“Your husband?” Death hummed and with a wave of their hand, Tony floated in the air. It was unnerving for her to see him so still. Tony never stopped moving and talking, even while asleep. Yet, now Tony was still as death.
Kendis rushed over to kneel beside him. With shaking fingers, Kendis put her fingers to his pulse, and she could feel a calm, steady beat.
“The lack of trust is disappointing,” Death replied dryly. “He’s only asleep.”
Kendis glared at them as she stood to her feet. “What do you want?”
“Why so hostile, my master?” Death said as they crept closer to Kendis, and they took a step back. A cool shiver rushed down her spine, and suddenly the smell of sulfur and brimstone got stronger, and the room’s temperature dropped into a frigid chill.
“Why do you keep calling me, Master?” Kendis demanded. “I have zero interest in being your master, and we separated and scattered the Hallows around the world.”
Then abruptly the Resurrection Ring, the Elder Wand, and the Invisibility Cloak hovered around Tony in a semicircle. Kendis paled, swayed on her feet as memories of her last moments with Voldemort flashed in her mind. The way the Death Stick felt in her hands as she cast the disarming spell that would finally put the bastard out of his misery.
“You really thought that you could hide them from me?” Death shook their head.
“I wasn’t hiding them from you!” Kendis shouted. Their eyes flickered to where Tony still hovered in the air. “If you want them just take them!
Death disappointedly shook their head. “Master, it’s not that simple. A Peverell was always destined to become the Master of Death. Much like Ignotus, you proved yourself worthy of it.”
“No, I am a Potter—”
“The Potters are the last branch of the Peverells. How did you think the invisibility cloak got into your possession in the first place?”
Kendis shut her eyes as they tried to ignore the piece of the puzzle. It was the reason the Deathly Hallows sung to her. The way they felt a wince of comfort and connection to the cloak from the moment they slid it on. As a child, Kendis had thought it was because it was her father’s.
But after the battle, the niggling feeling that there was a connection to the Peverell was always there. There had been no explanation of how the Potters got it, but Kendis had pushed it aside. The implication that she had killed one of her few remaining family in cold blood haunted her. If Kendis was a Peverell, then what was Tom Riddle? A distant cousin. Kendis was too horrified by that thought ever to explore it any further.
She shoved it down deep inside herself and did her best to ignore it. And now it was biting her in the ass.
“Fuck, Destiny! Kendis swore, “I have had enough of destiny and prophecies and all that rubbish.”
“How incredibly naïve of you,” Death replied. “You are Kendis James-Black. The defeater of Lord Voldemort. You are one of the most powerful magic users in the world. You didn’t think that there was a reason for that? That Destiny didn’t have a greater plan for you?
Kendis rubbed her head and sighed. She studied Tony’s placid face and gritted her teeth.
“What do you want?”
“You have responsibilities.” Death gave her a stern look. “I have given you a decade of freedom, Master. And now it’s time to accept who you truly are.”
“Why me? Why now?” Kendis pressed. “Ignotus could have—”
“This was never Ignotus’s destiny.”
Kendis balled her fists together and suddenly she was sixteen again, like Dumbledore when they realized they were a horcux. Everyone expected Kendis to sacrifice everything for the greater good, and she was sick of it.
“No,” Kendis snarled, “I won’t have it. Just take the Hallows and leave.”
Death just stared for a long, unnerving moment.
“And I can’t believe you have the nerve to even ask me this. After everything you have taken from me!” Kendis angrily swiped away her tears. ” Josefa, Remus, Tonks, Sirius, my parents—”
“Josefa Juneberry was always meant to die,” Death interrupted. “Just as your parents were meant to die, just as Sirius Black, Remus Tonks, Nymphodora Tonks, and your parents were meant to die. Their ends were fated, it was the natural order of things.”
Kendis wiped away her tears as the wave of the old familiar grief washed over her. People said grief got better with time. But in reality, the gaping hole they left behind never left. You just got better at coping with it. And it stung to think that all the people she loved was destined to leave her alone in an uncaring world.
Kendis squeezed Tony’s hand. ‘Would Tony leave me too?’
She tried to get her tumultuous feelings under control, but Kendis couldn’t shake her feeling of dread. Kendis just stared at Death’s placid face. The white eyes unnerved with their silence.
“Why now?” Kendis snarled, “You said you gave me a decade of freedom. Why are you here now?”
“The worlds are merging once again,” Death said, “and as a result, The Great Crucible is upon us.”
“Worlds?”
“The universe is made of parallel realities; for every choice, a new reality is created.” Death looked down at Tony and then back at Kendis.
“You were never supposed to meet; Your reality and Anthony’s should have never amalgamated in such a way.”
“The Great Crucible?” Kendis felt like this was going to be trouble.
“A test from the creator,” Death grimaced. “The last Great Crucible was the flood.”
‘Noah’s ark,’ Kendis realized. Her ears were ringing, and her heart was pounding in her chest. What Death was talking about was not simply a fascist taking over the world. Death was talking about the end of the world, a genuine apocalypse.
“And much like Noah, you are a chosen one, a predestinate.”
“Predestinate?” Kendis gave a bitter laugh. “More like a sacrifice!”
“Take comfort in the fact that if your two worlds hadn’t amalgamated then another predestinate would have been chosen to confront the crucible.
Kendis felt dread as Death looked down at Tony.
“No!” Kendis gasped.
“I am linked to Anthony Edward Stark through both name and deed. People already hail him as my merchant, and you can deny it all you want, but your husband will face the crucible with or without you. But if we accept your fate as my Master, he will have a better chance of surviving what’s to come.”
And then, in a shimmer of the air, Death and their hollows disappeared, and Kendis stood there with a sleeping Tony and wondered when her life had spiraled out of control.
***
Kendis could think of little else for the rest of the day. After Kendis woke Tony up, he was confused about how he got there. “The last thing I remember I was reading a book upstairs and then I woke up here,” Tony said with a frown.
Kendis tried to explain, but he had been worried about how shaken up she seemed.
Kendis just lied and told him she had had a flashback about Chester. She winced, feeling guilty for lying to him, but thankfully he had simply hugged her and hadn’t mentioned it when Kendis had been unnaturally quiet through dinner.
All the while, Ron and Hermione had slept on. With their arriving by international portkey and then helping Kendis repair the wards. She wasn’t surprised that her friends were still out for the count.
Kendis didn’t expect to see her friends until the next morning at the earliest.
And on top of everything, she had been dreading sleeping in her bedroom.
Kendis tried to play it off, but she started to shake as images of the battle between her and Chester replayed over and over in her head.
Tony squeezed her shoulders, and Kendis forced a smile.
“We can always sleep on the sofa,” Tony said as he kissed her on the side of her head.
“No, it’s fine.” Kendis tried to reassured him with a small smile.
They tried to take comfort in their familiar bedtime routine. But even after she showered, moisturized, brushed her teeth, and bundled her braids in a bonnet but her stomach filled with nerves. Kendis wasn’t alone, and the mental webs of the house’s wards were strong and solid.
But would that be enough to stop Chester?
Tony pulled Kendis into his powerful arms and kissed her softly. “It’s going to be alright, Glinda.”
Kendis knew that he was trying to reassure her, but it was a shallow comfort.
With death’s words on her mind and her eyes constantly searching for Chester’s presence in the shadows, it was a long while before Kendis could fall asleep.
