Her voice is smooth and bell-like. “You have countless human stories that discuss variations of heaven and hell. You are the ones who created the idea that not every human is entitled to an afterlife. You believe that good and evil should be separated. I am merely following the rules you’ve set.”

“They weren’t rules,” I argue. “Whatever we thought about death and the afterlife… They were just theories. Things we hoped would come true, or wanted to believe were real. Things that were supposed to help us live kinder lives.”

“But that is not how humans used their beliefs.” Ophelia brushes her robes back, pacing across the darkness. “You used it to persecute and to exterminate and to wage wars on people whose beliefs were different from your own. You used it to make others subservient and lesser. Where is the kindness in that?”

“Not everyone was like that, and neither were their beliefs. Some people were good.”

“Good by nature, or because they didn’t have the resources or the power to be otherwise?” Ophelia stills. “Humans are corruptible. They’re capable of great evil, and Infinity gave them no consequences. Instead, it allowed them to flourish. It rewarded them with an afterlife that no other species was offered. That is neither fair nor equal.”

“It isn’t your job to decide whether that’s right or wrong. And taking revenge on humans doesn’t make you any better than the ones you accuse of being monsters.”

“It’s not about revenge.”

I take in a sharp breath. “You want to give humans a death they can’t come back from. What else would you call that?”

Her black eyes flash. “A necessary step toward making Infinity the paradise it should’ve been from the beginning.”

We all knew the rumors about Death. But hearing them confirmed from her own lips makes my blood thin.

I’m glad she can’t see the way my entire body cowers. At least this way I can pretend there’s a sliver of bravery still inside me.

She hums. “You’re still searching for cracks. For a way to reverse what’s already started. But what you’re looking for doesn’t exist.”

“Infinity belonged to humans first,” I try, desperate for information. For proof. “Whatever you change, we must be able to change back. You can’t control a person’s consciousness forever.”

“You have no idea what I can do,” she says, stoic.

Her words wrap around me, threatening. But I push forward. I need information. I need to know I’m right about the girl in the palace—that I’m right to want to help her. “I know humans are waking up. And I know it means that one day we’ll be able to find a way to make it so that you can never take our consciousness again.”