“Are you seriously saying a reaper would take an innocent life in exchange for a soul he shouldn’t have claimed in the first place?” Indignation burned hot in my veins. If any process in the world was free from corruption, it should have been death. After all, wasn’t death the great equalizer?

Or was that taxes?

“No, you’re right.” Tod gave me a halfhearted nod. “In theory, the penalty shouldn’t apply in a case like that. But theory and reality don’t always coexist where death is concerned. So even if you could get your hands on the right list, and even if you were right about the reaper’s…mistake, chances are that an innocent soul would already have been taken. Or one of your own.”

I couldn’t help noticing he didn’t put us in the “innocent” category.

“So we’re screwed either way.” Exasperated, I tossed my hands into the air and leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes.

“What’s this about, anyway?” Tod asked, and I opened my eyes to find him watching me in…was that interest? “Who are you trying to save?”

“We don’t know. Probably no one.” Nash poked at the last bite of cake with his fork, smearing chocolate frosting across the paper plate. “Several girls have died in our area recently, and Ka—” He stopped, omitting my name from the sentence at the last second. “She—” he nodded in my direction “—thinks their deaths are suspicious.”

“‘She’ does, huh?” A grin tugged at the corner of the young reaper’s mouth, and I could practically hear the gears turning in his head. “What’s suspicious about them?”

“They were all teenagers. They were all very pretty. They all died the same way. They were all in good health. They each died a day apart.” I ticked the facts off on my fingers as I spoke, and when I’d used up one hand, I showed it to him. “Take your pick. But either way, that’s too many coincidences. There’s no way all three of them were supposed to die, and I don’t care whose list they were on.”

The gleam of interest in Tod’s eyes told me I’d recaptured his attention. “You think they were killed?”

I tapped one foot on the sticky floor, trying to sort out my thoughts. “I don’t know. Maybe, but if so, I have no idea how. All but the first one died in front of witnesses, who saw nothing suspicious. Other than a beautiful girl keeling over with no warning.”

“There are ways to make that happen, of course.” Tod half stood and walked his chair closer to the table, then sank back into it. “But even if they were killed, that doesn’t change anything. Murder victims are on the master list every day. I’ve only had one in two years, but the senior reapers get them on a weekly basis.”

I felt my eyes go wide, and a heavy, tight feeling gripped my chest. “You mean people are supposed to be killed?” For a moment, true horror eclipsed the determination and fear already warring inside me. How could murder be a part of the natural order?

Tod shook his head. “People are supposed to die, and the specifics vary widely. Including murder.”

I turned on Nash, blinking back the angry tears burning my eyes. “So what’s the point of all this? If I can’t change it, why do I have to know about it?”

Nash took my hand. “She’s having trouble letting them go,” he said, and Tod nodded as if he understood.

“What do you know about it?” I snapped, beyond caring that none of this was the reaper’s fault. Or that I probably should have been scared of him. “You take lives for a living.” As ironic as that sounded…“Death is an everyday occurrence for you.”

Nash huffed, and a satisfied look hovered on the edge of his expression. “Yeah, and you’d never know from listening to him now that he had so much trouble with it at first.”

“Watch it, Hudson,” Tod growled, bright blue eyes going icy.

A new look flitted across Nash’s features—some combination of amusement and mischief. “Tell her about the little girl.”

“Do you have some kind of disorder? Some synapse misfiring up there—” he gestured vaguely toward Nash’s head “—that makes you incapable of keeping your mouth shut? Or are you just a garden-variety fool?”

“What girl?” I ignored both the reaper’s outburst and the bean sidhe’ s satisfied half smile.

“It’ll help her understand,” Nash said when it became clear that Tod wasn’t going to respond.

“Understand what?” I demanded, glancing from one to the other. And finally Tod sighed, still glaring at Nash.

“He’s just trying to make me look like an idiot,” the reaper snapped. “But I have stories that make him look even worse, so keep that in mind, soul snatcher, next time you go shooting off your mouth.”

Nash shrugged, obviously unbothered by the threat, and Tod twisted in his chair to face me fully. “At first, I wasn’t too fond of my job. The whole thing seemed pointless and sad, and just plain wrong at times. Once I actually refused an assignment and nearly got myself terminated. I’m guessing that’s what he wants you to hear.”

Nash nodded on the edge of my vision, but I kept my focus on the reaper. “Why would you refuse an assignment?”

Tod exhaled in frustration. Or maybe embarrassment. “I was working at the nursing home, and this little girl came with her parents to visit her grandmother. She choked on a peppermint her grandma’s roommate gave her, and she was supposed to die. She was on the list—all official. But when the time came, I couldn’t do it. She was only three. So when a nurse showed up and gave her the Heimlich, I let her live.”

“What happened?” My heart ached for the little girl, and for Tod, whose job conflicted with every ounce of compassion in my body. And in his, evidently.

“My boss got pissed when I came back without her soul. He took her grandmother’s instead, and when a shift opened up at the hospital, he passed me over and gave it to someone else.” Anger darkened his eyes. “I was stuck at the nursing home for nearly three more years before he finally moved me over here. And there’s no telling how long it’ll be before I move up again.”

“But don’t you think it was worth it?” I couldn’t help asking. “The grandmother had already lived her life, but the little girl was just starting. You saved her life!”

The reaper shook his head slowly, blond curls glimmering in the light overhead. “It wasn’t an even exchange. From the moment she was supposed to die, that little girl was living on borrowed time. Her grandmother’s time. When you make an exchange, what you’re really doing is trading one person’s death date for another’s. That little girl died six months later, on the day her grandmother was originally scheduled to go.”

That time I couldn’t stop the tears. “How can you stand it?” I wiped at my eyes angrily with the napkin Nash handed me, glad I wasn’t wearing much mascara.

Tod glanced at Nash, then his expression softened when he turned back to me. “It’s easier now that I’m used to it. But at the time, I had to learn to trust the list. The master list is like the script from a play—it shows every word spoken by every actor, and the show keeps going so long as no one deviates from it.”

“But that does happen, right?” I wadded the napkin into a tight ball. “Even if the list is infallible, the people aren’t. A reaper could deviate from the list, like you did with the little girl, right?”

Nash shifted in his seat, drawing our attention before Tod could answer. “You think those girls died in place of people who were actually on the list? That they were exchanges?”

I shook my head. “Three in three days? It’s still too much of a coincidence. But if Tod can deviate by not taking a soul, couldn’t another reaper deviate by taking an extra one? Or three?”

“No.” Tod shook his head firmly. “No way. The boss would notice if someone turned in three extra souls.”

I arched one brow at him. “What makes you think he turned them in?”

The reaper’s scowl deepened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s impossible.”