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first.”
    “Xia…”
    “Don’t you think they’re going to want to know if there are others like Shilah? What if he got it from his family? I need to know if they can see me too.”
    Jayza rolled her eyes. “ Fine . I’ll give you three more days, and then I’m telling them myself if you don’t. No more stalling. This is too important to keep a secret.”
    “Okay, whatever. Bye.” I headed back to Shilah, while Jayza walked away.
    “Your friend is nice,” Shilah told me when I reached him.
    “But she’s a little weird too, isn’t she?” I said, gazing after my reaper sister.
    Shilah shrugged. “A little. She probably gets her weirdness from you.”
    I shoved Shilah in his chest as he chuckled. When my hands touched the red cloth of his shirt, I felt the warmth of his body through it. And suddenly, I had a strong urge to feel his skin with my fingertips. I clasped my hands behind my back to keep them under control.
    Shilah and I sat and had our first long conversation without interruption that evening. He talked mostly about his family, and I used my knowledge of current human trends to keep the conversation away from being about me.
    However, at one point, he said, “I think I have a way to prove if you’re really from Italy.”
    “How?” I asked, frowning.
    He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    He unfolded the paper. “I’m going to see if you really know how to speak Italian.”
    My eyebrows shot up in amusement. “You’re actually going to quiz me?”
    “Yes. Nervous?” He flashed me a taunting smirk.
    I laughed. “No way. Bring it on.” I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when I spoke perfect Italian. Heck, he could quiz me on Chinese and Arabic while he was at it. I’d learned over a hundred languages before I became a reaper, for when I had to do reaps around the world.
    Shilah didn’t look so sure now since I had so much confidence. “Okay…how do you say ‘bird’ in Italian?”
    “ Uccello .”
    “That was an easy one. How about ‘pencil’?”
    “ Matita .”
    “Shirt?”
    “ Camicia . And a blouse is camicetta .” Now it was my turn to smirk.
    “How do you say ‘what are you watching’?”
    “ Cosa stai guardando ?”
    “This is a hard one. Newspaper.”
    “ Giornale .” I sighed.  “Are you done? Or, to put it in Italian, Ha finito ?”
    “ No .” He frowned at the paper, then stared up at the sky. “How do you say…stratosphere?”
    I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not on the paper.”
    He smiled. “But I bet you can’t say it.”
    I didn’t even know what a stratosphere was, but I wouldn’t let him know that. I gave him a smug look. “You’re just mad because I proved you wrong.”
    His face scrunched up. “This still doesn’t mean you’re Italian. You could’ve just learned the language.”
    “True. But what do you think I am, then?”
    Shilah shrugged. “I have no idea. You’re just so…mysterious.”
    “Maybe I want to keep it that way.” I didn’t want to talk about me anymore. “So, what do you like to do for fun?”
    That question distracted him. We chatted till the sun was going down, coloring the sky orange and purple. I felt comfortable talking to Shilah by now, and the sunset view from Chad’s Cliff was so beautiful and perfect that I never wanted to leave. But death didn’t take a break for long in my area, and soon I had to respond to someone’s drowning.
    Before I left, Shilah gave me something I’d never experienced before. A hug. At first it startled me, but then I slowly wrapped my arms around him too. His warmth seeped into my entire body this time, and it felt so soothing that I held him tight for several seconds.
    “Um…Xia? I thought you had to go,” Shilah said when I didn’t let go.
    “I do,” I murmured against his chest. I listened to his heartbeat as it thrummed in my ear. It was one of the sweetest sounds I’d ever