Page 1 of Mortal Things

1

In the dream, he always comes to me the same way.

It’s how he has looked ever since I first met him: a young man trapped in time, his hands tucked into the pockets of his trim dark suit, striding toward me through tendrils of mist. His brows and lashes are midnight dark, his eyes gray, but despite his youthful face, his hair is streaked with silver and white. I think of the chemicals and proteins that would be at work. Of the careful dance between acids and molecules that make up every cell in the body. It’s called a phenotype—what’s on the outside that’s a translation of the genetic code within. I’ve seen this one many times before, in textbooks and case studies. But somehow, it looks different on him. Doctors would call it poliosis, a lack of melanin in the follicles. Sometimes it’s a genetic mutation. Sometimes it’s brought on by extreme stress. I wonder which it was for him.

Release me, I whisper.

He looks down at me with that haunting, depthless gaze, wipes the tears from my cheeks, and touches the three triangles on my arm that mark me as his.

No, he answers.

And always, I shudder awake.

I have a hypothesis that the bleaker a place is in winter, the more festive it needs to look.

Naturally, London in December is a wonderland of lights.

By the time I make my way out of the Underground at Lancaster Gate, the streets are all blanketed in a glittering sheet of white. Black cabs and red buses are frosted like tea cakes as they carve lines through the roads. Every storefront is dressed in holiday cheer, their windows glowing with the warmth of twinkling bulbs and glossy ornaments. But the wind still cuts through my coat like a knife, and I shiver, muttering under my breath about how the northern hemisphere is tilted too far from the sun for my liking.

Even for December, today is cold.

It’s entirely likely that this is Snow’s idea of a good joke, but I have no patience for the goddess of Air’s hijinks today. I shove my hands into my coat pockets, scowl at the dancing flurries, and peer down the street—as if I might catch sight of her sitting on a bus station bench in her wool dress and beret, chatting away with some unsuspecting mortal. I have no idea why she plays with London more than most cities. The average local temperature this time of year should be five degrees Celsius, but today it’s minus five. Minus. Five.

If Laine were here, she’d be wrinkling her nose at me and laughing. Don’t even tell me, Doc, she says. I don’t want to know.

Thinking of her puts a bittersweet smile on my face. The way that I see the world through a veil of scientific facts is usually something people find odd, among other things, but Laine had always thought it endearing. She’s the one who had nicknamed me Doc, who’d always reassured me I would get to medical school.

I already know your future, she’d said to me. Saving lives, and eating too much sugar.

But that was back when we were still best friends. Before I knew that gods were real. Before my life changed forever.

Turns out, none of us could have known.

As I walk, Paddington Station comes into view across the street. I pause, my cheeks and nose flushed from the cold air, and wipe away a dusting of ice crystals from my lashes. Then I watch the crowds swarming in and out of the building.

My hand tingles. I look down at the ring I always wear on my middle finger. My target must be near.

The ring is my Artifact, an enchanted piece of jewelry, although you wouldn’t know it, not at first glance. A band of onyx set with a glittering sapphire.

Originally, it had been a birthday gift from Laine. An eye, to represent science and its eternal pursuit of truth and knowledge. But my patron god infused the object with his touch a year ago to keep me safe, right before he sent me on my first job.

Sometimes the Artifact rests, the sapphire vanishing under a thin layer of onyx. But when it senses opportunity or danger, it will open and stare in that direction, and my entire hand will tingle as if awakening from sleep.

“Busy for a Wednesday afternoon,” I murmur to myself, and the eye rolls at me.

It’s also not above offering its silent opinion from time to time.

I look around, wondering if I might see my patron god in the crowd—a tall, elegant silhouette blending in with the others, appearing as a young gentleman instead of an immortal savoring a walk through our world.

One might not think that the god of Death, the Raven, the guardian and claimer of souls, would favor such small indulgences, but the gods are sometimes remarkably human. They had, after all, once been human, and were chosen only after first living a mortal life. Even their divine names are taken from our world. Snow. Raven. Icons to symbolize what they had once cared for deeply before they became immortal.

The dream is still fresh in my mind. That haunting gaze. His hand wiping away my tears. Release me, release me, I beg. But his answer always remains the same.

He has never told me why he chose the raven for his name. So I’m left to my own theories.

My scowl deepens as I cross the street and hurry toward the station. As ever, my mind wants to reject the fact that he’s real, that any of the gods are real, that this is not some deep hallucination. A psychosis. A long dream. Every morning, I wake hoping that it has ended. And yet, every morning, I find that I’m here. That my god is still summoning me.

As the ring continues tingling, I study the face of each person I pass, knowing that one of them will be my target.