How was she meant to find a key to a garden that had clearly been abandoned for months? It wasn’t as though she could ask Elijah for it, and Sylas probably already knew the place was sealed and had led her on this wild-goose chase for a laugh. Hands tight on the reins, Signa was about to turn back to find Sylas and give him a piece of her mind when another flash of white flickered in the corners of her vision.
Lillian was there, watching, hiding in the shadows of the iron gate. Her hair was pale as butter, and her face was covered with moss, with rotting vines woven into and out of the gaping hole where a mouth should have been. Hollow eyes watched from between the ivy leaves. Hollow eyes that looked not at Signa but behind her, to the ground.
Signa turned to the familiar sight of tiny black berries—belladonna—and understood so well that her chest felt like it was being cleaved in two.
The night she’d last eaten belladonna—the night she’d spoken to Death—she’d used his powers as her own. What if she could do it again? She’d seen him pass through walls. Seen him disappear into the shadows, and then re-form himself at his will. Was it possible that she, too, could do that?
Signa dismounted, gritting her teeth at the sight of the belladonna berries that waited at her boots. She’d not wanted to approach Death again until it was with a way to destroy him and end her blasted curse. But if she wanted Lillian to leave her alone, it seemed there was no choice.
With dread in her belly, she stooped and plucked the berries, filling her pockets and her palms.
Death loomed in the air like an approaching storm, dark and heavy. Signa felt the weight of him choking her, warning her. Even the sound of the wind was as biting as a blade when the world slowed around her, as if time was coming to a standstill.
But Death wouldn’t touch her. He never did.
Signa pressed five berries onto her tongue and waited as her blood burned and chills shot down her spine. It didn’t take long for the poison to clench her insides. For her vision to swim while illusions of the woods tunneled around her, for a power unlike any other to form within her, beckoning her to come and sample it.
Death had arrived.
TWELVE
DEATH’S PRESENCE WAS FROST THAT BURNED INTO SIGNA’S VERY bones—an icy lake she’d plunged into headfirst. But rather than allow her to come up for air, he embraced her in those frigid waters with no intention of letting go.
“Hello, Little Bird. Come to stab me again?”
His voice was a balm for the gooseflesh along her skin, and Signa’s insides twisted in annoyance at her body’s response to him. Not anger nor fear but a deep, festering curiosity she couldn’t seem to shake.
“Tell me whether I can use more of your powers,” she demanded. If he would not hesitate, then neither would she.
She lifted her chin and turned to face him. Or at least she believed she was facing him. It was difficult to know, given his form. Death was little more than the shadows of the trees. The darkness lingering in the corners where light couldn’t quite reach. He was nowhere and he was everywhere, until slowly his shadows began to contract along the ground, consuming the forest floor and bathing it in darkness until he was there. No face, no mouth, but the form of a man who loomed over her.
“Tell me, Signa,” Death began, ignoring her question, “are you afraid of me?” His shadows drew closer until his form was smaller, less imposing. “Most people fear death. They fear it all their lives, though they never see me until their final breath. There are a handful of humans out there with a keener eye, of course. Those who spend their lives trying to bridge the gap between the living and the dead, and who catch glimpses behind the veil. But when I stand before them, even they are wise enough to fear me. Yet you have called me time and time again. You have questioned me. You have even gone as far as to attempt murder.” Though they were dark words, Signa didn’t miss the hint of humor within them. It lit a blazing, angry inferno inside her.
“Am I amusing to you, sir?” She clenched her teeth as the shadows danced among the trees.
“At times.” His voice was little more than a whisper in the roaring wind, though she heard it as clear as though it came from her own thoughts. “And other times you are an endless annoyance. Always, though, you are a fascination.”
Talking to Death felt like listening to a riddle. She could barely resist rolling her eyes at how long-winded he was and had to press two more berries to her tongue.
“Tell me whether I can do more with your powers,” she said, firmer this time but keeping her voice low in case Sylas was nearby. “You said that night that you could explain, so do it. Quickly.” If Death had eyes, she imagined she was glaring straight into them.
The trees fell quiet when he spoke. “Here, in this space between the living and the dead, it would seem as though you are able to do more than pester me, Little Bird. I don’t know the extent of your abilities, but I do believe you’ve barely scratched the surface.”
Signa swallowed down the fear that festered in her throat, her suspicions confirmed. “How is that possible? What have you done to me?”
When the ground beneath her feet trembled, Signa understood she’d asked the wrong question. “Because you are so quick to blame me,” Death said, “let it be known that I have not done anything. I am not responsible for your gifts. I am not responsible for what happened to your aunt, though sometimes I wish that I was. The things she put you through… Had you not wanted her alive, I might have taken her long ago.”
“My wanting someone alive has never stopped you before.” Her body was a tensed coil ready to spring. “Am I to believe you had nothing to do with the deaths that follow me wherever I go? That I alone am responsible for them?”
Night pulled closer as Death drew forward. “You bear no responsibility for those deaths. Magda’s was the first life you took. Even I was not expecting it.”
If what he said was true, and even he hadn’t been expecting that to happen, then…“How?”
The wind itself seemed to whisper the response. “There’s a reason you can see spirits, Signa. There’s a reason you’re able to cross the veil between life and death. Though I’ve not been able to confirm why, it seems your suspicions are correct. When you’re here—when you have crossed the veil and are able to see me—it seems you have access to an arsenal of skills similar to my own.”
So strange was the mix of relief and horror that Signa felt. Bile rose to her throat at the confirmation of what she’d done. None of the other deaths were her fault, which of course was a relief. Yet Magda’s death was her fault. Her aunt had died by Signa’s hands, and the thought alone made her want to curl up against the nearest tree and let herself be sick.
“Listen,” Death whispered. “Important rules were broken that night. Life and death is a game of balance, Signa. A balance that must always be maintained, otherwise you will bring chaos into this world. Magda was not meant to die that night. When a life is taken, another must be spared. Do you understand?”
His words, yes, but the actuality of them? Signa was barely comprehending any of it. Death’s sigh blew across her cheeks as his shadows drew around her. “When you killed Magda,” he explained, voice tiring, “I had to give life to another who was meant to die that same night. It was Blythe who I gave it to.”