in the ink.

Location: Charrington, Michigan, the words said in bold. Michigan... Michigan... Why did that name sound so ridiculously familiar?

Subject: Ashling O'Connor, 16. Ashling? What kind of a name was that? I could take comfort in the fact that she was only sixteen, though; it would make it much easier for Ben and I to adjust if we only had to go back to sixteen.

PIN: 9.

My breath stopped in my throat. This girl had a PIN of nine? Holy...

Benji had reached the same line I had, the most important line in all the text. "Sir, um, I think there might have been a mistake down in Filing. Kaye and I can't take a case with a PIN this high."

The Boss's entire face appeared to be glowing. "I think you'll find that you're up to the challenge. The Peril Indication Number is merely an estimate, after all."

We stared at him in shock. In Training, we'd only worked in simulation cases with PINs up to six. Never anything higher. And now, for our first assignment, we were being given a subject who was closer to death than she was to life.

That was the purpose of the PIN--to give Guardians some sort of range of difficulty, to tell us how much danger our Subject was actually in. Six and below meant that the Subject's chances were good; anything higher than a seven meant that the Subject probably wouldn't survive long enough to hit their midlife crisis.

It also meant that the Guardians were most likely going to die along the way.

I was mildly nauseated as the Boss sent us on our way. I shoved the binder in my backpack, but carried the manila folder with me, my eyes still avidly scanning the page.

So this was why Paranormal had wanted me. They'd wanted to keep me around a bit longer, to prevent my premature murder. Cases this terrible were always given to the most experienced Guardians, not mere amateurs; the chance of me and Benji surviving stood much lower than that of a four-hundred-year-old Guardian.

We climbed into the back of the black car that was waiting in the garage, both of our mouths clamped firmly shut in fear. What the hell were we doing?

Stan turned around from the driver's seat, his face alight with the excitement of a new assignment. He, too, would be with us for the duration of this "mission." But unlike us, he couldn't die--his brand of immortality made him exempt from murder, while ours... didn't. All drivers were that way.

He stared at Benji, and smiled at me. He and I had gotten to know each other well during my months in Training; the relationship between us was one of an uncle to his niece, or a grandfather to his granddaughter. The fact was that he was just like me--an accidental addition to the company--and that similarity had brought us together. Despite all of the times I'd gotten myself into trouble, Stan had always been proud, proud enough to stand up for me when less friendly Guardians were ready to knock my lights out. I'd sought--and found--solace in the way he had saved me at times from my own novice recklessness.

The words that came from his mouth now were not comforting in any way, but they were the truth, and there was strength for me in truth. They echoed in the car, resounding off of the black interior, smothering the silence in their wake.

"They say you're tempting fate again, Kaye Samson, being put on the front lines without a shield. They say we've seen the last of you in this corporation, that an assignment this bad won't bring you back home. Some have even told me that your own tenacity and foolishness will destroy you.

"I really hope you prove them wrong."

I

"Shut it, Ben."

My partner and I were sprawled across the couch in our apartment, plastic guitars in hand. We'd been playing the same video game for nearly six hours.

Unfortunately, Benji had been an amazing guitar player in his former life. Too amazing. He was burying me.

"Wait, Kaye, who won? Who won that round? I want to hear you say it."

"I said shut it, Benjamin."

He smiled, smug and satisfied. I rolled my eyes and set my guitar on the coffee table. My gaze drifted over to the clock. "It's almost three, Ben. We're supposed to be at headquarters in less than two hours. I think it's time to call it a night."

He was already intently focused on the TV screen. "Just one more song, and I'll be done."

I rolled my eyes a second time and rose to leave the little den, calling over my shoulder as I went. "I'm going to bed, Ben. See you soon."

My bedroom door slammed behind me, the hinge just a bit too loose. I pretended not to notice it--no use complaining about a door that swung too well. In fact, the annoying details of this place only made it more appealing in my eyes; though predictably imperfect, it was home.

Not that I'd been living here that long. When training had ended three weeks ago, I'd been placed in a different building; it wasn't until we neophytes had been given our partner assignments that I'd been moved here, with Benji.

Ben was just as new as I was. They tried to keep the newbies together, according to the older crew. Less strain on the more skilled--and less patient--Guardians.

From the day we'd been partnered, we'd become one being, one entity. Other Guardians referred to us only as a pair. With very few exceptions, we were inseparable, even on our worst days. I wouldn't have called our relationship that of "best friends," or even that of siblings; it was something entirely different and inexplicable.

He was my other half.

My latest video game loss still weighing on my mind, I threw myself down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. There was a window to my left, but it didn't face the outside world; no, I had not seen the outside for what felt like years. In all actuality, it had only been fifteen months, but still...

My eyes refused to close. I was exhausted, but there would be no sleep for me tonight. Probably none for Ben, either. The two of us were receiving the instructions for our first solo assignment in less than two hours.

From what I'd heard, it wasn't much of a procedure. We had to report to the Boss, file a few papers, hop in a car, and get on a plane. Nothing too tedious. Of course, the real work began once the plane landed; as soon as our new Subject came into our view, our whole lives would start to change.

The more experienced Guardians called it Revolving. It was something I'd only heard about and never understood, one of those impossibly possible eccentricities of the trade. Supposedly--and I was a bit skeptical about this--the very moment our Subject stepped into our line of sight, everything would appear to revolve around them. My life, and consequently Ben's, too, would cease to have meaning; all matters concerning the Subject were important and everything else was utterly not.

It was also alleged that in that moment, Ben and I would start to age. We would be taken either backward or forward to the approximate age of the Subject and our immortality would begin to spin wildly out of control, pushing us farther and farther down a mortal road until the Subject--to be blunt--kicked the bucket.

The aging was only an external factor, though. Internally, the two of us would forever stay where we were now, at seventeen and nineteen. We were also permitted to Shift--to revert back to our permanent ages--when there were no humans within sight. Just another part of the protocol for active Guardians. Or was that just a technicality?

I covered my eyes with my hands and moaned. There were so many rules I needed to remember, so many regulations that now evaded me. I'd studied the book for weeks before the training exam; why, of all times, would that knowledge start to fade now?

Well, maybe it would be fine. Maybe Ben and I would find that this sort of work--the ultimate test of Guardianship, the solo assignment--was just as natural as all the other tasks we'd faced in training. Maybe, just maybe, this would be easy.

Ha. I doubted it. Just as surely as I wouldn't sleep, I wasn't about to embark on a smooth, effortless journey.

One more hour.

Prologue

I almost didn't believe him when he said I was dead. I was too conscious to be dead; every one of my senses was sharp and attuned to my surroundings, more so than they had ever been while I was alive.

While I was alive. It still sounds so strange. You'd think that you would get used to being dead after awhile, but apparently that kind of comfort takes millenia to accomplish. That's what the others have told me, anyway.

I don't know if I'll ever be entirely comfortable referring to myself in past tense.

The Boss had sat before me, his hands folded on the desk, and told me with deep severity that yes, I was indeed dead. Orphaned since birth, I'd had no one to lose; with no unfinished business, it had been mostly expected that I would "pass on."

But there had been a mistake. An accident of sorts. The Boss had explained very carefully to me that while I'd been traveling "beyond," a reckless agent from the Paranormal department had been coming "back over." We'd collided, and I had wound up at the company's headquarters.

Now here I was, sitting for the last time on the metal bench in the trainees' locker room. Tomorrow, I would graduate from basic Guardian training, finally entering the field in which I so desperately wanted to work.

When the Boss had told me what I'd become--what had happened when I'd been "brought back"--I couldn't have been anything but excited. I'd beaten death, for Pete's sake. My thoughts immediately jumped to delusions of invicibility.

I now knew better than to feel indestructible. And after a year and a half of strenuous effort, there were only five of us left. Five trainees. We'd made it through, and tomorrow, it would be over.

My life, as I'd known it, was already over. My heart still beat, but I was not alive. I was immortal--caught between the realms of the living and the dead--and the only way I could die was by murder.

The life, the world, the era I'd known was gone. It had vanished completely, without my notice. And now, this brand new epoch, full of intense training and startling lessons, would be coming to a close, throwing me headfirst into a position I wanted more than anything and yet dreaded beyond belief.

I was incomprehensibly terrified.