There was no afterlife, of that Cooper was certain. There was no place for her in Omera’s domain, in her kingdom of shadow and flame. With a sigh from non-existent lungs, she felt herself move forward; body swaying as if she had only just learned how to walk. She was nothing more than a ship bobbing along the water.

She was a child again. Ten years old with a toddler hanging from her leg, staring up at the lanky form of the sixteen-year-old Mycah Hawkins. Fuck’s sake — even death didn’t let her escape the bastard woman. Mycah stared at her with eyes that were not hers. A blank canvas of gold instead of her cock eyed heterochromia. Whoever — whatever — she was, it wasn’t Mycah. The person smiled, baring Hawkins’ overlapping teeth. Cooper moved to back away, but the toddler on her leg might as well have been concrete. She dared not look at what her mind had created of Mayburn.

“My, my, what have we here?” asked Not Mycah. “This is new.”

Cooper wanted to reply but found that she had no mouth.

No body.

This was fine. She was dead anyway.

Not-Hawkins circled her, or at least Cooper assumed she did — again, she had no visible body. The other woman clicked her tongue, which might have been intimidating if they weren’t wearing the face of an obnoxious child.

“Oh my ragged little knight, what have they done to you?” purred the stranger, making the motions of stroking Cooper’s face despite there being nothing there. “My handsome Templar, how could they let you die?”

Cooper wanted to spit, to punch, to claw her fingernails down the soft, tan skin of Mycah Hawkins and gather the flesh under her short claws. But she couldn’t. Of course, she couldn’t. The stranger was right, and she had no body, no nails to rip skin. Gods, she wished she at least had a mouth and teeth to bite. To tear the skin from the fingers that softly traced where her jaw was supposed to be.

As if being ten again wasn’t bad enough.

Not-Mycah patted at the air where her cheek would have been if she had still been alive, the hand passing through with a strange buzz of static. “Enough of this, I think. Sweet dreams, my dear knight, I’ll be seeing you again soon enough.”

And with that, Cooper plunged further into darkness.