Page 33 of All Hallows Game

“I’m so—so sorry,” he choked out. “If I had the power to go back and undo what I did—”

“I know,” I assured him, my voice gentle. “I told you, that wasn’t you. I know who took Byron from me, Miz, and it wasn’t you.”

He shook his head, spots of warmth soaking into my shoulder. It took me a moment to realise they were tears, and my heart stabbed deeper. “It was my hand—”

“But not your choice.”

“Are you going to keep interrupting me?” he rasped, half a laugh in his voice.

“Yes,” I agreed firmly. “Until you accept that I don’t blame you.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I killed them all, you know? Every mausoleum is because of me, every member of the Ford family—they’re dead because of me.”

“Because of her,” I insisted. “I don’t know everything that happened, but I can guess. It wasn’t your choice, and it wasn’t your fault.”

His breathing jumped, his hands splaying against my back, the fabric of my shirt cold and soaked with rain, not that he seemed to care. “You should be disgusted by me.”

I knew that. I knew I should look at him and want to stab him like he stabbed Byron, but—

“You’re forgetting that I know how it feels.” I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat, hugging him tighter. “If I should be disgusted by you, you should be disgusted by me. I’ve killed, too. I murdered Darya. I led her to Nightmare, and she commanded me to drive the dagger into her, and I did. And she died. It was my hand that killed her.”

“I—didn’t connect the two events,” Misery admitted, his voice rasping. “But what I did was different—”

“It was exactly the same,” I argued, the tomb blurring as tears veiled my eyes. The rain came down harder, drumming on the roof until the whole mausoleum was full of the sound.

“Darya wasn’t my best friend.”

“She was someone’s best friend, and I murdered her. So yeah, if you deserve disgust and hatred, so do I. And if I don’t, neither do you.”

His sigh sent shivers down my neck to the rest of my body. “I forgot how clever and stubborn you are.”

“How? That’s most of my personality.”

His laugh made me shudder this time, the warmth of his breath visceral against my skin. My darkness dissipated entirely, its weight gone, its violent whispers silenced. “I missed you,” he confessed, a gravity to his voice.

“I missed you, too,” I replied, my voice coming out small. Having him so close, his scent in my lungs, his warmth bleeding into my body just reminded me how badly it had hurt to be without him. “I needed you.”

“Fuck,” he whispered, hauling me closer until there wasn’t a single millimetre between us. “I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. “I hurt you. I don’t blame you for staying away. I didn’t—” I tried to say I didn’t mean what I said but pain flashed up my throat and I tasted blood on my tongue. Oh, god. It was like when Nightmare forbade me from speaking after I killed Darya. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” I managed to choke out, the words carefully selected.

She has my brother, I was desperate to blurt out. She’s going to kill him unless I do exactly what she tells me, and she told me to say those things. They were her words, not mine.

But I couldn’t say any of that. I swallowed the blood in my mouth and held Miz tighter, the tears burning my eyes slipping free.

Miz sighed heavily, his shoulders dropping. “It’s not your fault you were cursed, Cat.” He kissed my temple and I froze, my stomach swooping. I wanted him back, needed him back. “And—it doesn’t matter what happened in the past. We can’t change it. But we get to decide what happens in the future.”

I got the sense he was repeating words he’d been told often and wondered if they were Tor’s or Death’s. The sentiment was comforting but they weren’t true for Miz or I. We didn’t get to decide what happened. Nightmare did.

I drew back until he looked at me, the ache in my chest intensifying when I saw the tears lining his gold eyes, the red splotchy colour across his cheeks. He looked as wrecked as I was, maybe worse.

“You’re right,” I said softly, curling my fingers into the soft cotton of his T-shirt. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Cat…” he breathed, his eyes full of so much emotion I couldn’t decipher a single one.

My stomach flipped, but I ignored the nerves and reached for Miz’s face, pulling him down to meet me. I meant to kiss him carefully, softly, but it had been too long and my heart hurt at how far apart we’d been. All that need and frantic desperation poured out of me in demanding presses.

The violets and snow scent of him replaced the old, dusty smell of this place, and I stopped hearing the rain hammering on the mausoleum roof, stopped feeling the cold of my clothes—all I felt was heat and longing and the relief of having his hands on my body again.

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