The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 77: Farewell

Forty-nine days later, I woke in pitch blackness. There was nothing around me. No glow from the color of my soul illuminating walls and corners, no walls or corners or outlines of any sort to suggest the inside of an archival box, in fact.

No! Was this Aurelia's punishment? Or Cassius'? Removing me from the cycle of reincarnation entirely? Imprisoning me in nothingness for the rest of time?

Flicker! Flicker! Where are you? Heeeelp!

Panicking, I shot forward – or where "forward" might have been if direction had meaning in the void – and struck a plane so hard that I bounced off, flew backwards, hit another plane, and bounced off that too.

Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow!

It took a while to stop ricocheting, but eventually, I came to a stop and huddled in on myself, panting.

Logic returned. As defined by the planes, the size and shape of this void were exactly what I remembered from previous deaths. I was in an archival box. I just wasn't glowing white or green this time. Did that mean – ? Was I – ? Had I – ? Dared I hope?!

The lid slid back, blinding me. I'd never been so happy to be blinded in my life. Lives. Whatever.

"You're awake?" asked a star sprite clerk. A hint of surprise broke through her weariness. "You're – " she consulted a scroll – "three hours ahead of schedule. Please wait here." She started to close the box.

Wait! Wait! Don't go yet! What happened? After I died, I mean?

In a dull tone, she recited, "I am not authorized to discuss the details of your past life. You will have to wait to speak with your assigned reincarnator."

The lid started to slide shut again. I bunched up and sprang out.

Then I shall wait in his waiting room. It will be no trouble at all, I informed her, channeling all the authoritativeness of the "Emissary from Heaven."

The clerk was unimpressed. "I am afraid that violates the regulations of this bureau," she droned. "Now please return to your box, soul."

I didn't budge. It's only another few hours. Surely it makes no difference where I wait. I'm already awake and out of my box. I know you have a lot of other souls to guide to their reincarnators – ("reincarnator" – was that Flicker's official title?) – so I wouldn't want to waste any more of your valuable time. I know the way to the waiting room. I would be happy to go there myself.

The clerk stared at me with dead eyes, concluded that, indeed, following the bureau's regulations to the character wasn't as important as getting back to her work so she could leave the office at a reasonable hour. She shoved my empty box back onto the shelf.

"This way."

And she led me out of the archives, down the familiar hallway, and into Flicker's waiting room. Another black soul was there already, hovering in the far corner. Black Tier souls reincarnated as birds and mammals: Flicker had said that, after my execution all those lives ago, when he explained the tier system to me.

As a whistling duck, Stripey would have been Black Tier.

Might still be Black Tier, after that infusion of positive karma from helping the Jeks and contributing to Lord Silurus' death.

Dared I hope it was he? If souls recoalesced at a similar rate, then he would have woken before I did. But there were so many clerks, and so many souls. What were the odds that he was also assigned to Flicker?