Page 77 of All Hallows Game

“Don’t,” I choked out when Tor set another toe and a tongue on the windowsill and reached for the next doll. I could hardly stand to look at Rosalind’s face. I squeezed my eyes shut, flinching as her voice filled my head.

You killed them, Misery. Every last one died at your hands. You suffocated Mrs. Ford and hung Mr. Ford and poisoned their sons. Now you’re going to take Rosalind and walk her into the lake; she won’t fight you, I made sure she’d be a willing victim.

But she’d cried. Even as we were forced, both of us, into the ice of the lake, Rosalind had cried. She died with betrayal in her eyes, not understanding that I couldn’t fight Nightmare any more than she could. She died thinking I’d infiltrated them on purpose, with the intention to kill them all.

Nightmare had reached into my mind and neatly removed any memories I had of killing them until the last moment. I didn’t remember sneaking out of my room under cover of darkness, didn’t remember pressing the pillow to Guinevere’s face. I didn’t remember struggling with Konrad, stringing him from the ceiling with a noose around his neck, or standing beneath him, watching the life drain from his eyes. I didn’t remember slipping poison into the goblets of my brothers. I didn’t remember what I’d done to Joanna, only finding her lifeless body in the grounds of the manor, her eyes unseeing and empty. I’d been so convinced I would be next, that the killer would come for me, that I’d never expected to find Joanna’s tiny body left out in the cold.

And I did that.

“Jesus,” Tor hissed, startling me out of the dark memories. Cat stroked my back, her kindness abrasive to my guilt-ridden soul. I killed them all. Nightmare wrapped me in her magic, poisoned me, controlled me, and forced me to kill my family.

“What is it?” Cat asked urgently, stiffening beside me.

“A heart,” Tor hissed, shaking his head. “Well, this is the most fucked up thing I’ve seen in a day.”

“Just a day?” Death asked, peering over Tor’s shoulder.

He shrugged. “A lot of fucked up shit’s happened. I can’t sense anything from it. You?”

“Not even a hint of whose soul it belonged to,” Death confirmed, his mouth pressed thin.

“She’s taunting me,” Cat muttered, pressing closer to me. “Or this is a threat.”

“More likely the first,” I rasped, wrapping my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into me. The closeness expelled a sigh from my chest even if a little voice hissed that I didn’t deserve her closeness and would only get her killed like I got the Fords killed.

If I’d never gotten close to them, they’d have lived full lives.

“What’s in the last doll?” I asked, a knot in the back of my throat as I looked at all the body parts lined up beside doll heads on the windowsill. Guinevere and Konrad, Percival and Baldric, Theodore and Rosalind. My chest shook, my breathing a shudder.

“That is the last doll,” Death said, squeezing my elbow.

I frowned, but I was relieved Nightmare hadn’t sunk to tormenting me with Joanna’s face. She was so young, she should have been safe, but there were no lines Nightmare wouldn’t cross. When I closed my eyes I saw her round face, the sneaky glint in her eyes, the crown of braids she always wore her hair in. I saw her storm across the banquet hall to me with determination in her eyes and a turkey leg in her hand.

“Don’t be a fool,” she’d told me in a spectacular rendition of Rosalind’s voice. “Eat, Cai.”

She’d thrust the turkey leg at me and stood there, tapping her slippered foot, until I took a bite. Satisfied, she returned to her spot at the table, ordering Theodore to boost her onto the tall seat like a queen.

She should have lived. It killed me that she hadn’t.

“Whose… pieces are these?” Cat asked, gripping me a little tighter. Her eyes flit to the assortment of body parts, inevitably drawn back to where they left smears of blood on the sill.

“We should clean this up,” I said, ignoring the throaty quality of my voice. “The victim will turn up sooner or later. They always do.”

I didn’t know if it was better or worse that Cat knew it was Nightmare killing all these people. I’d been oblivious, any suspicion I had wiped away by the hooks Nightmare had on my mind. I still didn’t know how she had the power to control me. She was a god, but so was I—I should have been safe.

I’m safe now, she can’t get to my magic with it bound.

“How am I supposed to go to a memorial ceremony after this?” Cat sighed, resting her head on my shoulder. “How am I supposed to pretend everything is normal?”

“You answered your own question, beautiful,” Tor replied. “Pretend.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CAT

Icouldn’t find a pink ‘fuck you’ dress, but I dug a garish red dress from a bag I hadn’t bothered unpacking since the move into my new room, and threw my leather jacket over it, jamming my feet into heavy leather boots. Byron would have enjoyed us not wearing predictable black for his memorial. He’d have liked the middle finger we gave death.

Death himself frowned at me, his eyes on my neck. “Do you have a choker, little bride?”

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