THE BELLADONNA BERRIES WERE PRUNED AND SHRIVELED AS SIGNA unfurled
them from their wrapping. Only ten berries remained, and as she stared at them, she imagined Death’s voice in her head, telling her not to take this risk. That they would find another way.
For two weeks Byron had done nothing to prove himself the culprit, but if he was, then there was no time to waste. She’d waited hours for him to leave Elijah’s study, and there was no telling when he might be back. Byron had barely left the room even to sleep, and when he did, he never left it unlocked. If Signa wanted to know what he spent his days doing in there, this was her chance to figure it out.
As the temperature of her bedroom plummeted, Signa knew that while she may not have been able to see him, Death was there with her, watching as she palmed five of the remaining berries. The windows ripped open, frost icing their edges as a breeze tore into the room and knocked one of the berries from her palms. She glared behind her at where she hoped Death stood before she picked it back up and steadied her trembling hands, not wanting him to see just how afraid she was.
Something strange was going on with her powers, but Fate wouldn’t let her take ill enough to die if he suspected she might be Life. It wasn’t a comforting thought, but it gave her the confidence to move forward with her plan. She popped the berries into her mouth before she could change her mind and chewed, grimacing at the rot that soiled her tongue. She knelt against the bed frame after that, waiting for the familiar effects to overcome her. It took longer than usual, the berries less potent. She would need to move quickly to avoid getting stuck on the other side of the study door.
Eventually, when the world had spun into a haze of gray and her body turned cold, Signa opened her eyes. She didn’t need to turn to know where Death stood, for his shadows had already curled around her, bringing her to his chest. He hugged her so fiercely that Signa wondered whether he’d ever let go.
She settled into the familiar rush of power that coursed through her in this form, tipping her head against him as she summoned the night. Shadows swept to her, gliding up her feet and swathing her fingertips until they blanketed her skin like armor. Signa’s hands flexed as she welcomed them. The power felt so natural that she pitied Fate and his hope.
“Hello, Little Bird.” Death’s voice cut through the night, a cool burn against her skin.
God, it was good to hear his voice. Not just in her head but sweeping through the room like a glorious storm. She leaned away so that she could look at him—not a human, but shadows cast in the shape of a man, face and skin masked by darkness.
“Don’t be angry with me,” she whispered, and though she would have loved nothing more than to let herself fall back into his arms and feel him there against her, Signa feared she’d have less time than ever to remain in this state with the berries as old as they were. “There isn’t time.”
“There’s never any time these days. And it’s no use being angry; I have resigned myself to the understanding that you will forever ignore my wishes and will do whatever you want.” Though he kept his voice light as he followed her out the door, he hovered within arm’s reach, observing her every move. They kept to the walls, close to the portraits of the Hawthorne lineage, which Death inspected as they walked. “There really are a lot of them, aren’t there?” He took a few more steps, stopping at another portrait of a woman with flat eyes and an angry mouth. “I remember the day I picked this one up. She wouldn’t stop screaming and told me that if she was dead, then I needed to take her husband, too. He was perfectly healthy.”
Signa smiled and let her hand slide into his, savoring the moment while it lasted. She’d journeyed down these halls with Sylas before, sleuthing for clues about Lillian Hawthorne’s murder. She knew she shouldn’t feel nearly as giddy as she did, but Signa’s life had never been normal, and sneaking into the study to investigate her uncle with Death at her side felt like her own personal brand of courtship.
“This is the one.” Signa paused to listen for any footsteps or signs of life from inside. When only silence answered, Signa shuddered as she slipped through the door.
Elijah’s study was as she remembered—an expansive room with leather chairs as rich as caramel and sleek, polished furniture. It had a masculine essence, warm and sophisticated and smelling of pine. The hundreds of books shelved across the walls were pristine and untouched, though the desk was another story. It was a mess of tea-stained papers and journals filled with notes on every page.
Death joined Signa as she prowled around the desk, commanding her shadows to slide the chair out of the way so she didn’t have to stand in the middle of a piece of furniture and feel like a true ghost. He laughed, low and pleased, as he watched her. “I didn’t expect you would have such control already.”
“Of course I do.” She summoned the shadows around her again, their tendrils turning the pages she could not touch in her spirit form. “I’m a reaper, after all.”
The words were as much for her own benefit as his, though she stumbled on them. When she was in this form, being able to command the shadows made her feel more powerful than anything in this world. She liked that she and Death were so similar. Liked that there was a side to her that only he understood.
But as much as she craved the thrum of this power coursing through her, Fate’s suspicions still beat against the back of her mind. If he was right—if her hands really could bring life instead of death—then shouldn’t that be the power she craved?
She didn’t want to believe it could be true, and yet the idea had burrowed too deeply into her mind, a constant itch she couldn’t scratch. She had to distract herself from it by sorting through the pages and clippings scattered on the desk. The first that drew her eye featured a story of the garden fire.
Signa’s throat tightened. So lost in her thoughts was she that she tried to reach for the paper herself, only for her ghostly hand to slip through it. Death stepped beside her, inspecting the pages from over her shoulder. And then he spoke aloud the truth that filled Signa with such dread—“Byron is investigating Percy’s disappearance.”
There weren’t just notes in the ledgers but also the names of vendors and friends. Charlotte Killinger’s name was underlined, and Signa noticed with great distaste that her own name had been circled. Elijah’s, too.
Behind them was a map that Death turned and inspected in grim silence. Signa turned to it as well, though she immediately wished she hadn’t. There were towns struck through with an X, and only one still circled—Amestris. She returned to the desk to find the same name on the ledgers, with the address of every inn and pub in Amestris noted.
“Byron’s searching for him,” Signa whispered. Her guilt was acidic, burning through her. It seemed Byron had searched nearly half the country by now. Page by page his notes lost their elegance, until nearly illegible writing was scrawled across the journal. Some of it was so difficult to read that she nearly missed a word at the top the most recent page: Murder?
The shadows evaporated from her like smoke as Signa stumbled backward. Death gripped her by the shoulders, steadying her.
“He knows.” Had Signa been in her mortal form, she would have been sick. As it was, she settled a hand over her stomach and tried to quell the burning guilt. “He knows Percy is dead. He knows someone killed him. My name is on those papers, Death. He must think it was me. He must know—” “He knows nothing.” Death’s fingers curled into her skin. “We left no
trace behind. Byron can suspect all he wants, but he doesn’t know a thing. I promise you, I took care of it.”
Perhaps. Yet all she could see were the maps with cities crossed out and the dozens of scattered notes written by a wild hand. Outwardly, Byron was maintaining his composure. But inwardly…
“He loved Percy.” Signa’s lips numbed at the words. “He loved him, and he’ll never see him again. He doesn’t even know what happened.” She felt as though she were a forgotten doll, held together by threads that were fraying at the seams. As cruel as Percy was in the end, did his family not deserve answers? She had hoped to spare them such a painful truth, yet there was nothing she could say without them knowing she was responsible for his death. If that happened… she would lose the Hawthornes forever.
“Signa.” Death’s grip on her tightened. Her body was flickering in and out of its spirit form, visible one second and translucent the next. Shadows wisped around her, frenzied. “If it wasn’t Percy they had to mourn, it would be Blythe—” He cut off sharply as the handle of the door wiggled.
Death threw his shadows around them. Though Byron wouldn’t be able to see or hear them, both Signa and Death kept as still as could be, feeding off each other’s anxiety.
Only, it wasn’t Byron who entered the study. It was Blythe, and as Signa stood there, invisible in her reaper form, she felt rather silly for not having first asked her cousin about the key to this room. She’d been walking on eggshells around Blythe when it came to her suspicions about Byron, yet she should have known that her cousin would be as suspicious of him as she was. Signa should have known that while she was avoiding her, Blythe was doing her own sleuthing.
Blythe was as quiet as the dead as she made her way to the desk, though not nearly as careful as Signa had been as she riffled through the papers. She didn’t always close journals to the page they’d been opened to, nor was she careful about keeping everything organized. So that Byron wouldn’t realize they’d been there, Signa took care to reorganize things every time Blythe looked away and moved on to the next parchment. They were to be little more than ghosts passing through, just as Sylas had told her all those seasons ago.
Blythe dug deeper than Signa had, prying her way through the desk until she happened upon a tiny velvet box in one of the drawers. She stilled, and Signa gripped Death’s shoulder. Even without looking inside, the contents of the box were undeniable. Still, Blythe pulled the top open to reveal a stunning emerald stone set on a gold band.
That’s Elijah’s desk. She threw the words at Death as his shadows stirred, seeming unnerved.
Byron’s been using it for a week. The ring could belong to either of them.
The ring likely wasn’t Elijah’s, given how he was only just beginning to spend his days without losing himself to thoughts of his late wife. Byron, on the other hand, had been far more invested in this season than ever.
She thought back to how odd his behavior had been at Fate’s soiree, and how he and Eliza had stood beside each other on more than one occasion. Surely, there couldn’t have been anything going on between them… could there?
Blythe snapped the box shut, dropping the ring back into the drawer with a deep frown. She shifted her focus to the desk, eyes more critical now
as she lifted several of the clippings to skim through once more. It took a beat longer for the realization to hit Blythe than it had Signa. It wasn’t until she noticed the article about the fire that she dropped the news clippings, face turning bone white as she pored over Byron’s theory. Not that Percy was gone but that he, too, had been murdered. Blythe was stiff as she read over the words too many times. Then she scooped up the papers and placed them back where she found them. She gripped the desk by the edges, unaware that Signa was beside her, watching as her cousin sorted through the names on Byron’s list. Watching as she saw Elijah’s name. Signa’s.
“No,” Blythe whispered, and oh how Signa wanted to take her cousin’s hand and tell her everything. But Blythe would never forgive her. And why should she?
Signa had told herself that she wasn’t keeping this secret for her own sake but for Blythe’s. But as guilt pressed against her, Signa realized how deeply she’d been lying to herself. She wanted to spare Blythe, of course. More than anything, though, Signa was terrified of losing her. She was terrified of returning alone to Foxglove, once again left behind by those she loved. Had Death not been gripping her, she would have reverted into human form, if only to reach out to her cousin. To apologize for everything she’d had to do to save Blythe’s life that night in the woods.
Fate’s words rattled in her head, over and over again: What if those hands of yours could do more than kill? You’d want that, wouldn’t you?
In that moment, she did. If it meant never again being the one responsible for the tears of someone she loved, then God did she want it.
The world spiraled around her, too warm. No. Not warm. Hot. Blazing, scorching, like something was burning her alive. She clutched her head, sinking to her knees.
This was not the cooling comfort of death but a blazing fire that tore its way through her as thick vines erupted from the wooden planks beneath her feet. It was like that night in the woods, back when Gundry had stood at her side and Signa had raised the dead garden to ensnare Percy. Only this was no dead bramble rising from the earth, but thriving ivy that clawed its way up through the floor like wildfire.
What’s happening? Signa demanded, panicked as thick lichen devoured the legs of Elijah’s desk and wisteria wove itself between splinters of wood. Death careened backward, hissing as he clawed at the vines that somehow
ensnared his shadows.
Blythe threw herself from the desk and away from the growing earth with a squeal, kicking at moss that worked its way up her boots. She rubbed at her watering eyes as if trying to disillusion herself, though when she lowered her hands, ripe green stems stretched from the wall and curled around her fingers. This time Blythe screamed as she stumbled over a chair. We should leave. Death grabbed a fistful of the ivy that had ensnared Signa’s hands. Thorns dug into her skin, drawing wisps of darkness rather than blood. She couldn’t see straight enough to get them off herself, and she was shaking as Death ripped them free and hurried her out of the study. They didn’t stop once on their way back to Signa’s suite. Not to speak. Not to ask questions. Not for anything. But the moment they were back, the flowering vines fell away from their bodies, swept aside by the shadows that Death let drip from him as he returned to his human form. Only then could Signa see the pointedness of his gaze and how he set about watching
her as though he’d never seen her before.
“I’m sorry,” she rasped. “I swear I didn’t mean to. I—I didn’t know it was true. I didn’t… I didn’t think—” Her chest was tight as breath swept back into her lungs. The blood in her veins burned, and her body flickered in and out of view. But she wasn’t sick yet. She wasn’t coughing blood or throwing up, and she clung to that victory.
“Say something,” Signa all but whimpered when she finally got the courage to address Death. Usually, he did a fine job at playing human, but in that moment he’d forgotten to blink as he stared at her. Signa tried to ground herself. Tried to stay steady and calm any way she could, since it would do neither of them any good if she started sprouting things again.
Death’s fingers curled one by one around hers and he shut his eyes. “You grew that, Signa.”
“I know. I didn’t mean—”
“You’re not listening to me.” He squeezed her hand tight, and Signa’s fear surged. It couldn’t have been true.
It couldn’t have. She’d killed Percy. She’d killed Magda. Her hands were lethal. Poisonous and deadly, because she was a reaper.
She was a reaper.
But one look into Death’s gray eyes, and her entire world shifted.
“You grew something.” There was a perilous calm to Death’s words as
he bent to capture her stare. “You didn’t claim a life. You didn’t take anyone or anything away. You created something. There is only one person in this world with the powers to do such a thing.”
Signa would have given up her entire fortune to stop him from speaking. To hit the clock and still time forever, because although she understood the words that were to come and that some deep, secret part of her wanted to hear them, there was nothing to prepare her for the weight of what they meant as Death said, “Signa. You used Life’s powers.”
This time there was no denying it. She had seen the thorns and the vines sprout from beneath her own feet. Had watched as they’d climbed up the shadows and crept along her skin. Still, it seemed impossible. Because if she had Life’s powers… If she could give life…
All her life those around Signa had treated her like she was evil incarnate. Over the years she had grown to lean in to the oddities of who she was and what she could do—and she finally felt comfortable in her own skin.
And yet… For years Signa had internalized this hatred for herself. Though she thought she’d managed to put it behind her, it seemed that change did not come so easily. There was no switch she could simply press that would allow her to forget how much she had hated herself. The memories were as lashing as the sea, threatening to drown her in the self- loathing that consumed her.
All this time, her life never had to be this way.
“Did you know?” Death’s voice was a scythe that cleaved through her chest. “Did you know that this was why my brother came here?”
She held firmly to his hand, for in the back of her mind a voice warned her not to let go. That if she did, everything would be different. “I was afraid to believe it could be true.”
Death’s grip tensed. “But it is true, Signa. All this time I have been nothing but a fool to believe that you and I were made for each other. That if Fate had his counterpart, then surely I might have one as well. I thought it was a sign that I could touch you without killing you, but now I know why
—”
“This is precisely why I was afraid!” Signa’s mind was a flurry of thoughts that had turned her words sharp. “Don’t you dare get philosophical on me. Don’t you dare think for even a moment that this changes anything
between us. You told me before that you were the one to reap Life’s soul. How did you do it?”
Death stilled. “The same way I always do.”
“Through touching her, right?” Signa was so relieved when Death nodded, she had to choke back a laugh. “Then don’t you see? I don’t know what I am, but I cannot be her. I don’t die when you touch me, Death. I am not her.”
“But you have her powers,” he said. “Which means that your options are limitless, Little Bird. You no longer need to be consumed so thoroughly by all that’s dead or dying.”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me.” She would wage war on this hill if doing so would make him come to his senses. “You don’t get to tell me what I should do, and you don’t get to pull away from me. Not now.”
He seemed to recognize the intensity of the emotion pouring through her before she did, for his lips brushed the back of her hand as he drew her close. “I would never dream of it. You mean more to me than you will ever understand, and I will not willingly leave. But if we’re going to be together, then I want it to be by choice. Don’t shut out this other side of you simply because you’re afraid of how I might feel. If you’re who I think you are… you deserve to explore that. You deserve to know what it means.”
Perhaps, though there were no words for how deeply the idea unsettled her. These powers were no soft thing. They were wildfire upon her skin and felt as if they would burn her whole if she allowed them to.
“Whatever you decide, I will be here,” Death promised. “Until the moment you tell me to leave, I will be by your side.”
Signa leaned her head against his chest, trying to fill the ache in her heart. “What of Fate? If it’s true that I may be who he’s looking for, then where does he fit into our picture?”
She was glad for the sudden tightness in Death’s face. Glad when he wound himself around her and pulled her in close. “Whatever you are and whatever you can do, you are not who Fate expects you to be. You are still Signa Farrow, and I am not a good enough man to allow my brother to take you from me.”
Those were the words she wanted—that she needed—and she could only hope that Death meant them. Because Signa Farrow had another secret
—one that she didn’t dare admit aloud. And it was that while the vines tore through the floor and the burn of Life’s powers lanced through her, Signa had heard the song that she and Fate had danced to.
She had heard the song he’d asked her to remember.
