IT WAS TO HER SUITE THAT SIGNA SOON RETIRED, FATE’S INVITATION clutched in
her hand. If she was going to beat Fate at his own game, then she needed more information. Signa locked the heavy oak door behind her, then contemplated dragging over her dresser to further block entry before deciding that would only draw more attention. The lock alone would have to suffice.
Gundry watched from the foot of her bed, yawning from behind the billowing canopy as Signa pressed her ear to the door. She moved to the nightstand only when she was certain no one was wandering the halls, then opened the top drawer and withdrew a small bundle of silk cloth. Cradling it close to her chest, Signa took the bundle to her bed and spread it over the linen, revealing a handful of berries so dark they were nearly black.
Belladonna.
Behind her, Gundry growled deep in his throat. The hellhound had been with her for the past several months, sent by Death as a companion. Mostly, he spent his days lazing away near a hearth or, when the weather permitted, flitting through burnished leaves in the yard. Signa had told everyone he was a stray she’d picked up during a trek through the woods, and though it took some convincing, Elijah had agreed to let him stay.
No one who met Gundry would think the hound much of a protector, but sometimes, as Signa watched him stir during the witching hours, she’d remember the shadows that had dripped from his open jaws and how he’d clamped those jaws around Percy with a single command.
“Hush,” she told him, bopping the beast on his wet snout. “I may regret this, but I need your help.” When Signa was in her reaper form, it was only
Death who could either see or hear her. She could perhaps show that she was near with a sudden gust, or windows slamming shut on a mild day. But if she hoped to communicate with Elijah, she’d need assistance.
“Ready yourself, Gundry. We’re going on an adventure.”
Gundry’s ears flattened. He looked from her to the berries with a whine that Signa paid little mind as she drew the curtains shut and scrawled a hurried note onto a piece of tea-stained parchment. The ink was still wet when she folded the sheet and reached forward to scratch Gundry under his chin, slipping the note beneath his collar.
“We’ll be fine,” she told him. “I promise.”
There weren’t many berries left—perhaps fifteen or so—and it would be several more months until the belladonna near Thorn Grove was back in bloom. All she had remaining were dried and shriveled berries from last autumn’s stash, which would likely taste as rotten as they looked. Still, they should do the trick. It’d take at least five berries to produce the results she needed, and so it was precisely five berries that she scooped into her palms before bundling the cloth and setting it aside.
Signa took a seat on the bed and pressed all five berries upon her tongue. They were crunchy and bitter, their rot soiling her mouth. Yet she swallowed them down all the same and curled her fingers in Gundry’s soft coat as she waited for the effects to take hold.
Signa shut her eyes as her vision swam and sipped slow breaths through her lips until she could take in no more. Only then did she crack an eye open as the belladonna claimed her, the reaper’s power spreading through her veins. She greeted it like a lover, embracing the cold and the darkness that wisped around her fingertips.
“Hello, you,” she whispered to the shadows that swathed her hands. Gundry still lay with his chin on her lap, though he was changed. There were shadows where his eyes had once been, and more that oozed like smoke from his maw. The last time he’d been in this form, it had been too dark to notice that Gundry’s ribs protruded from his skin, or that his hollowed-out insides were visible through a gaping hole in his belly that swirled with darkness. Gundry looked every bit like a beast that had crawled its way out of the depths of hell, with elongated canines and massive paws that were twice the size of her face. And yet he was still the same Gundry, whining and nudging his wet nose against Signa’s hip.
“I’m all right,” she said, slipping from the bed. “Come, we should hurry.”
Signa steeled her nerves. Death had once said that her powers were about intention—want something, then take it. Facing the barest wall in her suite, she focused on Elijah’s face as she imagined a portal of shadows that would take her to see him. It was certainly possible; Death had done something similar the night he’d taken her to see the bridge of souls. Still, just because something could be done, it didn’t mean that she knew how to do it. She was having trouble focusing as slivers of sunlight cut through the windows. Her powers felt out of place in the daylight, perhaps even forbidden. Only under the cover of night could she stop thinking about how odd it was to not be able to feel the press of the springtime heat against her skin.
It was thoughts like that, however, that would get Signa into trouble. There was no choice but to cast aside her doubts, and to step into the shadows that built upon the wall. Unfortunately, Signa smacked face-first into the wall the moment she tried and rocked back, cursing the blasted space as though it had reached out and attacked her.
The ground rumbled suddenly with a deep, smoky laugh. Signa squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to turn and look at Death from where he waited on her bed.
“How long have you been watching?”
“Long enough.” He sounded smug, but Signa didn’t spare him a glance to confirm that he looked it, too. “What are you up to, Little Bird?”
Her poor nose felt as though she’d just taken a brick to the face, and she tried to rub away its aching. “What does it look like I’m up to? I’m trying to use these beastly powers.” Only when he chuckled again did she shoot him a glare so scathing that Death’s lips promptly uncurled. He tried his best to look inconspicuous, though there was no denying the amusement glittering in his eyes.
“What for?” he asked. “I thought we agreed that you’d only use those berries in an emergency.”
She glanced to her reserve of belladonna—ten berries left. If she wanted to avoid having to take more, there was no time to stand around chatting.
“Your brother is on an expedited mission to ruin my family. If that’s not an emergency, I don’t know what is.” A surge of panic shot through her, and
Signa clutched her chest as the heart within it fluttered. Death was behind her in an instant, his hands on her shoulders. She settled against his body as her heart stilled once more, and lifted her hand to his.
“I let myself get too worked up,” she said. “It won’t happen again—”
“Your body is acclimating to the belladonna.” Death swept a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind one ear. “You shouldn’t be using it.” “Elijah is in prison.” Death’s eyes were filled with such concern that
Signa had to keep her eyes trained on his chest. “We’ll discuss this later.”
Only then did he ease his hold on her, though to help maintain her current state, he didn’t let go entirely. “Very well.” He waved his free hand at the wall, where fervent shadows swarmed. “Is this what you wanted?”
She kept her chin high. “It is.”
“Wonderful. I quite like your face, and I’m not sure that it could handle another one of your attempts.” Slipping his hand from her shoulder and down to hold hers, he pulled her toward the writhing shadows. “Whenever you’re ready.”
At her heels, Gundry gave a low whine. Signa cast a cursory glance at the parchment beneath his collar—ensuring it was still secure—before she gave his head a gentle pat and stepped forward.
It was a familiar feeling to let the shadows pull her from one place to another, like slipping through a lake and emerging dry. Strange and a little unsettling, but also deceptively peaceful, given where they’d ended up.
No longer were they in Signa’s bedchamber but in a too-small room with such little light that, at first, Signa thought her sight had been spirited away. Only because she was a reaper did her vision normalize, the darkness soon giving way to reveal the outline of a small cot. A chamber pot. And, eventually, a man huddled on the cold stone floor, knees drawn into his chest.
Signa started toward him before Death’s grip tightened. “Remember that you are a reaper right now. Mind your touch.”
Signa backed toward a wall with her arms wound tight around herself. “Are we in the prison?” She was glad she wasn’t human in that moment, for the stone splitting from the ground was caked with so much dust that she feared for her ability to breathe. It felt like one wrong move was all it would take for this place to come shattering down upon them.
“Yes.” Death spoke in the placating tone he’d used with Lord Wakefield
and other restless spirits, and though Signa recognized the tactic, she also appreciated it. “No light is allowed in the cells. The idea is to blind the prisoners—to never let them see each other or their surroundings, so that they might feel entirely alone. I’ve picked up far too many people from rooms just like this one, driven to madness from the isolation.”
As she looked at Elijah, Death’s words cut deep. “Go to him,” Signa whispered, summoning the hound to her side. Gundry took one look at her before he bowed his head and padded the few short steps toward Elijah. The shadows swirling around his protruding ribs slipped from him with every step, shedding from his skin until his body filled out and he was nothing but a common hound with a gentle whimper.
Elijah startled at the sound, jerking his face toward it. The left side of his face was bruised and swollen. His hands and clothing were covered in the grime of the room, stained a sooty gray. Signa covered her mouth, scrutinizing the cut along his brow, to the bone and begging for an infection.
“Who is that?” he croaked, trying to squint through the darkness. “Is someone there?”
Signa squeezed Death’s hand, keeping herself grounded. She could only watch as Gundry nudged Elijah’s leg, still and calm even as Elijah pulled away. “Gundry? Can this truly be you?”
Gundry pressed his snout into Elijah’s leg, and with trembling hands Elijah reached out to pet the beast. The moment his fingers curled into Gundry’s fur, Elijah’s voice croaked with a hoarse laugh. “It seems I have gone delusional.” He stroked down Gundry’s back and then back up again, stopping when his fingertips brushed the slip of paper tucked beneath the hound’s collar. Elijah stilled at the sound, glancing at the door once before he tugged the note from Gundry’s collar.
He held it up, though there wasn’t enough light to read it, especially where some of the letters had smudged. His hands shook as, ever so slowly, he scooted toward the cell door and held the note up to the keyhole in the iron lock, squinting to read one letter at a time with only the barest hint of light.
Is there a suspect?
It took such a painfully long time that Signa had half a mind to go back and fetch him a lighter. But the idea had hardly formed in her head before
the cell door rattled. Elijah shoved the note into his mouth and swallowed as the door swung open, nearly hitting him. Elijah’s eyes flew at once to Gundry, but the hound was nowhere in sight, already back at Death and Signa’s side and concealed in the shadows.
Hideous was the only way to describe the man who stepped inside the cell. His face was too small for his body, round and oily, and he wore a gruesome grin that Signa longed to wipe from his chapped lips. She looked at once to his knuckles—scabbed, which answered the question of what had happened to Elijah’s face.
“Get up, Hawthorne. This ain’t a gentleman’s club.” Signa hadn’t realized how tightly Death was holding her back until he squeezed her hand.
Steady, Little Bird. The words were a gentle buzz in her mind. Steady.
If not for Death’s presence, such a thing would have felt impossible as the man gripped Elijah by the collar and hauled him to his feet. As awful as it was to watch, Signa was glad that Elijah didn’t fight back. Who knew what might happen if he dared to make a move against these men.
The guard threw Elijah a mask that looked like little more than a sack with slits for eyes. Elijah put it on without protest, though a moment before he slid the monstrosity down his face, his eyes trailed to the back of the cramped cell, right to where Signa stood pressed against Death. She stiffened, though as he continued to search, it became clear that he couldn’t see her.
“Byron did not speak on my behalf.” Elijah’s words were so quiet that the prison guard cupped an ear.
“What was that, Hawthorne?” The hideous man stepped forward, yanking the mask the rest of the way onto Elijah’s face. “You got something to say?”
Signa could hardly see the pleading eyes that searched for her, but she knew enough to understand. Elijah said nothing more as the guard hauled him out of the cell, though his message was loud and clear: Byron Hawthorne had lied when he said he’d done everything he could to protect Elijah.
Which meant that Signa had a prime suspect in Lord Wakefield’s murder.
