"Leon will take you to get ready, then you can begin your training." Death waved his hand and Leon dropped to the floor like a rock. The carpet might have cushioned his fall, but it didn't stop him from groaning in pain. Death paid him no attention. "I'll alert the other Reapers to your arrival. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear that we've filled the vacancy."

"How many others are there, exactly?" I asked.

"Oh, far more than I have time to sit and count. This is just the branch of the United Kingdom. However, I travel between the offices frequently for managerial purposes. We split the teams for each country into groups of six. Leon is the head of your team."

Of course, he was.

"If I do this... Like, if I work for you, can I get into Heaven?" I asked.

"If that's where you want to go, of course. Naturally, it's going to take some time. I'm sure you understand that your case is peculiar."

"I'm getting that, yeah."

The whole thing felt peculiar to me, but I'd never been dead before. For all I knew, most of what was going on was perfectly normal. It's possible that everyone had to interview for a job when they died. Maybe they all got case workers. Maybe Leon was a miserable bastard on every collection and that was exactly what was meant to happen. If Jane, Clark, and Death hadn't kept telling me that this was all super weird, then I wouldn't have had any idea.

"Well, I daresay we will resolve things before you know it. Now, I'll leave you to Leon. I'm sure he'll know exactly what to do with you."

Leon glared at me. Yes, I was sure he knew what to do with me. I was also sure it involved some sort of medieval torture technique and a shallow grave. I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. If I'd known that we were going to be stuck together even longer, I might have been nicer to him when we first met. I had an awful feeling he was going to be unnecessarily hard on me, thanks to my attitude. Not that it was unwarranted. He clearly wasn't an easy person to get along with.

Suspecting, perhaps, that I was concerned about Leon's potential behaviour, Death pointed to the man and warned, "If I hear of her suffering at all because of you, or if any harm should come to this girl, I will hold you fully accountable."

"Sir!" Leon protested. "I can't be held responsible for–"

"This interview is over," Death decided. "Mackenzie, I'm delighted to have you on board. Best of luck. If anything should happen with Leon, don't hesitate to report it to me immediately."

I jumped to my feet. "Oh! Uh, thank you?"

He waved a hand dismissively. I took it as a sign that I ought to leave. I scurried from the room as quickly as I could without appearing rude, resolutely ignoring Leon's gaze in the hope he might forget just how angry he was with me once we were out in the hall.

He didn't.

The door closed gently behind us. The silence was unbearable. Although I knew it would piss him off, I couldn't stop myself from saying in a cheerful tone, "Hi, partner."

"This is not happening," he groaned.

"Oh, but it is. You're stuck with me."

"Satan, kill me now," he muttered.

"Where are all the other Reapers?" I ignored his despair. "Lunch break?"

"We don't eat. No lunch breaks."

"You don't eat anything?"

"No."

"No food at all?"

"I said–"

"Not even bacon?" I pressed, feeling the need to be as annoying as possible.

"Bacon is food." Leon let out an exasperated noise. "There's got to be some way to get out of this."

"Hey, if you want me to go back in there and tell Death that you're being a pain in the—"

"No, I don't want you to do that," he snarled.

Leon let out a long breath and closed his eyes. I could see him counting to ten. His lips formed each number as they passed in a whisper. Once he'd regained some sense of calm, he opened his eyes, wrapped his fingers back around my wrist, and led me out of the main corridor. I hastened my steps to keep up and followed him through the winding hallways to one of the many wooden doors.

Had Leon not just said that Reapers didn't have lunch breaks, I'd have assumed the room we'd entered was a staff room. There were no vending machines or televisions to be found. Rather, it was as if we'd entered a small library. The chunky wooden bookshelves stood against the walls, every towering shelf crammed with scrolls, fat wads of string-bound paper, leather tomes, and paperbacks. A dusty, square rosewood table stood central and simple, stocky chairs surrounded it. The only comfortable seat in the place was a leather sofa, battered with years of use and squashed slightly out of shape. I couldn't see a single window in the room. Oddly, I didn't mind it so much. If they'd just show darkness like the ones in the hallways, it wasn't like they had much of a view to offer.

Table lamps illuminated the room without wires, plugs, or sockets. They shone with a soft orange glow barely strong enough to reach every shadowy corner, leaving black patches of gloom around the floor and ceiling. It didn't appear their decorator had cared all that much about ensuring the décor matched. The lighting fixtures ranged from antique to modern, and the few paintings affixed to the walls varied in style and tone.

I stepped apprehensively forward and brushed my fingers through the thin layer of dust before flicking the particles off them. "Is there like–I don't know–a dorm or something?"

"No."

"Where do you sleep?"

"We don't," he said flatly.

"Ever?"

"Ever."

"That's so weird. Where do you put your stuff?"

"What stuff?" he asked. "We're dead. What could we possibly need?"

"I don't know... Hang your scythes, maybe? Your clothes?"

"Look, I understand this is a lot to get through your head, especially for you—"

"Hey!"

"– but try to understand that you're dead."

"I get that," I said.

"Which means..." Leon placed his hands on my shoulders and looked me dead in the eyes to express the importance of his words. "We don't sleep. We don't eat. We don't age. We don't need to go to the bathroom."

"Ew."

"And we aren't sentimental enough about our lives to keep anything from those days. Understand?"

"No."

"Tough."

I understood. Sort of. I understood that there were aspects of life which weren't required after a death. The things that kept one's body functioning, such as food and sleep, weren't necessary once a physical form had expired. That was simple enough to grasp in theory. Difficult to process, but I could work my way through it. No, what I didn't understand was the lack of sentimentality for past life. It wasn't as if you cut the cord on your past when you moved on to the next stage of your existence. Memories were the one part of my humanity that I refused to let go of. They were what made me who I was.

That said, I could see why Leon would want to let his life go when it had made him into such a miserable douche.

Also, I understood we didn't need to sleep or eat or whatever. I had to wonder if we needed to shower, though. I mean, I didn't see a bathroom anywhere, but we probably got dirty. I knew my feet felt gross after I'd walked around barefoot for hours. I made a mental note to ask about that when Leon was in a better mood.

The silence in the room was absolute. Unnervingly so. Once the conversation lulled enough that Leon left me to fetch one of the many books, I realised the absence of ticking clocks, whispers of the wind, or even the scurry of mice. I'd only been dead a matter of hours, but with no means of tracking the time, I didn't know how long I'd been in the afterlife. I didn't even know if time passed in the same way here as it did on Earth. What might have been a day for me could have been weeks for my family. They might even have had my funeral already.

The ladder Leon climbed creaked so loudly it made my teeth itch. To escape it, I moved away to read the spines on the nearest shelf. Not all of them were in English. In fact, not all were written in languages still spoken in the modern world. I reached out to touch one, resting my fingers against the embossed golden letters which had faded with time. I felt the leather ripple beneath my fingertips, and the shape of the title changed with my touch.

I pulled my hand away and stared in awe at the new English letters. "What was that?"

Leon turned to look at my surprised expression. He chuckled softly to himself. "There wouldn't be much point keeping books here that no one can read."

"So, it's like magic?"

"If that'll make it easier for your simple brain to understand, yes, it's like magic."

"You know, just because you're dead, it doesn't mean I won't slap you. I know you'll still feel it."

"I can't help it if your education in the afterlife is lacking. Anyway, come over here. You need to sign the registry."

The book he placed on the table reminded me of the enormous spell books one often saw in movies. The leather cover was scuffed and scratched, the pages yellowed and curled at the edges from years of being turned. They rose when free of the confines of the cover, almost swelling with the information they contained. Leon swept a hand above them and they turned rapidly to the most recent page, an almost endless list of names, dates, and causes of death. On the list was a name I thought I might know:

Leon Henderson, 1612

Suicide by sword.

"Sixteen-twelve?" I resisted the temptation to ask how it was a man killed himself on his own sword. I mean, arm length versus blade length would make it a tough way to go out. "So you're – what?"

"Twenty-six years alive, four-hundred-four dead."

With nothing else I could say upon hearing such an age, I commented, "You don't look bad, considering."

"I moisturise."

"Was that a joke?"

"Surprising though it may be, I have a sense of humour." The hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth once again.

A female voice from the door declared, "And that's probably the last you'll see of it."