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point of trying to save them. “I know.” This is something I understand, and it’s easy for me to picture Valac and his lover with the sick kid. “So when his son died, he was angry. At you.”
    Valac smiles, suddenly, like what I’ve said is hopelessly naïve. “I wish! I wish he had just taken his anger out on me. Hate me. Leave me. Beat the crap out of me. Something. ”
    “What did he do?” I can’t imagine it, losing a child. It’s wrong. The universe turned upside down. Children are supposed to grow up, outlive their parents, give them grandchildren. All the things my mother knew would never happen when she agreed to give me over to the Agency. All the things that died in her eyes when she signed that document. After that, I was a ghost to her. My body still existed, but that didn’t change anything. She knew it was only a matter of time.
    That’s why I left. How I found myself in an alley with a mob thug, the first time.
    I pull myself back out of that memory, realizing Valac has gone silent. He has a thousand mile stare, seeing something that’s not there. Something from the past.
    I want to tell him he doesn’t have to tell me. “Valac—” 
    “He killed himself.”
    The words stop in my throat.
    “I found him, lying in a pool of his own blood. Slit his wrists.” He laughs in a sad way that makes my chest tight, then waves his hand in the air. “He was always melodramatic that way.” There are strain lines around his eyes. “He was still alive when I got there. I tried to save him. Pumped life energy in him, but I couldn’t stop it. I called 911. I called my mentor. I think I threatened to kill Ophelia if she didn't get the hell over  now .” He gives that heart-breaking laugh again. “I was out of my mind. I gave him everything I had. Before anyone arrived, I had run out.” He locks eyes with me. “I gave it all.”
    My breath is trapped in my lungs. I force it out. “You paid out everything.”
    He nods.
    “You died.”
    Another nod.
    “What… what was it like?”         
    He gets that thousand mile stare again. “Cold. Dark. Empty. It tasted like… metal.” He closes his eyes, shakes it off, then opens them again. When he does, he looks straight at me. “There was no golden light, no heavenly chorus, no nothing, Lirium. It was just emptiness. I figured it out later. It’s because we have nothing left. All the life energy I gave away, everything I used to save him, it didn’t belong to me .” He stands close, the intensity locking me in. He gestures between our two bodies. “Our souls are long gone. Used up, torn away, destroyed by all the lives we’ve stolen. All the years we’ve taken. Everything we have inside us is borrowed from someone else. When it’s gone… there’s nothing left. Do you understand?”
    My mouth is dry. I try to swallow but my tongue is rough, desiccated by the ragged breaths I’m pulling into my lungs. “You’re sure?” I ask.
    He gives a short laugh. “Oh yes. Quite sure.”
    “Maybe there’s some way—”
    “You can earn it back?” He gives me a knowing look. He’s thought this through already. “Redeem yourself? Win back a soul so that when you die you’re not facing an empty void of nothingness?”
    “There has to be something we can do—”
    “ I gave my life for him. ” His face has gone intense again. “I worked for Madam A. I did everything a debt collector could possibly do. It was my calling . To right the fundamental wrong of being who we are.” He pauses. “But it was hopeless from the start. This is what I want you to understand, little bird. No matter how bad you think this is, working for Kolek, it is your only option. Your only true hope. We need to keep taking the years, the lives, so that we can continue to exist. There is no other option.”
    I don’t say anything. I don’t want to believe him, but it’s hard not to. I search for something, anything, some reason… “Wait. You said Ophelia