The familiar hooded figure of the Reapers bowed at my approach, a stilted mocking thing.

"Hail the dead," he said.

Flames that had no place being there flicker in his black bottomless eyes, and I felt myself shiver in spite of myself.

"How may I serve you?" he asked at my steady approach.

I could feel my frustration bubbling up at his coy greeting, not at all different from any of my other deaths.

"I take it you can't return me to where I last died?" I said through pursed my lips.

As I waited for his response, I had to consciously still the tapping of my foot on the floor, jittery energy taking ahold.

Don't get your hopes up…

The Reaper sighed heavily. "You have guessed correctly. As always; you're barred from your land. That now extends to the land of Toril, at the command of Mephistopheles. I cannot comply."

"You always do what he tells you?" I pressed him, already knowing the answer and wishing more than anything to skip ahead to the next bit.

"The archdevil uses me as he uses all things. Such is his nature." He sighed. "I was not always his subject." His voice began to almost take on an irritated tone at the next bit. "But once he learned of my True Name, I was his forever."

Capital T, capital N.

"Your True Name?" I pressed quickly.

I straightened, narrowing my eyes at him and waiting to hear this next bit straight from the horse's mouth. I'd always felt like there had never been enough of an explanation around the power of True Names, which had served as the game's Deus Ex Machina.

"All beings have a True Name. It is the definition of their personal essence," the Reaper explained. "Should another learn of your Name and speak it to you, then they will rule all that you are." He sounded tired. "Mephistopheles discovered my Name long ago, though I know not how. Only he knows it, so he alone commands me."

I spun the ring on my finger as I contemplated his words, mulling over the only True Name I knew off by heart.

You just had to remember Valen's True Name, didn't you? You couldn't recall the Reaper's — or Mephistopheles! — and saved yourself all this trouble?

"Mephistopheles used you as well, creating a Devil's deal that you were unaware of." He explained. "A bond was formed with him the moment you discovered the Relic. And upon killing the one who held him captive, you took his place and he took yours. You are now bound to Cania, as he once was by Asmodeus. "

He gestured to the mist shrouded door at the end of the dark hall, the one which had grabbed my attention earlier. "That path leads to Cania, as it always has, as it has been a part of you since the bond was created." He nodded his head. "It is no longer barred to your passing." His voice suddenly dropped, a sly edge creeping in. "If you were to learn my True Name out there, you could command me to break your bond."

I had been nodding along with his words, but was stilled at his expectant gaze.

"Was there anything else?" He pressed.

I took a deep breath.

"Can you tell me what happened to my companions?"

The Reaper paused for a moment, gazing out into the distance as if searching. A few moments passed, my breath catching in my throat and my heart barely daring the beat.

"The one you call Valen is dead, sojourner."

I released a strangled gasp, covering my unbidden smile with a shaking hand at the news. He'd come for me…

If the Reaper was surprised by my reaction, he didn't show it. I took a moment to let the words settle between us — Valen is dead, Valen is dead ringing through my head — before pressing for more.

"And Nathyrra?" I asked.

"Alive," he gave a nod, as if listening to some silent conversation. "Retreating with the Seer and her rebels."

I let my hand drop slowly from my mouth, the smile falling as I nodded in understanding. I tried not to feel disappointed, but the fact that she had left me still stung.

"As you are well aware," he started, with the hint of a sly smile in his tone. "Death is only a transitory state. This realm touches all places."

I perked up at the wording; the Reaper confirming a long-rooted suspicion of my own. An inkling that had caused me to turn towards Waterdeep all those months ago, instead of searching for a portal home.

"But your companion will agree to come, or not — according to their own desires. I cannot compel him to come here. Not in the same way I have you," he warned me, voice flat and brooking no argument.

And then, those fateful words.

"Who shall I summon?" he asked.

I took another steadying breath, clenching my fists and scrunching my eyes tight.

'Valen," I said. "Valen Shadowbreath."

Nothing changed amid the shadows of the Reaper's hood; his hands were still and his face remained blank. But the air in the room shifted and stirred, blowing warm against my chilled face.

On the breeze was a feeling; of pain and shame, stifled anger and fear. But stronger still, beneath it all, was hope, and something so very tentative and small that it slipped through my fingers when I tried to focus on it.

And then, between one terse moment and the next, Valen was there.

He was there; as healthy and whole as he'd been the last time I had seen him. The unfiltered smile he'd worn before I'd been teleported away was gone; his eyes narrowed in suspicion as he considered the Reaper, tail flicking irritably behind him.

"Valen," I didn't know I'd breathed his name until he turned to me, head snapping sharply at my voice.

He turned, eyes widening, before relaxing into a genuine smile, all gentle eyes and slumped shoulders. He didn't say anything, eyes roaming across every inch of me, before attempting a single step forward.

I felt my shoulders slump in kind, releasing a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding as I drank in the sight of him.

At the same time I took a step forward to close the distance between us — and immediately thought better of it and retreated — I saw him lift a hand towards me. He paused, eyes searching my own silently, mouth open to say something, before letting it drop between us.

I wrapped the arm that had itched to reach for him — to assure myself that he was real, he was here — across my stomach. I smiled tentatively at his feet, before daring another glance at his clear blue eyes.

It was so good to see him.

Courage failing me, I didn't tell him just how good it was.

Instead his eyes swung from the Reaper to me once more, gaze turning from pure relief to clouded disbelief. "I was… dead?"

I nodded, unable to speak and his eyes widened in understanding.

"Mephistopheles!" He hissed in sudden understanding. He searched my face once more. "He… he killed you. I was…" he shook away the memory. "He killed me." He managed a shaky breath, pulling back his broad shoulders before stating what I already knew with a clear voice; "He's free."

I drew an unsteady breath, floored by the genuine concern in his tone as guilt ate away at me that I had asked him to come here. "Yes."

And then I told him all that had happened with the Valsharess, I told him about the relic and my link to it, and I outlined our new quest for the Reaper's True Name.

I finished by telling him the name of the wasteland that awaited us.

Cania.

The word hung between us.

He listened silently, hiding his feelings well, but I knew to look. I saw the tightening of his eyes, the stutter between one breath and the next, and the rueful curving of his lips as he considered all it would mean to be a demon in hell.

I pushed aside the guilt, turning once more to the Reaper. He considered us silently.

I'd called Valen to hell knowingly. A place that — if it didn't kill him — would undo years of betterment, of pushing the demon down and controlling the side of himself that he so hated. I couldn't do anything about it, as much as it made my stomach clench and my heart stutter.

But maybe, maybe I could do something good…

Maybe this was the reason I was here.

"Can you bring back another?" I asked the Reaper quietly, so very afraid to put these next thoughts to voice.

I'd dreamt of the possibility, but I hadn't let myself fully believe. To truly entertain that it could be a reality.

I couldn't yet.

He tilted his hood and waited. "Who shall I summon?"

"Can you…" I took a steadying breath, eyes firmly on the Reaper's bottomless gaze.

I could feel Valen leaning in, waiting.

I closed my eyes. "My husband." I sighed. "Bring me back my husband."

And then all my hopes and fears where out there for the world to see.

Again, I felt the whisper of a breeze as it stirred against my cheek, and I leant into the balmy breeze with a sigh.

Hope was a funny thing.

It wasn't an emotion, but a promise that you made to yourself. Diving all in and saying 'yes, this will happen' because it can't not.

Hope had kept me going the past year, through Undermountain and towards Waterdeep. After, it had pushed me ever closer towards my inevitable death; this death. Without the promise of a smile around the corner, light at the end of the tunnel — love — I would have given up a thousand times over.

The gentle breeze shifted my hair, the smell of freshly mown grass bringing tears to my eyes.

The hope swelled into such longing that I thought I would explode with it.

I gasped out a sob, and suddenly — finally — I felt whole.

I felt his love envelop me, the warmth of love that I'd feared I'd forgotten — that I would never again find — chasing away my fears, my guilt. It was all worth it for this.

The warmth felt like family, it felt like home.

And it was fading.

My eyes snapped open.

The feeling was fading; the chill of the room creeping in. I tried to grab onto it, but it was everywhere and nowhere and I couldn't stop it.

Between one blissful moment and one of the worst of my life, the loving warmth was chased away by a final wave of beaming pride, tinged with sadness and bittersweet acceptance. It seemed to carry to me on the wind like a whisper.

I love you, it said. I'm sorry, was what it sounded like.

And I knew. I knew.

He wasn't coming.

I felt suddenly like I was drowning and there was no hope of being saved.

He needed to come back! This needed to all to mean something.

My mind rebelled against the fruitlessness of it all.

Was it too much to ask that I have this one thing?

I clenched my eyes tighter still when the memory of his smile was chased away by one of his face; slack with the sickness that had stolen him from me.

The blackness of my memories started spreading through my mind, clouding my thoughts and taking me back to places that I'd never wanted to revisit.

I pressed my palms to my ears, trying the block out the shuddered breaths that had been his last. Trying harder again to block out the thoughts that had swirled through my head, wishing both that the moment had never come and that it would just hurry up and be over.

The wall I'd build against the pain and loss was gone. All that time carefully building it up — playing fun music too loud, hiding behind jokes with friends and family, overworking myself at the office, fighting for survival here, and always always being exhausted the moment I dropped into my lonely bed — it all came crashing down.

The voice — my innervoice — which told me he was dead and gone and never coming back, it grew louder and louder and louder again.

And then, when all hope was lost — over the memory of ragged gasps that had never been far from my mind, forcing me to always shy from any thoughts of him and me and us, causing me to run from any hope of healing — I heard a voice calling out to me.

It wasn't the name he said that brought me to the surface, but the voice that said it. It was like a small flicker of light in the darkness of my past, and slowly it guided me back to reality.

I distantly felt Valen take my hand in his much larger one, pulling me into the warm embrace of his arms with gentle care.

The ragged gasping died down and I realised suddenly that it had not been my memory, buy my own broken sobs.

Valen held me, fighting the distant memory as I rested my head against his chest; my anchor.

I cried as if my brain was being shredded from the inside, as pain flowed from every pore.

The tears I hadn't let myself cry since he'd died burst forth from me like water from a dam, spilling down my face, my nose. I felt the muscles of my chin tremble as I tried to compose myself with each erratic shuddering breath.

Valen's hand remained around my hand, the other on my back; his warmth enveloping me and his chin resting on my head as I cried until the thought of crying any longer just made me feel exhausted. I stayed in that safe place long past the moment the tears stopped, eyes shut against the world as I built up the courage to go on.

We didn't speak once the tears stilled and my breathing evened out.

We didn't need to.

I let my hand linger in his for a moment longer than necessary, squeezing it as I pulled away from him, unable to meet his gaze, even now — especially now.

I pulled my chin high, eyes dry and stinging, and head thumping. I ran the back of my arm across the snot and tears on my face with sharp angry jerks, narrowing my eyes and daring the Reaper to comment on it.

Shoulders back, I held the Reaper's unwavering gaze, sniffling and splotchy as I was.

He tilted his hooded head at my sudden change.

"Who would you summon, sojourner?" He asked me knowingly.

I took a deep breath, hand on my satchel, pressed against where I knew the unfinished book waited.

With a final shuddering breath, and a throat raw with pain, I said; "Bring me Deekin Scalesinger."

NOTEBOOK EXTRACT

The following page is written in in Jane's messy handwriting, it's more erratic and larger than usual. The page sits between a page outlining the discovery of the Relic of the Reaper, and an unfinished map of the Frostback Mountains.

It's the following line, written again and again and again.

Til death do us part.