WITH EVERY BREATH SIGNA PRAYED THAT HER LUNGS WOULD GIVE out. That
they would turn to lead or temporarily shut off and spare her from the next moments.
Are you certain you want to do this? Death’s voice was in her head, and God how she wished she could lose herself within it. It was too much— Everett, Byron, Charlotte, Elijah… and now Blythe asking questions Signa wished she wouldn’t. Her chest was so tight that it felt like one wrong move was all it would take for her to explode.
She needed to tell Blythe. She had to.
Blythe was already leaning as far from Signa as she could manage, arms wound around herself. Signa had to tamp down her pain and press on, for in that moment Blythe was watching her with eyes no different from everyone else’s. Like she was convinced that Signa might suddenly leap to attack her. Like she was a beast. A monster.
And maybe she was. Perhaps she deserved that fear. After all, she’d committed atrocities from which there was no turning back. Still, she loved Blythe and owed her the truth. But one could not simply admit to being a reaper in love with Death and be believed. She needed to prove it.
They arrived at Thorn Grove, and it didn’t take long before Byron dismissed them, stretching his back and eager to slip into evening attire. Signa didn’t afford Blythe the same luxury. She immediately took her cousin by the hand and led her outside, toward the stables, flexing her fingers when Blythe snatched her grip away.
I can speak to her in her sleep, Death urged. I’ll tell her that her brother left. To stop looking. You don’t have to do this.
I do was all Signa told him. If Blythe was too strong-willed for Death’s whispers the first time he’d tried to convince all of Thorn Grove not to try to find Percy, there was no chance she’d fall for them now. Besides, twisting Blythe’s mind would make them no better than Fate. He may have toyed with humans like they were his playthings, but Signa would make no such marionettes. She didn’t want to live her life continuing to keep Blythe in the dark.
“What are we doing here?” Blythe’s body was tensed, like she was readying herself to sprint away as Signa led them to the stables, toward the stall where the newborn foal lay curled on the hay. William Crepsley was seated beside it once again, stroking the foal’s chestnut hair. Its breaths were little more than rasps, and the poor thing trembled with each one. No matter how much anyone wanted to believe he’d pull through, Signa knew the foal wouldn’t make it through the night.
William stood when he noticed them, removing his working cap and holding it over his chest with both hands. “I wasn’t expecting anyone tonight. Is there something I can do for you?”
“You could give us a few minutes of privacy,” Signa told him with icy calm. “We’d like to sit with the foal.”
“Of course, Miss Farrow.” His face went tender, and he nodded before opening the stall door and slipping out. Blythe followed Signa inside with hesitant steps, sinking to her knees into the hay opposite her cousin. She looked behind her, ensuring that William was gone before she set her hand tenderly on the foal’s neck and whispered to Signa, “You’re scaring me. What are we doing here?”
Signa pried her gloves off in silence and set them to the side. If she spoke, she feared she’d lose all nerve. Tentatively, Signa drew the last of her pruned belladonna berries from her pocket and pressed them to her tongue.
“Signa!” Blythe tried to smack them away from her, but Signa leaned out of reach. “What’s gotten into you? Spit those out!”
“Don’t touch me.” Signa made her voice as lethal as everyone thought her to be. Blythe fell back with wild eyes, looking like a startled deer ready to bolt. More calmly, only when she was certain that Blythe had been frightened enough to keep her distance, Signa added, “I’ll be all right.” She hoped it was true. She’d never quite used her powers in this way before, but
Death had once told her that they were built on intention. Want it, take it.
What she wanted now was to allow herself to still be seen by Blythe, even in her reaper form. She needed to prove to her cousin that she could truly do the things she was about to claim, and so that’s what she focused on as the nausea took over and the poison leached through her.
Death was beside her at once, tense and ranting about how foolish she was for consuming the last of the berries. For a moment Signa swore that Blythe looked at him, or at least near him. Blythe shuddered from the sudden rush of cold and pushed herself against the side of the stall. Signa wouldn’t blame her if she fled. She’d be glad for it. But she knew Blythe well enough to know that she wasn’t going anywhere.
“You have to throw that up right now.” Blythe’s voice trembled, but she made no move forward. “You need to get the poison out of you.”
Signa shut her eyes, uncertain whether it was right for her to feel so relieved. “You can see me?”
Blythe stiffened. “Of course I can see you. Stop talking nonsense!”
Her plan may have worked, but Signa’s body shook from the effort of keeping herself visible, the shadows around her too pale. Too gray. Death was at her side at once, pressing his hands against her bare skin, cursing himself as he helped solidify her place on his side of the veil.
“That shouldn’t be possible.” Death’s voice was breathless. “Not while she’s still alive.”
Something must have happened when we saved her, she told him. She avoided dying three separate times. Perhaps there’s more of a price to that than we thought.
Signa hovered close to the foal, mindful of even the barest hint of her touch. “Tell it you’re here,” Signa whispered to Blythe. “Give it whatever comfort you can. It’s not long for this world.”
“Mr. Crepsley said it could make a recovery.” Blythe’s bottom lip quivered, but still she drew the foal’s head to her lap and stroked its neck. “Try to relax, angel. You’ll be all right.” Her voice was soft as snowfall.
Signa told herself that it was a mercy to end the foal’s life. It had struggled enough, and she knew as she stretched her bare fingers toward it that she could give it the peaceful, easy rest it deserved.
“Whatever you do,” Signa warned, “do not touch me. No matter what you see, no matter what you think, don’t you dare touch me.” Only when
Blythe had bobbed her head in a fraction of a nod did Signa slip her fingers through the foal’s dark mane, pressing them against the velvety skin of its neck. There was no need to summon the reaper’s powers; they leached through her entire being, shadows dripping from her fingertips as the bitter cold took control.
And in that moment, as the foal’s heartbeat stilled beneath her touch and Blythe covered her mouth with tears in her eyes, Signa hated herself for having these powers. With just a single touch, the foal shuddered once before releasing the quietest exhale.
It was dead within the second. Signa had killed it within a second.
No one moved an inch until Blythe finally stared up at her. She clutched the foal close, arms wrapping around its thick neck. “W-we should call for William. He might be able to revive—”
Signa curled her fingers in the straw. “There’s no reviving the dead, Blythe. He’s gone.”
Signa didn’t anticipate the severity with which her cousin’s eyes would pin her. They were red rimmed and repulsed.
Signa had seen those same eyes too many times before. On different faces, perhaps, but always with that same stare. She’d seen it when the Killingers had fled after her uncle’s death. Had seen it when she’d left her aunt Magda’s house half a year ago, and it seemed everyone in the entire town had shown up to cross themselves as they watched her go.
It was the look of contempt. Hate.
Fear.
And it hurt all the worse that, this time, it came from Blythe.
“You killed it.” It wasn’t a question. It was a whispered chant she repeated over and over again as she cradled the dead foal closer. “Why, Signa? Why would you do that?” The moment that question passed Blythe’s lips, something within Signa shattered.
Perhaps she was never meant for this life. Never meant to have friends or living, breathing people who cared for her. Because at one point or another, they would always look at her as Blythe did now.
Would it be different, she wondered, if she leaned into her other powers? If she pushed aside the siren song of the reaper and instead leaned into Life’s burning magic? Could that make her happy, or would she be no
different than the girl she had been last autumn, focused solely on pleasing everyone else?
“Bring him back.” Blythe’s words were like poison, lethal and so searing that Signa’s throat tightened. “Bring him back right now.”
“I can’t do that—”
“Now, Signa! I want him back now!”
Guilt swelled within her, and there was the heat again, stirring deep in her belly as she tried to give Blythe what she wanted. Tried to give her cousin a version of herself that was worthy of the love Blythe had to offer. It burned through her, so hot that Signa worried her skin would melt. She refused to shy away from it, though, curling her fingers into the foal’s mane even when the tears came and a scream tore through her throat.
It took seconds that felt like years of agony; like Signa herself was in the depths of hell, eaten alive by the flames. Distantly she heard Death calling to her, though she couldn’t make out the words. It hurt too much to listen. To focus. To do anything at all… until suddenly it didn’t.
All at once the heat disappeared, and beneath Signa’s hands the foal’s chest rose and fell, stronger this time. It pushed from Blythe’s grip, eyes clear of the fog that had been weighing it down since birth.
In and out its chest moved. Signa couldn’t pull her focus away, counting every breath.
One. She had done that…
Two. She had done that.
Three… Signa turned at once toward Death, but with the belladonna purged from her body and her heart racing once more, he’d disappeared from sight.
“I brought him back.” Signa stared at the foal. Her hands felt like they were on fire, and she had to touch her lips to confirm they hadn’t melted away. She nearly spun to Blythe, and though she wasn’t sure what she was expecting, it wasn’t to see Blythe push up onto shaky feet and back away as though Signa was the devil himself.
Because this was what she’d asked for. This was what she’d wanted.
And yet, with words so vicious that each of them felt worse than death, Blythe choked, “I wasn’t talking about the horse.”
Ice flooded through Signa once more, removing all traces of the aching
heat. For the first time she found no comfort in it. The girls watched each other, Blythe a predator and Signa the wounded prey.
“I can explain—” Signa began, but Blythe didn’t let her say another word.
“I need you to tell me one thing.” As quietly as Blythe spoke, her voice was the only sound in the world that Signa could hear right then. “I need you to tell me if my brother really left Thorn Grove the night of the fire.”
What Signa wouldn’t have done to have had these abilities earlier. If she’d had them a few months prior, she could have saved Blythe herself. She could have found a different way to deal with Percy.
Why now, of all possible times? Why now, when it was too late to go back?
She bowed her head, and though she knew it would doom her, said, “No.”
Blythe’s hand flew to her mouth, barely covering the sob that racked her body. Through it she forced out each word, “Is my brother alive?”
“Blythe—”
“It’s yes or no!” The sharpness in Blythe’s voice was intended not to wound but to kill. “Is Percy alive?”
Signa had known this question would come. All along she’d known that, one day, she’d have to admit the truth of what she had done to this family. She wished only that it hadn’t come so fast. That she’d had more time with Blythe before losing her forever.
But she had been warned that there was a price for toying with Fate and playing God, and it seemed her payment was finally due.
“No,” Signa whispered, knowing that every day for the rest of her existence she would wish to forget this moment. “No, he’s not.”
Blythe did not blink. Did not breathe or even twitch her lips. The only sign that she’d heard Signa was in the shaking hand she wound around her stomach, as if holding herself in. And when Blythe finally did speak, exhaling unsteadily, she became winter incarnate, each word raging with the force of a tempest.
“I want you gone from Thorn Grove by morning.”
Nine words, Blythe had whispered. Nine words, and Signa felt any remaining happiness she had slip from her grasp.
Without leaving any room for rebuttal, Blythe gathered her skirts and
fled the stables. All Signa could do was sit, numb and hollow, as she watched the foal bend to eat its hay.
