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I.
It is a well-known fact that a witch seeking out power will not remain a stranger to Death for long. Except this particular witch didn’t run from Death, she waited to be found. The watchful eyes of a being as old as time were hard to ignore after a while. Running away from Death was only fun for so long.
Agatha Harkness stood motionless in the center of the clearing, snow covering the ground. The light of the full moon high above her made the densely growing pine trees around her look darker, more sinister, but she smiled at the shadows of the trees moving with the cold breeze. For a while now, Agatha knew she was being followed by Death, after each successful witch kill she would get this particular feeling at the nape of her neck. And what should fill her with dread or fear instead made her feel excited. The fact that Death was coming to reap her soul during a full moon could only mean that even an immortal being liked to be challenged on occasion.
It suited her just fine. Agatha was at her most powerful tonight and she would not let her soul be reaped quietly; in fact, she didn’t plan on dying at all. She wasn’t done yet. Absorbing the power of witches lesser than her made her confident that even Death should show her some respect.
“Usually people are afraid of me,” a voice behind her left shoulder said, much closer than anticipated.
Agatha barely flinched, but she didn’t immediately turn around. The night air was thick with tension, an otherworldly aura filled the clearing that should be terrifying to her, but beneath the faint acrid smell there was a chasm of dark, endless power that almost made her weak in her knees. Absorbing that would most likely kill her. And yet, the allure of that ancient darkness was almost too delicious to ignore.
She turned around and came face to face with a cloaked figure, a skull peeking out from beneath the hood where a face should be. “Took you long enough, Mister,” she quipped, refusing to take a step back.
Death tilted its head and the movement seemed vaguely amused. “Ah. The witch killer is growing arrogant, I see,” the being went on to say, the voice barely above a murmur and hard to place. “And please, it’s Lady Death.”
Her voice did sound vaguely female and that, too, felt like a forbidden secret to learn.
Agatha just shrugged like she didn’t really care. However, her greed for knowledge and power probably undercut that feigned nonchalance. Her excitement ate away her embarrassment about it. All she could do was stare at the timeless being in front of her, wondering what would come next.
“I am certain you will understand that this isn’t personal,” Lady Death continued, reaching out with the skeletal hand, knuckles and finger bones rattling with the movement before she lightly caressed Agatha’s cheek. It made her hold her breath. “But you have stolen enough souls from me, Agatha Harkness. Time’s up. I’m here to collect your debt. And as powerful as you are, I am willing to accept your soul for all the stolen ones.” The hand dropped from Agatha’s cheek and left a tingling sensation behind.
Agatha flexed her fingers in her left hand. “No, I don’t think so.”
And then, their first dance began.
*
Agatha was lying on her back, half-dead and freezing on the cold, snowy ground. Her magical powers were as good as depleted. The full moon was hidden behind a thick mass of clouds that insisted on covering them in thick snow flakes that filled the night air with silence, were it not for the wheezing that escaped Agatha’s mouth as white mist. Any hope of recovering her powers fast was gone.
Lady Death was lying next to her, with some space left between them, seemingly unaffected by their fight and yet equally unwilling to move. “Why?”
Agatha blinked, annoyed by the snowflakes falling into her eyes. “Hm?”
“Why do you so stubbornly refuse to die? Just make it easy for me and let me do my job—”
“No.”
“It’s not really a suggestion, more like a warning of the inevitable. There’s no running from me.”
“Can’t you just take someone else’s soul and leave me be? I won’t tell anyone, I promise.” Agatha couldn’t manage much more than a cough in lieu of a flirty little chuckle that she planned to tack on. Oh well.
“That’s not how this works,” Lady Death pointed out, turning her skull eerily fast to train the dark empty eye sockets at her. “I don’t get to cherry pick which soul I reap and which ones I can skip. My hands are bound.”
“Gods, I wish. My ribs hurt way too much for that to be true.”
Lady Death made a noise that almost sounded like a surprised chortle. “My point still stands,” she huffed out with a moment's delay.
Agatha rolled her eyes. “Oh, my mistake, I thought you, as an ancient and powerful being, could maybe bend the rules in your favor.”
“You mean in your favor,” Lady Death corrected her, staring at the overcast night sky. “What use do I have from letting you live? Honestly, you have some nerve, haggling with me like that.”
Agatha looked at her opponent and fluttered her eyelashes at her with a coy little smile. “Is it working?” Due to the cold of the ground getting to her, her teeth started to chatter.
Lady Death held her gaze despite it all. “I’m bound to rules,” she repeated. It sounded less certain than a few moments ago.
Her lack of actual eyes should be unnerving and yet, Agatha glared right back, still somewhat out of breath, refusing to give her even an inch. “Sounds like that’s something for you to figure out, not me,” she replied, and turned onto her side with a pained groan. “I’m definitely not coming with you, I promise you that.”
Lady Death sat up in the blink of an eye and sighed, some irritation coloring her barely human-sounding voice. “There are rules in place to rein in the chaos, but you are right, I am to blame. I let myself hesitate a moment too long to see how far you will get. And now, here we are.” With one fluid motion, Lady Death was back on her bare bony feet, offering Agatha a hand. “Truce?”
Agatha looked up at that hand and took it, surprised to find the bones beneath her grip to feel almost. . . warm . “Truce,” she agreed, holding her side that bothered her with a stitch. “Now what?”
For a long while, neither of them spoke. Lady Death seemed to consider her, rolling her shoulders that made her bones crack and snap into place, the only hint that Agatha did get her. A little at least.
“I offer a bargain, Agatha Harkness,” Lady Death started and of course she had to use her full name again, just to rub it in once more that she knew it without introduction. Against expectation, hearing her name fall from Lady Death's mouth didn’t fill her with horror. “I will let you live under the condition that you continue your horrendous yet fascinating art form of killing witches, but I insist on enough restraint on your part that you leave intact souls behind for me to collect until you pay your debt to me.” Lady Death seemed to smile with the next words. “In exchange, I vow not to take your life, not until you are done. Do we have an accord?” Lady Death lifted expectantly her chin, pale and bone white as the rest of her skull.
Agatha tilted her head, breathing a little easier now. “What if it’ll take me time to figure out how to do that? What if not every. . . attempt succeeds?” The what if I’m not immediately obedient could be heard loud and clear in her voice.
Lady Death stood deathly still for a few heartbeats and then shook beneath her long, black cloak, the hood still up. It took Agatha a little to realize that it was quiet laughter . “You are truly a delight. Well, I suppose I have no choice but to let you figure it out until the debt is fully paid. However long that will take.”
This time, Agatha had an easier time to hear the smile in Lady Death’s voice. “And how will I know you are telling the truth? That this isn’t some sick trick and you will betray me the first chance you get?” She was intimately familiar with the concept of betrayal, but she made a point of not letting any of that shine through in her voice.
Lady Death stepped very close to her, until they were only inches away from each other. She smelled like snow and herbs and something Agatha couldn’t put her finger on. “I am telling the truth. And I will never lie to you, I promise you that,” she said earnestly, echoing Agatha’s own words from earlier.
Agatha could feel a wide smile slowly growing on her lips. Forgotten was the cold. She took Lady Death’s hand again, which seemed to surprise the eternal being in front of her, and gave it a brief shake. “Deal,” she whispered, already considering what she could do with her newfound deal that, in essence, granted her the gift of immortality. After all, she wasn’t perfect and was bound to slip up from time to time, unfortunately turning the tally of owed souls against her favor. What a bummer.
She let go of Lady Death’s hand and by next blink she was gone, the wind carrying away her amused chuckle and a faint “te veo,” whatever that meant.
Agatha couldn’t stop grinning when she realized that all her injuries had vanished.
II.
Agatha knows exactly what that black heart means that Lilia has scribbled onto the crumpled eviction notice. And she refuses to play that game of doing what Rio wishes her to do. In a way, she’d lose respect if Agatha just quietly gave in and followed that crystal clear instruction, right?
So, instead, Agatha ropes poor Mrs. Hart into their ragtag band of has-been witches, aware of the risks. Death is a constant companion on The Road, a fact that makes the hairs in the nape of her neck stand up, but it can’t be helped. Rio has decided to roll the dice and has only given her until sundown to run towards the rotten safety of the Road, away from the Salem Seven—with a bunch of witches (and Mrs. Hart) that all can’t stand her, and a mystery boy with a sigil placed on him.
What can go wrong?
*
Teen’s wound is bleeding too much and it leaves her much more rattled than she wants to reveal to the other members of her coven, but it’s too late. Her control over her own emotions is slipping away just like Teen’s blood is bringing him closer and closer towards—
She keeps hovering over Teen’s form at his head and doesn’t know what to do with herself. This is not her expertise, and Jen is slow to function under pressure, as already seen in that cursed beach mansion from their very trial. So she keeps snapping at her, hackles raised and tears collecting in her eyes, because what good are they all as witches if they can’t even save a life?
Lilia makes an attempt at comforting them, her, with a halting and soft voice. “He’s young. He’s strong—”
“Don’t!” At this point, Agatha is feeling the same yawning gap where her heart used to be before she’d lost what was most precious to her. The road has shown her that all too clearly not too long ago.
Rio keeps staring at her, twitchy as ever, with a look so intense and familiar that it sometimes reminds her of the empty eye sockets from centuries ago. It dims the presence of the others, quietens all the noise to a faint hum, and for a small moment, Agatha allows her mask to fall off. “Don’t.” Such a simple plea, almost too short to shoulder all of her desperation in her request. If things weren’t so serious, she’d hate asking Rio for anything, but dire circumstances require to jump over one’s shadow.
In any case, it buys Jen enough time to heal Teen and save his life. She’s almost breathless with how relieved she is, and she gives Rio one more short glance. It’s as close to a ‘thank you’ as she will get.
III.
Time had passed and Lady Death kept visiting her, at some point choosing the name Rio Vidal. It escaped her how exactly that name came to exist, only that she liked saying it. What started as a challenge in a clearing had since then turned into a fruitful partnership; from exchanging and learning knowledge to watching Rio’s powers at work—Agatha couldn’t get enough of it.
Rio also taught her how to not take too much power to leave a soul behind that in turn could be reaped by her new friend. To make traveling together easier, Rio had chosen the disguise of a Green Witch (or rather the Green Witch, as she one day declared to Agatha with a distorted, demonic voice that made Agatha laugh into her face after a brief moment of silence for how terribly performative that had been). With that name and occupation came a human face that made it terribly easy to forget that Agatha was now bound to Rio in a way that most witches would be appalled by: kill to pay a debt in bodies.
But collecting power from weak, untalented witches was entertaining enough, doing it in front of Rio while she stood by and pretended not to follow her every move with her hungry, dark eyes admiring her work was a different kind of dance altogether than their first one. Sometimes, Rio pretended to clean her nails with that jagged knife of hers, other times she had the nerve to lean against a wall, or tree, or large boulder with crossed arms feigning to be only mildly interested. Her eyes, however, betrayed her each time to the endless thrill of Agatha.
It was a slippery slope, though.
Agatha knew too damn well where this was headed, despite her inexperience in such matters.
A terrible thing, really, to be one of the most powerful beings to walk the earth and to still be victim to her own stupid, treacherous heart. At times it seemed to her that Rio saw her embarrassing secret plain on her face, even if Agatha made a point to be as abrasive and off-putting as possible. Unfortunately, it made Rio laugh more often than not, only dragging her deeper into that sinkhole of feelings and emotions and—
“You are getting better at this,” Rio praised her, even smiling a little. Her dark eyes twinkled with something akin to appreciation. Her mannerisms and expressions seemed more and more human each time she visited Agatha, further escalating her personal crisis of— “Even though you seem terribly distracted today. Is it because of what day today is?”
Agatha blinked at her, still a little dazed from the praise. “Huh?” was her eloquent reply to that. Something at the back of her mind tried to warn her, remembering what today was.
“Today, in the year 1693, you were betrayed by your coven and your own mother.” Rio stepped closer, her voice soft. For a being claiming to not have mastered all emotions and reading each social situation correctly yet, she had an intuition for how to approach delicate topics with Agatha, almost unfailingly so.
Charming, really. How could a woman say no to that?
Agatha got to her feet, leaving the almost completely depleted husk of the witch’s body behind. “You were there,” she concluded breathlessly, distracting herself with that revelation rather than to think back to that awful night that has irrevocably changed her life. For the better, she’d argue. For the worse, all the dead witches would argue if they still could. But their souls were carefully reaped by Rio each time and they didn’t level any complaints about Agatha to her . As if they understood that Rio wouldn’t care for it, hell, she barely even kept count of Agatha’s tally at this point. It was all about the fun, Agatha would tell herself. Nothing more, nothing less.
(Oh, but it was about so much more.)
Rio’s eyes glinted with quiet amusement, easily answering Agatha’s eagerness to not talk about what her mother tried to do all those many, many years ago. “Of course I was there. And I was mildly irritated by that greedy little witch stealing all my souls away from me.”
“Why didn’t you attack me then? Why did you wait so many years before coming after me?” All that time they could’ve already known each other—oh, for fuck’s sake .
Rio came even closer to her, the, at this point, familiar and comforting smell of earth and lavender and moss greeting her like an old friend. “I was also mildly stunned that a greedy little witch just stole all these souls from me. How old were you, 17? 18?” Rio tilted her head a little, smiling at her. “I shouldn’t have waited but I couldn’t help myself. I like to admire competence. It’s so rare.”
Agatha almost could fool herself that this was, indeed, not just a one-sided tragedy on her part of misguided fascination, of ill-advised enamoredness, but—
“It’s okay, I forgive you for stealing from me,” Rio said, mistaking Agatha’s growing unrest for guilt, out of all things. And then she did what she was so fond of doing, touching Agatha’s cheek. It was mortifying to realize that a tear had escaped her eye without her leave. Immobilized by her own hard beating heart, Agatha couldn’t do anything but look into Rio’s eyes, tracing the dark brown, almost black, color there, studying the ancient and yet familiar expression in them that almost made her feel like she belonged somewhere.
“Espero que no me temas*,” Rio whispered before she kissed her, sealing Agatha Harkness’s fate and her own for centuries to come.
IV.
Agatha is fuming.
That boy isn’t yours.
How dare this stubborn, cruel, mothball-smelling—
(The last one is a lie, unfortunately, she actually still smelled as she remembered it, and it drove her mad. All these years, and still it made her heart stumble. She can’t find it in herself to regret the hug or the almost—)
Agatha watches Teen sit down on the log she had occupied earlier, her long coat neatly folded in his arms. The others exclaim relief and joy at seeing him alive and well, and isn’t that precious, Teen belonging into their coven like he’s been a member from the start.
That boy isn’t yours .
Agatha can’t stand hearing Rio’s voice say these cursed four little words to her, echoing inside her head like an endless feedback loop. Rio just had to say them, couldn’t help herself, and right before she had almost allowed herself to forget, to forgive, to just let herself fall back into what had been the only good thing for most of her life, until it wasn’t.
She shakes herself out of her traumatized stupor and marches with false bravado back to the others. She only realizes a moment too late that the crossed arms in front of her chest are a subtle giveaway at her current state of mind, and other than Jen’s quick askance quirk of her brow, too knowing for Agatha’s liking, the rest don’t seem to notice. She drops her arms and sits on the now empty boulder, with Alice still occupying her spot on the ground.
“Where’s Rio?” Teen asks, his dark eyes finding hers.
“Perhaps following nature’s call,” Agatha scoffs, making a vague hand waving gesture in the general direction she has left Rio standing. “We should get some rest while the Road lets us,” she tacks on, feeling bone tired herself. From almost losing Teen, to finding out he is not who she assumed he was, to Rio stomping once again on her heart—she has earned a little power nap.
“Someone should stay up and keep watch, though,” Alice suggests looking around. “And keep the fire going, too.”
Teen, ever the eager helper, is about to raise his hand when the choice is made for him. “I’ll do it.”
Agatha briefly closes her eyes when she realizes who exactly has soundlessly slinked back to their little campfire, behind her left shoulder no less. Her favorite spot. “Great, aren’t you a useful little Green Witch?” Her voice is so abrasive, it has more than just Jen raise her brows. Lilia and Alice exchange looks, Teen narrows his eyes at her. “Whatever, I’m beat. Don’t wake me up until someone pulls a whatever her name was.”
“Sharon! Her name was Sharon!” Teen reminds her, quite forcefully with that annoying voice of his. Except that it’s not annoying and if he had been hers, she’d—
Agatha gets up with an unbothered shrug and a hum, marches up to Teen and bows down to grab the coat from him. “Stay away from Rio,” she whispers to him when she forcefully gets a grip on the purple material of her coat. She isn’t sure why she warns him, but she hasn’t forgotten Rio’s interest in the boy. Whether or not hers, she’s grown rather fond of this idiot, against her will and better judgment, so it feels like the right thing to do.
Teen only blinks at her.
“Don’t walk too far away from us, Agatha!” Lilia calls after her, and Agatha acknowledges her words with a handwave without turning around. She walks in the opposite direction of where Rio is, that’s far enough. It’s only when she hears the crumpling of dried leaves beneath someone’s steps behind her that she stops walking, Teen’s makeshift camp already in sight. She swirls around, ready to throw hands with Rio when she comes face to face with Teen instead. She moves her head a little, pretending to stretch her neck muscles.
Teen sighs. “You thought I was someone else,” he says in lieu of directly pointing out how a heartbeat earlier her hands had been clenched into fists. “You never answered me, you know?”
“And I won’t,” comes her immediate reply. That little shit cannot seriously expect her to talk about her son. She’d rather drink that poisoned wine again.
“Oh, no. Not about that. I asked you if we should be worried about Rio, and I’m lowkey still worried but then again, she seems okay, so far, right?” He has this disgustingly naïve, hopeful look on his face again.
Agatha rolls her eyes in annoyance and keeps walking towards the makeshift camp they’ve made for him earlier to rest in. “Go back, Teen. Sit with the chatty other witches at the warm fire and leave me alone,” she tells him over her shoulder.
Teen has other plans. “You said I should stay away from Rio.”
“That wasn’t an invitation. Go. Away.”
“No.”
Agatha raises her brow at him, opening her mouth in a half-smiling gasp, as exaggerated as is her habit to do. “Aren’t we feeling brave so soon after almost running into death?” She regrets her taunt the moment it leaves her lips. She can feel her face soften into something akin to remorse and it takes her a deep breath to open her eyes again and look at Teen’s irritated and confused look in his eyes. “She won’t harm you, I think,” she says, awfully close to making a promise she can’t keep and revealing who Rio truly is. “I just. . . Better safe than sorry, you know?”
Teen sits down right next to her, pulling his knees up to rest his chin there. “I believe I know who she is, actually. She’s threatened to kill you and then she said something about you taking her power, which you said would kill you and there’s only so many beings where—”
“Shut up,” Agatha quietly says, using her nails to bite into her skin while moving her fingers in an erratic fashion, a nervous tick that betrays her unrest. “She’s my problem, not yours. Let it go. It doesn’t matter, is all I’m saying. Worry your stubborn little head about something else. Like where you plan on sleeping tonight, because it ain’t here.”
“Agatha,” he says, his voice soft, “I think she saved my life.”
So, he’s just ignored all she’s said, great. She sighs deeply. “No. Jen did.”
“But. . . if she is who I think she is then why didn’t she simply take me?” He looks at her then, confusion plain on his face. “It’d be fitting if she is who I think she is, actually,” he muses stubbornly, skirting around actually saying it, lifting his chin a little to smile. And then, finally, he does say it. “Death playing drums, keeping an eye on time even in music.”
Agatha has to look away, no quick quip ready for that observation.
V.
“I don’t like you very much.” Agatha had never been so grateful to sit down on a chair, wooden and cheap as it was. But Jen was not like her, she was helping others out of the goodness of her heart, she lacked the discipline and hunger for power to elevate her station into something above a modestly paid midwife that simply couldn’t afford the comforts Agatha had gotten used to over the decades. Her witchcraft was admirable enough, though—if you were a fan of healing that is. “But I can admit, under great pains”—hah, Rio would’ve loved that one—“when I’m in over my head. This is that moment, but don’t get used to it.”
“You are very pregnant,” Jen pointed out the obvious, already driving up the annoyance Agatha felt being forced to come here, to someone who had very little regard for her or her moniker: the witch killer. Still, it seemed a poor choice to dwell on the surprise about it all. “That is. . . unexpected.”
Agatha rolled her eyes, unable to hide her annoyance any longer. “Yeah, yeah, we don’t have time to get into the witchy bees-and-flowers talk, but come find me when you stop being boringly competent at your job and I might teach you how—” Agatha was interrupted by an involuntary gasp. She barely felt pain anymore, not in fights, and certainly not really when Rio decided to get creative with that knife of hers, but this was a different kind of pain. Older. Part of a cycle, life and death. It almost made her smile, like some kind of idiot.
“Well, that saves me the trouble of asking what the hell you’re doing here. You are in labor,” Jen concluded, reluctance still shining through her words. “I know what you are, we all heard of what you do, so why the hell should I. . .” Her voice trailed off, her eyes staring at her round stomach and the urge to help slowly starting to kick in.
Just to be sure to bag her help, Agatha pouted, dipping her voice into her best plaintive tone. “But I’m a helpless soul in need, Jen, you won’t turn me away—” Agatha bit her lower lip and suppressed a pained groan. “Just. . . do your thing. Please.” That was the first earnest word she’d said to the witch that was one of the best midwives among their kind.
Jen leveled her with a hard stare, as if trying to read her mind, but after a while she sighed and relented with a nod.
Rio was nowhere to be seen.
*
Nicholas was small, his birth a little early, but Jen declared him healthy enough and bundled him up to keep him warm. She placed him in her arms, her gripe with Agatha for the moment forgotten. She even allowed Agatha to stay in the room for as long as her body needed healing—in exchange for some money of course. Perhaps she will buy better chairs, then.
Agatha looked down at the little wonder in her arms. He looked like her, his eyes had the same color as hers—although that could change with time—and a whisper of dark hair sitting on top of his small little head. He was falling asleep now, a comfortable weight in her arms that she didn’t know how she lived without before this moment. One of his little fists had closed around her finger and she could melt.
“He has your eyes,” Rio suddenly said to her left, already seated in the armchair. She pulled her hood down, the only sign that she had just arrived. She stared at Nicky with a weird mixture of longing and something else, something Agatha couldn’t place her finger on. “I should not be here,” she whispered, but then her eyes found Agatha’s and she leaned over to kiss her cheek and leaned her forehead against hers. “I’m sorry I’m late, sweetheart.” She tilted her head lower and kissed her, deeply, tasting like summer. It made Agatha chase her lips, wondering where Rio had been before finding her here.
“No, it’s good you weren’t here,” Agatha said a little breathlessly, rubbing her nose against Rio’s. She felt warm being surrounded by the two people she loved most in this life. In any life. “How the hell would I explain you to good old nosy Jen? She was annoying as it was without you here, holding my hand.” A part of her tried to imagine it, how Rio would’ve sat there, diligently holding her hand and not once complaining about such frivolous things as feeling pain from a too tight grip. And that part mourned that this had not happened; their time together was filled with many missed moments that made her barely stop herself from sighing wistfully every time she thought about it. Even when Rio was around her, she was haunted by the yearning, always fretting over how little time they truly had, which inevitably caused her to be eaten alive by a longing that was embarrassing even to voice out in words.
She wondered if Rio even felt any of that. If she ever missed Agatha when she wasn’t with her. She didn’t dare to ask.
Rio smiled at her, amused by her abrasive commentary as ever. “I don’t know what you mean. We would’ve told her what we always tell people: I’m Rio Vidal, the Green Witch,” Rio said with a quiet chuckle. Then, she grew solemn again. “Childbirth is dangerous. I wasn’t sure if me being here would. . .” She dropped Agatha’s hand and leaned away, just a little, her dark eyes framed by lines of coal staring into the shadows of the room where the candle light next to her bedside table couldn’t reach far enough. “I still hovered, of course, because when it comes to you, I just can’t help myself.” She looked at her then, her hand on Agatha’s cheek, rubbing small circles there, and her dark eyes filled with deep fondness and something as old as death itself: love.
Over a century later, when this memory would hurt more than any physical pain she could imagine to endure, she’d blame her hormones for this. But at this moment, Agatha could swear she had never loved Rio more. Not while killing witches, not while traveling the world with her, it was this. It’s why she leaned into her warm hand, almost like a cat. “Like I’m that fragile,” she scoffed in dry amusement, unable to shake her pretend-aloofness completely.
Rio didn’t laugh, the fond look in her eyes dimmed. She let go of her cheek. “No, you’re not,” she agreed. “But he is.”
It was the beginning of many ends. They just didn’t know it yet.
VI.
Teen is fast asleep and despite her own exhaustion that sits deep in her bones, almost as old as she is, Agatha can’t keep her eyes closed. Turning from side to side, she gives up after a while. She carefully gets up, leaves her coat draped over Teen’s snoring form that elicits a fond headshake from her, and she wanders through the darkness of the Road. Some of the flora and fauna around her glow in the dark, offering some comfort on this lonesome path. The darkness is no different than when they’ve begun their journey. It’s hard to tell how much time has passed, really.
It’s a personal disappointment in herself to be drawn to the figure sitting at the fire, which is still burning as promised. The others are all asleep around it.
Rio doesn’t move when Agatha sits down next to her. Their shoulders brush and only then does Rio look at her. It’s a closed-off look that greets her, her guards are up and it’s hard to read her.
“Can’t sleep, huh?” Agatha whispers to her, very aware of how close they sit. The line is nonsensical, but she truly can’t think of a better thing to say to break the loaded silence between them.
Rio’s eyes have perfected the art of a deadpan stare. It hides what she thinks and feels very well. “Very funny, Agatha.”
“You know me, funniest gal of whatever fucking year it is.”
Rio’s lips twitch against her will and she looks back into the licking flames devouring a piece of wood that has been freshly placed there not so long ago. Likely by Rio herself. “What do you want? And do consider that your new best friends want to get some sleep.”
“We can have a civilized, whispered conversation,” Agatha husks out, tracing Rio’s side profile with her eyes. There is something otherworldly about her with how the fire reflects on her face, and a part of her—a primal, less vindictive part—just wants to touch and to feel and to taste. She hurries to stare into the fire again. “I think, if the mushrooms on glowstick duty are anything to go by, my trial is up next, so I guess you, deciding to tell me the truth about Teen—well, I should probably thank you. I won’t but, you know. In theory, I’m aware I should. At least the Road can’t use that. . . assumption against me now, hm?” she mumbles, resolutely staring straight ahead even when she can feel Rio shift next to her and place her hand right next to Agatha’s to link their pinkies together. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like there aren’t several life times worth of hurt and betrayal and hate between them. “I think, deep down, I always knew. His eye color is all wrong,” she forces herself to mumble on, and her words are like picking at a scab until it bleeds. She closes her eyes and immediately sees her baby boy in her arms again, like he never—
A moment later, she can feel Rio leaning her forehead against Agatha’s temple. “I told you a very long time ago, I would never lie to you.”
Agatha sniffs and pretends it didn’t happen. She’s afraid of Rio rebuking her again, so against what her body wants she doesn’t turn her head, even though it would be so easy, just tilt it a little and then lean in—
When she closes her eyes, she can still see the bright flames burning, all while she tells herself that this is enough, all things considered.
VII.
The Darkhold was as terrible as it was alluring, just as promised. It had not been easy to withstand its temptation on the way back, safely packed away in her satchel, but now it hovered in the center of Nicholas’ nursery, pulsing with an auspicious aura. It was a foreign, intense kind of dark power that emanated from it like addictive fumes that she wanted to get closer to and take a deep breath of. But Nicky was squirming in her arms, feverish and sickly as ever, reminding her why she went through all of that trouble to find that dark artifact in the first place.
“Don’t,” Rio said from behind her, right at her left ear. “Agatha, don’t.” Her timing was impeccable as always, just a touch later than she’d wished for. She could’ve used her help getting that damn thing, it could’ve been like one of their earlier adventures together. But no matter, Agatha had as always managed on her own. In the end, she had no one but herself to rely on when it came to her son.
(Their son, her heart would whisper at night, wishfully hoping for Rio to one day maybe agree with her instead of keeping her distance from him as much as possible.)
“I have to,” Agatha argued, swallowing the lump in her throat. What good was all that power she had collected over the years when her son was slowly dying, each of Jen’s potions useless and a waste of time. At least she had proven to be useful enough as a babysitter while Agatha had been off to hunt down the solution to her grief. She needed to help him now. “You know I have to.”
“Not like this,” Rio said in a quiet voice and she stepped forward to touch her arm as if she was afraid that her words didn’t reach her. The sadness in her face was ancient and almost rivaled Agatha’s own. It was different for her, Rio was barely there, didn’t suffer through sleepless weeks, night after night, didn’t even know what that felt like as a being that famously never slept. In fact, Rio had no idea what Agatha was going through because that particular suffering was oh so very human—even her beautiful human form couldn’t hide that deep down she was still just the same otherworldly being, a cloaked figure with rattling bones, disconnected from the human condition. She was a tourist, visiting the living and perusing their attractions only to pack up and leave again when her work called her away. And on and on the wheel of time spun, unforgiving and cruel. It was maddening and Agatha had enough of that. Rio probably hardly felt the passage of time, and Agatha had been the same, until now.
Her son had changed everything and now, he was running out of time. “Oh, so are you willing to help now? Interesting development, took you long enough,” Agatha said, her bottled up anger at Rio’s lack of understanding coloring her words. She gave her a smile she knew wouldn’t reach her eyes. “Will you make an exception for him, like you did for me?” The eerie whispers and humming coming from the dark book became a background noise.
“That’s different.”
“You bent the rules once, so do it again—”
“No. Stop.”
“What, can’t you stand the fact that you have to share me now? Is that it? Hm?”
“Agatha,” Rio said with exasperation, no longer entertained by her snark.
Agatha barked out a short, cruel laugh, glaring right back at her. “Don’t tell me you forgot how. What can possibly be the problem to do it just one more time.” She forced the hard look on her own face to soften, lowering her head a little. “For me?” Nicholas squirmed in her arms but remained in his fever-induced slumber.
The expected fond half-smile remained absent. Rio looked vaguely angry, maybe a little ill. “Some things are not meant to be, Agatha.” Rio stabbing her in the middle of her chest with that uneven dagger of hers would’ve hurt less than hearing these words fall from Rio’s full lips. “It’s one thing for me to grant you a generous loan of time for you, but it’s another matter entirely to demand of me to essentially betray my raison d’être. I cannot and will not do it. You know what I am, you have always known. Don’t act like it’s a surprise to you now.”
Agatha, frozen still in her shocked anger, could feel the burn of her angry tears that eventually spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “You bitch. But why am I surprised? You only hang around when it amuses you, watching me work. ‘Oh, look, it’s Agatha doing that trick again where she kills someone and I get to collect a body,’” she mimics Rio’s manner of speaking in an exaggerated manner, copying the lack of inflection at times perfectly. “Only this is real life, asshole. I’m not going to sit around and wait for you to reap his—” She couldn’t even say it. She looked at the dark tome just a few steps away from her, more and more promising whispers reaching her. It was so close, she just had to—
“You found it and you brought it back here, not immediately using it. Why? Because you knew what it would do to you. You can feel it. A part of you reasoned to hesitate because of it,” Rio said, making sure to grab Agatha’s face in both of her hands. Her eyes looked black with what could be mistaken as pity. “His sickness is not your fault, sweetheart. It’s just the way of life, sometimes.”
On any other day, in any other context, that term of endearment would’ve filled Agatha with warmth, her love beating in time with her heart. However, in this very moment, it only further stoked the fires of her fury that was slowly turning into the deep cutting pain of betrayal. She could taste the bitterness of it on her tongue, hardening her heart to all that was to come. Rio just asked her to do nothing, to essentially just wait and wait and wait and watch him wither away in her arms until—
Agatha gritted her teeth, furrowing her brows in anger. “You just don’t get it. And that’s on me, I suppose. Expecting death to understand love is like you expecting me to let my son die.”
Rio flinched at her words and she seemed more human than ever before. Her hands fell off Agatha’s face and she was immobilized by Agatha’s accusation, clearly not sure what to do now.
But Agatha had no time to worry about Rio’s hurt feelings—in whatever capacity she was even capable of having them—and instead took pains to slowly place Nicky into his cradle, carefully caressing his too-warm cheek, “Mommy’s here,” she whispered, her resolve solidifying. “Just a bit longer, kiddo.” Then, she turned towards the Darkhold. It was within reach, she only had to step closer and take it—
A hand on her left shoulder stopped her. “Agatha,” Rio called her name with something that could almost fool her into thinking that she had a heart that could break, only that she knew better. It’s just the way of life, sometimes. “Please, don’t leave me. You don’t know what a price the Darkhold will demand of you.” Years later, Agatha will wonder if Rio had known, then. If that had been the warning she’d missed.
But in that precise second, with the dark, tantalizing aura of the Darkhold swirling around them, Agatha could only stubbornly lower her chin and glare back at Rio to double down. “Good, I don’t need to know. Because it doesn’t matter to me. Hell, I will give my own heart if I have to! Now, let go of me.”
And Lady Death did.