AN HOUR LATER, THE HALLS OF THORN GROVE WERE EERIE IN THEIR STILLNESS.
Signa kept close to the shadows, her fingers curling into the banister’s gnarled wood as she took her time descending the stairs with cautious steps. When the iron bolts locked behind the last of the gossipmongers and Warwick had retired to his quarters, Signa became overly aware of every groan and creak of the wood that echoed through the foyer.
Her nose tickled from the smoke of too many hastily blown-out candles, which cast the manor into such darkness that Signa shouldn’t have been able to see her own two hands before her. Yet she may as well have been in a summer glade, for the glow of a spirit seeped beneath the ballroom’s threshold and illuminated an effortless path toward the double doors. She expected that Death must still be in there preparing the late duke, and she was trying to peer discreetly inside when the hairs along the back of her neck rose and a voice sounded behind her.
“He’s asked for a few minutes alone with his son.”
Signa stumbled back, having been ready to abandon her own skin before she realized that the low, resonant voice belonged to Death. She checked behind her, ensuring that no one was lurking on the stairwell before she waved him down the hall. The last thing the Hawthornes needed was to find her alone in the darkness, talking to herself moments after a murder.
Death had returned to the form of his shadow self, gliding across the walls behind Signa, who tried not to shiver from his nearness. A million questions plagued her mind, but the first that slipped out as she sealed the parlor doors shut was: “When were you going to tell me that you have a brother?”
Death’s sigh came as a soft brush of wind that blew wisps of hair from Signa’s face as he took her hands into his own. Had she not been gloved, his touch would have been enough to still her heart and bring out the powers of the reaper that lay dormant within her. But because of those gloves, Signa remained entirely human as she curled her fingers around his.
“I’ve not spoken to him in several hundred years,” Death answered at last, his shadows gentle as they tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with great care not to touch her skin. “Were it not impossible for us to die, I wouldn’t even be certain I still had a brother.”
Signa recalled the way he’d shrunk in Fate’s presence and the tension in his grip as he’d held her. Even now, alone and pressed against the bookcases in a corner of the room, Death kept his voice low. She tried not to grind her teeth, hating to see him so anxious. Death was not meant to cower. He was not meant to fear. Who was Fate, exactly, to sweep in and make his brother respond in such a way?
“He’s toying with us,” Signa said. Her skin itched, and she was more unnerved than she cared to admit. She eased only when Death pulled her close, her heart fluttering as his thumb stroked a soothing line down the length of one glove.
“Of course he is. Fate controls the lives of his creations—what they see, what they say, how they move… Their paths and actions are all foretold by his hand. My brother is dangerous, and whatever his reason for being here, we can be sure that he has no good intentions.”
Signa didn’t care much for being referred to as one of Fate’s “creations.” After all she’d overcome, boiling her choices down to Fate made her success feel unearned. Like he somehow had a hand in all her hardest decisions and her biggest triumphs.
“He certainly didn’t treat you like a brother.” Signa pressed her thumb softly into Death’s palms, wanting only to pry her gloves off so that she might feel more of him.
“For the longest time, the two of us had only each other,” Death said. “We came to view ourselves as brothers, though that title means little these days. Fate hates me more than any person in this world ever has.” Signa didn’t have the opportunity to press for more before Death stole his hand away to take hold of her chin, tipping it toward him. As dark as it was in the parlor, Signa could still see the cut of his jaw among the ever-shifting
shadows. The tension in her shoulders eased as he touched her bare skin for the first time that night. Coolness flooded through her body, and Signa tipped her head against him, savoring the touch.
“Tell me the truth.” Death’s lips brushed her ear, and her knees buckled. “Did he hurt you, Little Bird?”
Signa cursed her traitorous heart. She wanted more information, for only in that moment was she beginning to realize there was so much left to learn about this man she’d believed she understood. But the longer Death held her, the more Signa felt herself melting beneath his touch as, beat by beat, her heart stilled.
How long had it been since he’d held her like this? Days? Weeks? For them to see each other, someone nearby had to be dead or dying, and ever since Blythe had recovered from belladonna poisoning, such circumstances were rare. Signa was glad for that, of course, for she could use some stability and a bit less death in her life. Still, she’d spent too many nights remembering the burn of Death’s lips against hers and how it felt when his shadows glided across her skin. For too long she’d been able to communicate with him only through her thoughts, but with him physically present, her control wavered. Her mind may have wanted answers, but her body wanted him.
“Are you trying to distract me?” she asked as she peeled off her gloves and discarded them onto the floor.
The deep rumble of Death’s laughter had heat stirring in her lower belly.
Signa’s blood burned with desire as he asked, “Is it working?”
“Too well.” Signa trailed a hand down his arm, watching as the shadows melted beneath her fingertips and gave way to skin. To hair that was white as bone, and a frame as tall as a willow and broad as an oak. To eyes as dark as galaxies, which shone as they looked upon her with the very same hunger that pulsed deep within her core. “But not enough to keep me from asking what your life was like before I met you. I want to know everything, Death. The good and the bad.”
Endless was the silence that stretched between them, the only response that of a branch scraping against the window, the sound sharp and staggered in the spring breeze. Then Death whispered, “What might you think when you discover that the bad outweighs the good?”
Signa tried to commit this feeling of his skin beneath hers to memory,
savoring it while she still could. “I will think that everything you’ve gone through has made you the man who stands before me today. And I quite like that man.”
Death’s arm snaked around her waist, his fingers curling into the folds of her dress. “How is it that you always know the right thing to say?”
Melting into the contours of his body, she laughed. “I seem to recall you accusing me of the opposite a few months back. Or have you already forgotten?”
“I couldn’t forget that clever tongue of yours even if I wanted to, Little Bird. And I will tell you whatever you want to know about me. But first, I believe we have some catching up to do.”
Death settled a hand on each of Signa’s hips as his shadows swept behind her, scattering checker pieces to the floor as he laid her upon the table where she and Elijah had played several months prior. Signa had a fleeting, humorous thought of how she’d hated Death so passionately then. Yet here she was months later with her legs locked around him and her skirts lifted as she kissed him fully. She tasted his lips and thought of nothing but how much she wanted them to consume her. Signa kept herself gripped around him, and when they’d had enough of the table, they moved to the chaise, where he came down over her, one knee settled between her legs.
Death’s lips savored her neck, her collarbones, the tender flesh just above her corset. “I have thought of you every day.” His voice was a rushing stream, pulling her into the depths of its current and devouring her whole. “I have thought of this, and all the ways I would make my absence up to you.”
There were not enough words in this world to describe the ways Death’s touch made her feel. One day, when she was old and her human life had run its course, there would come a time when the cold would call to her and not let go. Signa wasn’t eager for that day, but she wasn’t afraid of it, either. She had learned to appreciate the cold that seized her veins; to revel in its power, for it was part of who she was meant to be. And so she guided Death closer, placing his hands on the laces of her corset.
Except, rather than release his hands, Signa stilled as she recognized the chaise they were settled upon as the one that Blythe and Percy had used to watch Signa’s early etiquette lessons. Her eyes darted to the thick Persian
rug that she’d tripped on when Percy had been helping teach her to dance. Signa pushed away from Death, clutching her chest as she thought of the last time she’d seen her cousin—in a burning garden, made the meal of a hungry hellhound.
“Signa?” Lost in her haze of memories, Signa barely heard the reaper’s call. She didn’t regret her decision; if she’d made any other, Blythe would be dead. Still, she couldn’t stop hearing Percy’s laughter. Couldn’t stop seeing his smile in her mind’s eye and remembering how red his nose had turned whenever they’d ventured into the snow.
“This is where I learned to dance.” She curled her fingers into the cushions, nails dragging across the fabric. “Percy helped teach me.”
That was all Death needed to understand, adjusting his position so that he could scoop her into his arms. Signa sat between his thighs, cradled against the pleasant coolness of his chest. “You are not responsible for what happened to your cousin.”
She appreciated him saying so, but that didn’t make it true. “I was given a choice,” she whispered, “and I made it.”
With his chin resting on her head, Signa felt Death’s gentle hum before she heard it. “Are you saying that if you were in that position again, you’d choose a different path?”
She wouldn’t, and that’s what terrified her more than anything. What kept her up at night wasn’t that she’d given the command to trade Percy’s life for Blythe’s, but that she’d do it again. She had begun to love Percy, truly. But it’d been almost too easy to let him die. Perhaps she was already more of a reaper than she’d let herself believe.
“I will not lie to you and say that this is an easy existence.” Death’s touch was tender, one hand snaking around her waist as she tipped her head against his shoulder. “Perhaps it was wrong for me to ask you to make that choice, but there was no easy answer. I didn’t want you to lose both of them.”
“You cannot protect me from who I am.” As she said it, the realization of those words sank in. Already Signa had accepted the dark power within her. Still, there would always be that whisper. The one that she had grown up with, that had made her believe everything about her was wrong.
When someone cleared their throat at the doorway, Signa threw herself from Death and spun to look at who had silently entered the room, not
having heard the door open. Fortunately, it remained shut; it was Lord Wakefield’s spirit who stared at them from the threshold.
“It’s no wonder you weren’t more interested in my son.” He folded his hands behind his back, not bothering to conceal the judgment in his voice or how the corners of his eyes creased as he assessed Signa, then turned to Death. “No matter how I try to avoid thinking about what might come next, it seems that I keep finding myself gravitating back to you.”
Death extended his hand to the duke. “That’s a good thing. It means you’re ready to join me and leave this place behind.”
The duke didn’t draw forward but instead asked, “Does it hurt to pass on?”
Death’s gentle smile was a brilliant sight. “Not in the slightest.”
It melted Signa’s heart to hear how tenderly he spoke, and she was glad that all the years had not hardened him. The tension in the duke’s fists eased, and he stretched a hand toward Death’s only to pull it away the moment before they touched.
“My son will have to take over my duties,” said Lord Wakefield, the words tumbling out. “I’m not sure I’ve prepared him.”
Again, Death stretched his hand forward. “You’ve done the job you were meant to do. Your son will be fine.”
“The duties are demanding,” he argued. “Perhaps I should stay and watch over him. He won’t rest until my murderer is found.”
“I know,” Signa told him. Given how the last spirit she’d been near had possessed her, she fought every instinct in her body that told her to run when Lord Wakefield’s attention whipped toward her. Although she didn’t know Everett well, she had seen his face as he’d held his father. “I’m sure you’re right about Everett, and I have every intention of helping him find your killer, my lord.” Whether Signa wanted to, Fate had ensured that this was her task to deal with.
It took a moment for the duke to bow his head, out of excuses. His eyes fell to Death’s hand, and this time he took it.
“Take care of him.” The duke’s voice cracked as Death’s shadows wound around him. But before they left, Death cast Signa one final look.
I do not know when or how, he told her, the words little more than a whisper in her mind, but I will find my way back to you soon.
Signa forced a smile, wishing she could easily accept those words.
Doubt and loneliness were meant to be things of her past. Yet as the shadows consumed Death and the duke whole, she realized that perhaps this was only their beginning.
As breath settled back into her lungs, Signa adjusted her skirts and slipped on her gloves. The moment she started toward the doors, however, her returning heartbeat fluttered. She stumbled, gripping the edge of a tea table to keep herself upright.
This was far from Signa’s first time tempting death, but this time… Something was different. This time, Signa choked as her breath returned, coughing into her gloves as a fit overcame her. She dug her nails into the wood; it felt as though she’d swallowed shards of glass that were trying to slice their way through her.
Minutes passed before she was able to catch her breath. And when she peeled her hands away from her mouth, breathless and shaking, Signa’s white gloves shone crimson with blood.
