The air in the living room smelled of stale ozone, copper, and the sappy, artificial scent of lilies that Kaya had brought in three days ago. It was a heavy, stagnant smell; it was the scent of a house that had stopped breathing.

  Ace lay stiffly on the central table, arms folded neatly across her chest. She looked like a marble statue, carved by someone who had only ever witnessed the stillness of sleep, not death. No signs of decay marked her; her skin retained a pale, waxen glow that seemed untouched by time. There was only an unnatural, terrifying stillness, as if some quiet, impossible force preserved her in this in-between state.

  "She is just sleep," Sergius darkly joked. He leaned against the doorframe, his expression one of mild inconvenience and boredom. "I see her worse in 1812. This is... a little nap. We wait for nothing."

  "It’s been three days, Father!" Alexei snapped, pacing the room like a caged animal. He kicked a footstool, sending it skittering across the hardwood. "She isn't 'napping.' But she isn't dead either! She can’t be. The world wouldn’t let things happen like this. Not to someone like Ace!"

  "Alexei, sit down," Yoon Ha-on said softly, though his own hands were tucked deep into his pockets to hide the shaking. He stood near the bier, eyes fixed on Ace’s pale face. "You’re making enough noise to wake the neighborhood, if not her."

  "Maybe that’s the point!" Alexei turned on him, teeth bared. "At least I’m not standing there acting like this is a library! We should be doing something. Pumping her heart, giving her blood… fucking something!"

  "We did all of that," Ha-on replied, his voice a strained whisper. "Ra-on and Mak have tried everything. If the blood did fix her, she’d be standing already."

  Mak sat on the floor, a bottle of expensive bourbon dangling from his fingers. "She’s just taking her time," he croaked, looking pleadingly at the others. "Right? She’s just...being stubborn."

  Ra-on didn't look at any of them. He stood by the window, his silhouette sharp against the morning sun. His "mask" was fastened so tight it was a wonder he could breathe.

  "She is dead," Ra-on said. The words were flat, final. "The heart is silent. We are guarding a shell." His voice betrayed nothing, but inside, Ra-on was a cathedral on fire. Every second he spent looking at her unmoving chest felt like a year of torture. He wanted to scream, to burn the city to the ground, to find the Creator and tear the stars from the sky. But instead, he just watched the specks of dust dance in the light.

  "Shut up," Alexei snapped from the corner, his voice cracking. "You don't know that."

  Sergius checked his watch with a sigh. "Alexei, 'stopping' is what we are looking for? It’s mercy. Honestly, the smell of lilies is giving me migraines. Can we move this along?"

  Before Alexie could continue fighting, Ha-on grabbed his shoulders and shook his head, subtly telling Alexie it's not worth it.

  Kaya flinched at Sergius words. He was the only one still touching her, his hand wrapped around Ace’s cold fingers. "A small funeral," he choked out. Even though he had spent the last forty-eight hours praying to a God he wasn't sure existed, begging for a twitch, a sigh, a curse word. Something to prove to him she was still alive, but nothing happened.

  "Just us, nothing big. And then... cremation." Kaya said uncertainly.

  "Finally," Sergius grunted, pushing off the wall. "Too much mourning. Is bad for skin."

  The transition from the house to the "Evergreen Crematorium" was a blur of cold metal and professional indifference. One moment, Ace was the center of a centuries-old family’s universe; the next, she was a line item on a manifest.

  The crematorium was a concrete box located behind a tire warehouse. Inside, the "Retort Room" didn't appear to be a place of rest. It looked like a commercial kitchen for ghosts. The walls were lined with industrial stainless steel, and the floor was grey epoxy with yellow safety lines marking the "danger zones" around the furnaces.

  Gary, the mortician, was forty-two and tired. He wore a smock that was slightly too tight and had a persistent itch on his left ankle. To Gary, this wasn't a tragedy; it was Thursday.

  He checked the paperwork pinned to a clipboard. Jane Doe. Immediate disposition. The machine, a large, boxy incinerator known as Unit 4, hummed with a low-frequency vibration that rattled Gary’s coffee mug on the nearby desk. He hit a switch on the control panel, and the heavy, ceramic-lined door hissed open on hydraulic tracks. Inside, the bricks were already glowing a dull, angry orange.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  "Right then," Gary muttered to himself. He grabbed the edge of the cardboard "alternative container" in which Ace was resting. He gave it a practiced, bored shove, lining it up with the steel rollers that led into the maw of the fire.

  He reached for the final lever. He just wanted to get this done before his lunch break.

  Hot.

  That was the first thought that pierced the grey fog. It wasn't the searing pain of the pool; it was a dry, aggressive heat that tickled the back of my throat.

  I opened my eyes.

  The ceiling was a drop-tile mess of water stains and flickering fluorescent lights. My first instinct wasn't "Where am I?" It was "Who the hell is playing a jet engine in my bedroom?"

  Then, the tray moved. The rollers beneath me let out a metallic skree.

  I sat bolt upright. The cardboard beneath me creaked. To my left, a man in a beige smock froze in place. He was holding a clipboard, his mouth hanging open.

  "Jesus H. Christ!" Gary shrieked, stumbling backward. He tripped over a rolling stool, and his clipboard hit the floor with a loud clack. "You’re... you’re... I have the certificate! You’re dead!"

  I blinked at him, my brain feeling like it had been scrubbed with steel wool. I looked at the roaring orange maw of the furnace just three feet away, and the "Retort" was huffing heat like a dragon with a head cold. I looked back at the shaking man.

  "Well, you’re half right about that…Gary," I said. My voice was a dry rasp, like sandpaper on stone. "You look like a Gary. Are you a Gary by any chance?"

  "I... I... help! Someone! Code Red!" Gary didn't wait for an answer. He scrambled toward the door, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. He sprinted out of the room as if he’d seen a ghost, which, to be fair, he had.

  I watched him go, completely unbothered. My heart was thumping a slow, steady rhythm—thump-thump, thump-thump—annoyingly regular. I sighed, swinging my legs off the tray.

  "Every damn time," I muttered.

  I didn't feel like a miracle. I felt like I’d just woken up from a three-day bender with a hangover that spanned several centuries. I spotted a "Staff Exit" sign and headed for it. I pushed open the heavy steel door and stepped outside into the crisp, smoggy L.A. morning.

  After walking around for a hot minute, the "Luxe Inn," which was neither luxurious nor an inn, caught my attention. It was a two-story strip of doors facing a parking lot.

  I walked into the lobby. A ceiling fan wobbled overhead. Behind the bulletproof glass sat a kid staring at his phone with the vacant intensity of the truly bored.

  "Hey," I said.

  He shifted a toothpick. "Rooms are eighty. No refunds."

  "I don't want a room. I need to use your phone."

  He finally looked up. His eyes traveled from my face down to my outfit. "You okay, lady? You look like you just crawled out of a hole."

  "Something like that," I said, looking down at myself for the first time.

  I froze. My eyes narrowed.

  "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me."

  I was wearing a navy blue polyester pantsuit. It was boxy, stiff, and had shoulder pads that made me look like a linebacker for the 1984 Denver Broncos.

  "Kaya," I hissed. "I’m going to murder you. Like the fuck… he has to know this is a like, like a god damn hate crime.”

  I glanced over to the clerk, “He knows I have a silhouette. He knows I don't do 'sensible' navy."

  I caught my reflection in the grime-streaked mirror behind the desk. The suit was slightly too short in the ankles, and the button-down shirt underneath was a shade of "eggshell" that made my skin look like curdled milk.

  "I look like a PTA mom who finally snapped," I muttered.

  The kid behind the glass sighed and pushed a black corded phone through the slot in the window. "Whatever. Make it quick, but that outfit is trash though."

  I grabbed the receiver. I didn't have to think about the number. I dialed. Each beep felt like a nail in a coffin, like the one I’d just escaped.

  I leaned against the sticky counter, picking a stray thread off my unflattering lapel as the line began to ring.

  Ring.

  “Come ooon,” I sighed, all annoyed.

  Ring.

  "Pick up, you idiot," I whispered into the receiver.

  Ring.

  The dial tone hummed in my ear, steady and indifferent. On the fourth ring, the line clicked open. There was no "hello." Just the sound of heavy breathing and the distant thrum of music.

  I closed my eyes, a smirk finally tugging at the corner of my mouth.

  "I appreciate the bold suggestion that I should start tanning, but I’m gonna have to take a rain check on your offer. Do come get me before I actually bake myself to death over this suit."

  [DIAL TONE]