"No one's taking it from you. You don't have to eat so fast," I mention when she digs into her plate the moment the waiter places it on the table.

"Have to," she says, her mouth full, her eyes moving suspiciously from one corner of the restaurant to the other. "Have to finish this before my brother comes."

"Oh," I murmur. It's on the tip of my tongue to ask her about her conflict with her brother, but I don't want to distract her from the subject at hand.

"Back to those spirits," she continues. "When the soul exits the body, most are confused and easily malleable. It's very easy for the messenger to get them to follow him into P'asala. But there are a few more... strong-willed spirits whose emotions are so powerful at the time of death that they refuse to leave this plane of existence under any circumstance."

"Can't the messenger force them?"

"Nope." She pops the P just as she bites down on a crunchy piece of bacon. "They're neutral, remember? Their job is simply to lead the souls to P'asala. They can't otherwise intervene. They wouldn't want to either. Messengers have no feelings. They are like your machines—entities that fulfill a role."

My mouth opens in awe. That's fascinating—and so, so smart. If the messengers have no feelings, they cannot be swayed. I nod to myself, intrigued by the world Thea's describing. But there's something that doesn't quite make sense.

"So those souls are simply left to their devices?"

"Of course not. There's a special team in charge of collecting rogue souls—the Collectors. But it's not the most desirable job, so there are usually a lot of vacancies. My guess is that they decided on this trial because they wanted others to do the job for them."

I blink, slowly digesting all the new information. Not only are there ghosts and deities and other creatures, but also different types of grim reapers—who seem to be oddly unionized. Growing up, my experiences with the supernatural had been solely through the prism of El Señor. It had been chaotic, illogical, and at times inane. Although I had been forced to believe without questioning, it had been questionable even to my young, untutored mind.

Back then, even with all that alleged proof, I could see the man behind the godly mask, and I knew it to be a farce. Now, though... I'm the living proof of this truth.

Some people pretend to be gods. Others...are gods.

The world is suddenly a lot more complex and complicated than I ever realized—or gave it credit for.

"Being a collector is a job?"