TWO DAYS HAD PASSED SINCE SIGNA HAD HELPED HENRY MOVE ON to the
afterlife.
She’d returned to Foxglove, unable to focus on anything but the comforting warmth spreading through her despite being windswept with her cheeks reddened from the thrashing gale.
Yet the happier and more settled she became in her new home, the guiltier she felt as the days continued to tick by without any reprieve for Elijah. Why should she feel at peace when he was still trapped in a cell, curled on the cold stone floor and alone in the darkness? Death had been watching over him, ensuring there was no more abuse and that Elijah at least received his meals, but it wasn’t enough. With every passing day, she felt further from the truth than ever.
She had to do something, which was why she stood in the garden, her fingertips resting on the twig of a juniper bush.
“Are you sure you weren’t simply imagining that you have other powers?” Amity asked from where she lay on a blanket of poppies, her hair strewn about the flowers. “You’ve been trying for an awfully long time.”
Considering that the sun was headed west and Signa had been out there well since dawn, that was an understatement. As she crouched before the dried juniper and gripped its naked branches, she willed the powers of Life to fill her. Yet every time she tried, the blood in her veins thrummed with longing for her reaper powers, instead. Her body was overly aware of all the souls that waited inside, pulled toward them now more than ever since that night with Henry. She tried to ignore their calls, for it was Life’s powers that she needed, not the reaper’s.
Elijah’s verdict would be read any minute, and should the worst happen, she would be there. Forget finding the murderer—she would make whoever it was irrelevant. Should Elijah Hawthorne be sentenced to hang, Signa would use Life’s powers to ensure he would not stay dead for long.
It was a secret hope, made of nothing but dying embers. But for Elijah Hawthorne, this was the least she could do.
“Grow,” Signa urged the frail juniper bush. “Grow, you silly little thing.” Her eyes bore into the branches for one minute. Two. By the third she groaned and fell back on her blanket, wishing to roll herself in it like a cocoon and mope in that very spot.
Amity propped herself onto her elbows, watching. “You’re just as dramatic as your mother.”
“Oh? Did you ever watch my mother try to bring the dead back to life?” Amity pursed her heart-shaped lips, twirling a ringlet around one finger.
“I can’t say that I did.”
“Then I don’t want to hear it.” Signa curled her fingers in the blanket for the sole purpose of not tearing them through her hair. “There has to be something I’m missing. There are conditions I must meet first if I’m to use my powers as a reaper. Perhaps there are conditions for Life’s powers, too.” Or perhaps she was simply too afraid of the pain to allow herself to access them, for every time she tricked her mind into believing she was close to unlocking them, she’d clam up in anticipation of the oncoming pain.
“What about when you’ve used them in the past?” Amity asked, wisps of her body fading and then resurfacing as a breeze blew by. “Was there any constant?”
It was a good thread, and one that Signa pulled on, sorting through the memories. Both times she’d used her powers, there had been heat. Sweltering, blistering heat that felt like she’d fallen into a furnace.
Signa stood at once. She gathered up her blanket and tucked it under her arm, wondering how close she could get to Foxglove’s hearth without melting herself. Anything was worth trying at this point.
“Have you got another idea?” Amity hopped to her feet, shifting so close to Signa that had it been anyone else, the proximity would have been unnerving. Yet Amity had become her most favored company over the past few days. And though Signa tried to keep away and remind herself how unwise it was to get close to a spirit, Foxglove felt far too empty without
Amity’s happy chatter.
“I do. Follow me.” Signa snapped two twigs from the juniper bush before she hurried into Foxglove, relieved to find that the maid had already tended to the hearth and that Gundry was curled beside it. Signa checked over her shoulder before she sat and scooted so close to the flames that they nearly licked the toes of her boots. Amity lingered behind, floating several inches higher than normal to get a good view. Signa leaned in and shuddered as the warmth devoured any last tendrils of cold flooding through her. Cupping one of the snapped twigs in her palms, she shut her eyes and focused with everything in her.
“Grow.” As often as she’d said that word over the past two days, it was almost a chant at this point. “Grow, grow, grow, grow—”
“I’m a little confused… Are you trying to burn them?”
“I’m trying to burn myself, relatively speaking.” Signa had to temper her annoyance, loosening her grip to avoid breaking the twig in half. “Haven’t you anything better to do than watch me suffer? At this rate I’ll be here all night.”
Signa hadn’t meant it cruelly, yet Amity’s lips drew downward all the same.
“No,” she whispered, voice fracturing. “I do not have anything better to do.”
Immediately Signa regretted an entire lifetime of ever opening her mouth. Given that spirits operated on heightened emotions, Signa should have known better than to say anything. Amity had been alone just as many years as Signa had. Surely, she craved company, and what else was there for her to do?
As Amity’s eyes pooled with bloody tears, Signa set the juniper twig aside and made her voice every bit as soft and placating as Death’s.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m glad for your company, Amity, truly.” Amity only sniffled, avoiding her stare.
“Who else would have waited twenty years just to make sure I was safe?” Signa pressed, trying not to consider how hard she was working to placate a spirit she’d sworn not to let herself get close to. “I appreciate you waiting, truly. But what would you have done if I’d never arrived?” And what will you do now that I’m here? was the question Signa didn’t dare ask aloud. As much as Signa was growing to rely on the spirit’s company,
twenty years was a long time. Surely, Amity had to be curious about what came next.
“I never thought I’d have the chance to speak with you.” Amity took a seat beside Signa on the edge of the hearth. “I planned to leave once I saw you settled… though it wasn’t only for you that I stayed. I’d hoped that the others would be out of their awful loops by now.” Amity’s eyes lifted to the stairs, toward the ballroom.
Signa followed her gaze. “You care for that woman, don’t you? For Briar?”
“More than words could ever describe.” Amity’s smile reminded Signa of the twig she held between her fingertips, poised to crack at the slightest pressure. “But still she does not know it. I can’t leave here without her.”
Signa had no question that, were she in Amity’s position, she, too, would wander the halls for an eternity before she willingly left Death behind. What torture that would be—while Briar had no idea what was happening outside her loop, Amity spent her days aware of every moment. Signa’s heart ached at the thought, and though she knew it was unwise to get involved, she couldn’t help but think back to Henry.
Her mouth opened, and Signa was seconds away from making Amity a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep when Death’s chill frosted over the parlor, tamping the flames.
His presence was like none she was used to. This was no invitation to be swept away for a dance or to enjoy each other’s company. This was the chill of a body buried six feet under—the chill of a Death she had met only once before, on the night he’d tried to take Blythe.
Though Signa could not see him, she knew in the marrow of her bones that something was horribly wrong.
“What is it?” The question sliced through her throat, because she already knew the answer. Even before Gundry pressed against her hip with a whimper and Amity’s eyes turned to hollow, lifeless things, Signa knew.
“Elijah has been found guilty for the murder of Lord Julius Wakefield.” Amity’s voice rang as strong as a church bell, each word a strike that had Signa unsteady. “He’s set to hang in two weeks’ time.” The spirit cast her eyes toward where Death’s chill seeped into the earth. The floor beneath her was turning slick with frost.
Since the day she’d been banished to Foxglove, Signa had known this
would happen. Still, she clung to the last piece of Death’s news like it was a life raft—two weeks. She may not have made progress on summoning Life’s powers yet, but she still had two weeks.
She needed only to ensure that they counted.
Signa almost missed the note tucked into Gundry’s collar until the hound scratched at it, nails snagging against the parchment. Gently, she pried it from him. The note was not in Death’s usual elegant font but in quickly scrawled letters.
Blythe has her eyes on the Wakefields. Charlotte and Everett have been courting for months—Lord Wakefield did not approve of an engagement.
Eliza has taken ill. I stayed with her overnight, though it doesn’t appear that anyone is harming her.
Byron has kept to his study. He locked himself inside after the verdict was read and cried.
It was a relief that Death had kept his letter short and precise, for each of his facts struck like a blow to the stomach. There was one final line on the parchment, cleaner and more precise.
I love you, Little Bird. We’re going to save him.
They would. They had to. Unfortunately, they could no longer do it alone.
Signa knew there was no getting around what came next. Knew there was no other choice as she told Death, “Find Fate, and bring him to me.”
