He was the only one remaining, I couldn’t find anyone else. Yet, according to the clue, there should be four individuals: a small one, and then three regular-sized ones. This guy looked pretty regular to me, so I was sure I needed to collect his soul as well. I didn’t want to waste time getting the job done, because it’s not a good thing too make people suffer too long. However, once I collected his soul, he would start forgetting and his memories would become unreliable. I needed to ask my question first.

“What did you see?”

“You were standing next to the car... and I saw their souls rise from their bodies... and they disappeared. I thought I was going to make it.”

He spoke with difficulty, but his mind was still clear. Someone had been here before I arrived and that person had collected the soul of the other two victims. I already had my little idea of who that person could be.

That said, as urgent as it was to find the missing souls, it would have to wait until I was done with the protocol for this guy. “Is there anything you want to say?”

He coughed quite a bit and started getting agitated. The victims who panicked were the worst. “I don’t know what happened! I was driving safely. I was going to see my… my girlfriend.”

People have no trouble figuring out their priorities when they stand so close to death. The guy paused. He had just a few seconds left to make up for the rest of his life. “I want to say… I’m sorry I won’t get to… I won’t be there when…”

“Take your time.”

The sound of an ambulance got nearer and nearer. It would make my job harder if I had to follow him to the hospital, but I couldn’t rush him while he was saying his last wish. Maybe he could just hurry up a bit, though.

“Where’s Pearl?” he asked suddenly.

“Pearl?”

I got up to examine my surroundings once more. Something moved by the car. The doors hung open loosely and a small, white dog emerged from the back seat. Despite its limp, it did its best to run toward its owner.

“Will you tell her?” the driver said. “That I love her?”

“I… yes. Of course.”

The tiny dog licked the man’s face.

“Are you Pearl?” I thought out loud. Pearl, the small one. It was pointless to bring it up in the clue, I didn’t collect the souls of animals anyway.

I sighed. Everything started piling up all of a sudden.

I showed up to the Moonstone Palace right after dropping my last soul in the Capital of Shadows. A servant tried to slow me down long enough so that she could announce my presence to the Snow Raven. In such a situation, I deemed there was no time for civilities. While the servant was too polite to tell me off, I wasn’t too polite to barge in the Snow Raven’s office without asking anyone’s permission.

The stained-glass window behind the huge desk cast puddles of coloured light on the Snow Raven and Castor. The latter made sure to let me know I intruded. “Soul Collector, was there no servant to greet you at the door?”

To be fair, there was never any sarcasm in Castor’s words. He genuinely worried that the procedure hadn’t been followed properly. He was the kind of guy to organize his sock drawer in alphabetical order of colour.

Stepping into the Snow Raven’s office always quieted down the turmoil of the outside world. The atmosphere subdued the harsh lights, softened the angles. I suspected she sprayed something in the air to drug her guests.

“There’s been an incident,” I announced.

“An incident?”

Castor assumed his position at the right of the desk, like a statue moving back to its socle. The Snow Raven sat back in her armchair and her attention shifted entirely on me. It intimidated me so much, I almost forgot the reason I had come here. “Yes, I was at the scene of a car crash and two of the three souls I needed to collect were missing.”

She steepled her fingers pensively. I bet an executive headache would flare up a bit later, although she showed no signs of it. “Do you have an idea of what happened?”

“The third victim said that he saw me collect the other two souls earlier. However, I swear I’ve only been there once.”

“You were in your funeral form at that point?”

“Yes.”

“Therefore, he wouldn’t have confused you with another human, right? Castor, can you look through the history of souls that arrived today and see whether two of them might correspond to the missing ones?”

It was possible they’d found their way to the Underworld on their own. In that case, the Ferryman would have recorded their arrival. Castor immediately went to work on his tablet while the Snow Raven and I kept sifting through the issue. “What do you think might have happened?” she asked me.

“I’m sure we’re both thinking about the same thing right now.”

“Would you mind telling me this thing we’re both thinking about?”

She obviously could have done so herself, but she didn’t want to be the one to indirectly criticize the Light Stag’s idiocy.

“I think the most likely explanation is that the golem collected those two souls. After all, it was made for this purpose.”

“Why would it do such a thing?”

“I have no idea.”

“Does it make sense that it would collect souls of its own accord? Is there a soul collecting instinct?”

I thought about this. As far as I was concerned, left to my own devices, I wouldn’t feel compelled to collect souls for my personal satisfaction. “There isn’t. Are you saying that someone else made it steal the souls?”

“Something to ponder.”

Castor politely lowered his tablet and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose as a signal that he was ready to speak. The Snow Raven nodded to grant him permission. He said with careful words, “I couldn’t find the missing souls in today's history.”

We exchanged meaningful glances. I think that, up to that point, the Snow Raven suspected the golem thief was an unknown rebel demon who wanted to make a statement. With this last incident, it became clearer that there might be a greater scheme at play.

“I will send investigators in the human world. Castor, make sure we have protective suits ready.”

“Yes, madam,” Castor answered.

The Snow Raven returned to me. “However, because the suits have their restrictions, we will need your help in this investigation.”

I had been waiting for it. Logically, the problem rested on the Light Stag’s shoulders, since he was the one who asked for a golem to be engineered in secret. When his plan blew up in his face, he made sure to shift the responsibilities to the Underworld and now, it was my problem.

“Yeah, sure. Can I ask something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you think the Messenger could stop guarding the Seer’s successor?”

“Can you explain yourself?”

“The situation suddenly turned out to be much more uncertain than expected. I think the guardian's duty might be putting a human in undue danger.”

“I understand. I’m afraid it won’t be possible. The Light Stag required the Messenger to monitor this case.”

She leaned forward on her desk and added with a smile. “Don’t worry, he knows how to be careful.”

Yeah, sure, I thought, he also knows how to act like an idiot.

Once I had updated the Snow Raven about this depressing turn of affairs, I still had to finish up with my most recent task. I took the boat back to the banks of the Underworld, where Pearl waited for me. Souls are invisible to living humans in the human world. There are animals who can perceive them, though, and Pearl had insisted to follow the soul of her human. Of course, she couldn’t cross to the Capital, because it would have been dangerous for her, so she waited there.

Pearl didn’t want to get up when I called her. I bet she wanted her human to come back and didn’t know that the next time he would show up in the human world, it would be as someone completely different. Eventually, I just picked her up despite her whimpering. I guess I understood why she wanted to stay there. At the same time, waiting indefinitely is not a life for any living thing.

I made a promise to a dying human. As the Soul Collector, it was my duty to keep it. I’ve been told that my favourite form looks grumpy all the time, so I figured it might not be the best one for my next task. Instead, I changed into a teenage girl who had short black hair and wore a soft blue duffel coat.

The guy’s girlfriend lived in an apartment in a neighbourhood that wasn’t the wealthiest, but not the poorest either. I went up to her floor with Pearl in my arms. Footsteps approached the door at the sound of my knock, the chain lock scraped the wood as it was withdrawn and the door opened on a young woman. I kind of struggled to keep smiling. Demons don’t generally feel sad for humans. Angels never feel sad for humans. But when you feel a bit human in your heart, the job gets difficult every once in a while.

“Who are you?” the woman said. Her eyes were red and her voice sounded hoarse.

“You know this dog?” I handed Pearl over. The dog was all excited about seeing another human she knew. She started licking the woman’s face as soon as she picked her up.

“Pearl! How did you…”

“She just saw your boyfriend off.”

“What?”

This was the tricky part. Telling what I had to tell without freaking out the person. “Pearl saw where Eric is now. He’s at peace, but he just wants you to know that he loves you.”

“Who the hell…”

“He’s sorry he won’t be there to see you graduate.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She wavered between suspicion, anger and wanting to believe me. “How do you know?”

I petted Pearl on the head and I decided to leave. My task was done. It might not have been the best way to convey the victim’s last words, but then there rarely was a best way, beside the victim saying them directly. Sometimes, I wished someone had showed up to tell me my mother’s last words. Maybe there had been no last words, or maybe the previous Soul Collector just hadn’t been able to find me. I guess I’ll never know.