The smoke was what grims sometimes called the dark essence that lived in all of us. I never called it something as benign as that. Because mine was truly a monster. We’d been taught how to cage it and keep it under control. Our Aunt Lucille, Uncle Silas’s sister, had taught us Blackwater boys at a young age. For me, it was almost the day I came to live here. Uncle Silas knew better than to neglect this teaching I needed so much. But some grims preferred not to cage it. Some opted to let it run wild, to lead them on dangerous paths. Those grims would eventually lose their humanity, bathing in
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