WHEN BLYTHE PICTURED THE BUSTLING SEASIDE TOWN IN WHICH her cousin
lived, she’d imagined crisp blue skies and an ever-present warmth from the sun beaming down on them.
Fiore, however, had none of those things.
Blythe supposed it was her own fault for expecting warmth in the winter, though she never anticipated that a town by the water could be so abrasive. Yes, strolling down a vibrant green hill pocked with wildflowers was lovely if one could ignore the deadly cliffsides and the voracious sea that thrashed beneath them, but Blythe found that to be a difficult challenge. She hugged her coat against herself, trying to block all lethal drops from view as she trudged after her cousin in borrowed boots two sizes too large, walking lopsided and huffing for breath.
“Are you well?” Signa asked as they neared the bottom of the cliff. At first Blythe believed Signa was asking because of Blythe’s gasps for air and the way her skin was probably turning pink from windchill and exertion, until Signa clarified, “At Wisteria, I mean. Is Aris treating you well?”
“Wisteria is in ruins,” Blythe said by way of answer, careful with her words. She wanted to be honest with her cousin but also didn’t want Signa to feel guilty for Blythe having taken her place in this marriage. “There isn’t a single person employed to help me care for it, or at the very least help warm it. As for Aris…” Blythe trailed off. No curtains or heat in her room would ever make up for all that he’d put her through, but Blythe supposed he no longer warranted being called the devil incarnate. A “menace upon society” could still work, but Blythe held her tongue. “Aris is hurting.
Whatever transpired between the two of you has left him wounded, and I believe he’s acting out.”
Signa’s voice adopted a hardened edge. “Nothing transpired between him and I. Not in this lifetime, nor in any other.”
To this, Blythe gave no response. Though she would have loved to believe that Signa was not the reincarnation of Life, how else could Blythe explain watching Signa raise a horse from the dead? Not to mention that Aris wouldn’t have done half the things he did while trying to win Signa’s heart if there wasn’t irrevocable proof that Signa was the woman he’d been searching for.
As they approached the town center, Signa carved a path that had them weaving around an occasional passerby—none of whom stopped to converse with her, though some cast quick glances of acknowledgment that spoke of their familiarity. It didn’t escape Blythe’s notice how many others ducked their chins into their coats or scarves and hastened their steps when Signa strolled by.
If someone handed Blythe a blank canvas and instructed her to build a town befitting Signa Farrow, Fiore would be precisely what she’d design. The place had all the makings of charm but little of the execution. Quaint cobblestone streets gave way to vicious gales of salted wind that grated the storefronts. A man struggled to repaint the chipped and faded white exterior of his shop, paying close mind to any windblown drips.
The buildings, too, were deceptive. Though they were painted in light hues befitting the seaside, the town was built upon the bones of Gothic architecture. Twisting spires stretched atop shops that took great care to appear quaint despite the fanged gargoyles that loomed over empty streets. Strange a town as it was, Blythe’s cousin looked perfectly at ease among its dreary skies, content as the wind swept her dark tresses back and the sea thrashed behind her. Shadows embraced Signa with every step, clinging to her skin and expanding around her as they journeyed deeper into town.
“Haven’t you ever wondered what kind of person Life must have been?” Signa asked eventually, keeping her voice low so anyone who passed might think they were having a perfectly innocuous conversation.
“How could I not?” Too often Blythe pictured the woman whose bedroom suite she’d stumbled into. The one whose picture lorded over Wisteria—a constant reminder of her absence as well as her ever-looming
presence.
Since her time spent in Life’s old suite, Blythe could almost feel Life’s presence seeping through Wisteria. Could almost see her strolling the halls with a paintbrush in hand or hear the echo of laughter as warm and soft as the rising sun. Wisteria was a tomb to Life’s memory. A home where her ghost roamed free.
Blythe felt silly admitting any of this aloud, though the intensity of Signa’s stare made it clear that her cousin was expecting more. And so she told her, “I have a hard time believing Aris was ever capable of love,” just to fill the void. The lie seared her tongue the moment she’d said it, for the truth was that she knew no one as romantic as Aris. The man was more than capable of love; he was fueled by it. Who else would remain in search of his wife for so many centuries?
“Come now, he’s not so bad as that.” There was an inquisitive lilt in Signa’s voice that had Blythe feeling like her cousin meant more than she was saying. “I believe Aris to be a man who would do anything for the person he loves, no matter the cost. Truth be told, I have admired him for it. There’s no excusing what he’s done, but I know that if I were him, I would do whatever needed to be done to get Death back.” Signa inclined her head toward the sea, her last few words a breath on the wind.
Goose bumps flared along Blythe’s arms, and she was glad that Signa was turned away and unable to see the nervousness that ate at her. Until she was given reason to, Blythe often failed to remember that Signa, too, was not entirely human. That she had killed so Blythe might live.
Blythe had never believed in the paranormal, but in the past year, she had come to accept that Death was real, her cousin was a reaper, and her husband the embodiment of fate itself. How quickly she had adapted to such a bizarre life.
“There’s something I must tell you,” Signa began after a brief silence, ignoring the shadows roiling at her heels. “Part of me believed I should stay out of it and let nature take its course, but it’s about Aris and—” There was no warning for the pain that flared on Blythe’s ring finger. She doubled over, clasping her hand with a cry as Signa’s words cut off with a sharp gasp. Her lips pressed shut, as if tied by invisible strings.
Death emerged before her as if spun from the gales themselves. Darkness swathed his body as he took Signa by the shoulders, trying to
steady her. While Blythe very much wanted to ask why he hadn’t simply walked beside them like a civilized man, her cousin was unfazed by Death’s arrival. And because Signa was unfazed, Blythe was somehow left feeling like the odd one in this situation, even though it was he who had just appeared from the shadows at her feet.
“You know it’s no use,” he whispered, though Signa shook his warning off with a hiss.
“Aris,” Signa repeated, seething his name through clenched teeth. It seemed that each syllable pained her to speak. “It’s not me that he’s—” Again the band of light on Blythe’s finger burned with such an intensity that she wondered if it might melt through her skin. Meanwhile, Signa looked ready to claw her nails into something when she couldn’t get the words past her lips.
“That’s enough about Aris!” Though anger made her chest tense, Blythe exhaled some relief as the light around her finger dimmed and the pain ebbed. “Whatever terrible thing you’re trying to warn me about, I don’t care to know. Not when this bloody ring doesn’t want me to.”
She kept her gaze lowered, not caring for the concern she’d seen on Death’s face.
“Your parents,” Blythe demanded, needing a distraction. “Tell me about your parents. Have you learned anything about what happened the night of their death?”
They began to walk again, Signa’s heeled boots clomping slowly across the pavement. She seemed to be chewing on her words, testing whether they would make it through her lips this time. “I’ve been trying to read the journals in order,” she said eventually, relaxing when her voice came freely, “but there are so many. My mother wrote in them nearly every night, beginning a year or so prior to her starting finishing school at a place called Hellebore House. She is… different than I expected. I always knew from stories that she had a hunger for the world, but I never quite realized the extent of it. She’s seventeen in the journal I’m reading now and has not yet mentioned my father once.”
“She’s still young,” Blythe offered, softening at her cousin’s obvious distress. “Who knows who she might become over the next few journals.” While she kept her voice light, Blythe’s thoughts strayed toward thoughts that Rima was not the only Farrow who was different than expected.
Though the woman Blythe had seen in the portrait and the one whose room she’d visited neither felt nor looked like the Signa that she knew, there was no denying that she was the one Aris was searching for. Signa surely must have realized it, too. But instead, she’d fallen in love with Death and had left Blythe to fill her absence in Fate’s life.
Blythe supposed this was why, as much as she’d loved fairy stories, she’d never believed in true love. Aris believed he’d found his soul mate, but in another life, that person had fallen in love with a different man.
That was the problem with love—there were too many variables. Too many things that could go wrong for anyone who dipped their toes into its tumultuous waters. Perhaps it was fortunate that Blythe had ended up in a loveless marriage. At least this way neither of them would ever be hurt.
Blythe flexed her left hand before her, staring at her ring as she so often found herself doing.
“Death,” she called, sparing him a hesitant glance. “Have you ever seen a ring like mine before?”
“You may call me Sylas,” he offered, which Blythe casually ignored. “And no, I cannot say that I have.”
She wrung her wedding ring—her true one that resembled a snake— around her finger. She’d hoped that if he rifled through his memory for long enough, Death might come up with something to explain what was happening between her and Aris.
“Is it bothersome?” he asked, and all Blythe could think was that it wasn’t nearly so bothersome as his voice—a sound that made every ounce of darkness more apparent.
“Of course it is. I can never figure out its rules. The blasted thing seems to always want us together. It usually burns when Aris and I are apart, but look.” She waved her hand before him. “No burning. And he’s been coming and going as he pleases while I’m left stuck in Wisteria.”
If Death noticed the way she curled back when he drew nearer or inspected her too closely, he said nothing of it. A chill bit into her shoulders as she leaned against the stone entrance of a weatherworn tea shop, trying to keep a sufficient distance from him. It was fortunate that so few people were out today; how must she have looked, talking to someone that only she and Signa could see.
“Are you certain of that?” Death asked with such an intensity that
Blythe felt the urge to settle her hands into her pockets and pull her coat tight. “You say that the ring wants you together; I doubt that even my brother could outwit whatever magic is brewing. You and Aris share an inseparable bond; focus on it. You may be surprised by what you discover.”
If Death didn’t sound so challenging, Blythe might have ignored him. But because he was challenging her, Blythe took that to mean he believed she might not be able to do it, which was enough reason to shut her eyes and prove him wrong.
She focused on the bite of metal around her finger, then the ring of light beneath it. On the bond that tethered her and Aris—slack and so loose that she felt as if she could grab it and pull. Mentally, that’s exactly what she did. She pulled on the bond, testing it, and it grew taut beneath her hold.
Blythe’s eyes flew open as the blood drained from her face. “He’s here.” Blythe couldn’t say whether she was glad or all the more angry to learn of Aris’s deceit. “You’re telling me that he’s been lying? That all this time he’s been stuck at Wisteria like me?”
“Not stuck at Wisteria necessarily, but stuck with you.” It was odd to see Death shrug, for he looked too human. “It’s only a guess, though that ring binds him as much as it does you. It must be that when he felt you disappear
—”
“He followed me,” Blythe finished for him, a bitter laugh cleaving through her throat. The light that bound her to Aris burned brightly in her mind’s eyes, casting an unsettling warmth across her skin. She prodded at it, watching the gold brighten as she drew one step, then two, following it.
A pressure in her chest acted as her unseen guide, urging her over loose cobblestone to sandy hills. Everything became warmer. Brighter, too, until she saw Aris standing on the windswept shore, just as she’d somehow known he’d be.
Aris wore a coat in so rich a navy that it conjured memories of a summer tempest. His golden hair was tousled by the wind and curling around his ears, touched by the sea salt. His face hardened as he glanced first to Signa, then to Death, before settling on Blythe.
“You simple, foolish man!” Despite herself, Blythe’s body shook with laughter. “It’s true, isn’t it? Just as I cannot escape you, you cannot escape me.” Sand made her steps slow as she closed the space between them. “Are you so prideful that you would have yourself suffer just so I could be kept
miserable? If we cannot escape each other, then where on earth have you been spending your days?”
Aris looked as though he’d rather be anywhere else in the world as he returned his glower toward the sea. “Quit laughing, you ridiculous girl. Just because I can’t leave for long doesn’t mean I cannot leave at all.”
“I’m the ridiculous one? You disappear just long enough to fetch me a pastry so that you can pretend you’re off gallivanting around the world!” How delighted she was by the idea. So much so that, to Aris’s dismay, Blythe began to laugh even harder. “I don’t believe I’ve ever known someone as preposterous as you.”
As severe as Aris tried to look, his efforts were futile given that the wind was whipping his hair into his mouth. “I came to fetch you,” he told her. “You have no business being here.”
Blythe filled with such disdain that her good humor sobered at once. She gnashed her teeth. “You do not control what I do or who I see. If I want to visit my cousin, then I shall visit my cousin.”
“Not when it’s my brother who’s your chauffeur.” With each word his ferocity raged like the sea at his back.
“I have no intention of harming her.” Death’s voice was the press of wind, somehow still firm even while wisping through the air with such a gentleness that Blythe found herself questioning whether he’d truly spoken at all.
Aris slipped his hands into his coat pockets. “What do I care? Take the life of this devilish girl if you’d like. The sooner you do, the sooner I’ll be unburdened by the plague of her existence.”
Blythe had never known someone better suited for tea with the ton. Aris was more dramatic than anyone she’d ever met.
She wondered whether Signa noticed how Aris’s focus kept rolling back to her. Wondered if she noticed his wounded pride, or whether any part of Signa even cared.
Blythe may have bound herself to Aris—she may have taken away any power he had to threaten Signa—but that didn’t mean Aris was over her cousin. Blythe could see his hopelessness even now and knew that some small part of him still believed that Signa would regain her memories and all would be well in the world.
But there was no denying the tenderness in Signa’s touch as she reached
behind her to curl her fingers around Death’s. She rested her head against him, squeezing tighter whenever Blythe’s or Aris’s temper surged. Perhaps she remembered everything. Perhaps she knew exactly who Aris had been to her in another life, but was choosing to spend the rest of her years with another and didn’t want to break Aris’s heart twice by admitting the truth.
“It’s tradition for newlyweds to visit their family.” Every word out of Signa’s mouth darkened the sky. “I’m the one who asked Death to bring Blythe here. I wanted to ensure that she was well.”
Aris opened his mouth to speak, only for his words to be halted by a crack of lightning that turned the sky silver. A storm was inevitable, and though the darkness swarmed to Signa, it was Blythe who felt like the eye of the storm as Aris grabbed hold of her hand.
“It doesn’t matter,” he told her. “Come, we’re returning to Wisteria.”
She wanted to fight. To throw his hand off her. But warmth spread through her veins like a poison as Aris wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and the world tilted and winked out before she could open her mouth to argue. Blythe hadn’t any chance to bid her cousin farewell before Aris reached for the air as if grasping for a door, pulled open an invisible handle, and tossed her across the threshold to let Wisteria imprison her once more.
