Page 18 of All Hallows Trick

“Can you pretty pretty please tell my dick that?” Madde asked.

“Um.” It took me a moment to reply. “I’m gonna keep my distance from it for now. Since I don’t cheat. I did just say that.”

“I know.” His smile warmed, softened. “I was listening. What are we going to do about the ghost?”

“Ghost?” A shrill voice made us all jump. Shit, I’d somehow forgotten we weren’t alone in the castle.

“It’s completely okay,” I promised Honey as she rushed down the staircase and across the foyer, grinding to a halt when she spotted the hovering ghost with his white eyes and the wordsurprisecarved in his chest.

She staggered back with a gasp and my heart sank.“Thatis not completely okay.”

I left my husbands and crossed the floor to pull her into a hug. “It doesn’t have anything to do with us, don’t worry. Someone just left Madde a message. For all we know it’s a surprise birthday present.”

I silently begged none of them to disagree and to my relief they didn’t contradict me. Honey had been through enough stress without worrying about ghosts, too. And it wasn’t a lie; we didn’t know for sure this was a message from Nightmare.

“It’s freaking me out,” Honey whispered, squeezing me tight, her hands trembling at my back. “It’s like the curse all over again.”

“The curse willneverhappen again,” I promised firmly, drawing back to look at her, a deeper relief settling in my soul at the sight of my best friend. “We made it out; we’re not going back. Even if you did look really cute with the ears.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Just because I can rock the look doesn’t mean I want to be furry again.”

I squeezed her once and let go. “You were never furry. Or were you…?” I raised an eyebrow. “If you had a furry ass and never told me, I’m going to disown you as my best friend.”

Honey nudged me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Yeah, I knew that feeling. “You could never disown me. You’d be lost without me; we’re besties for life. No takebacks.”

“Come on,” I said, feeling better with her by my side. Another panic attack wasn’t far away, but it wasn’t nipping at my heels, so I’d take what I could get. “Let’s go raid Madde’s kitchen for breakfast.”

“I should go fetch Pain,” Madde said to the guys behind me. “I bet he knowsallabout what happened to this spirit. Given pain’s his thing. And it looks like the ghost was insomuch pain…”

“You didn’t have to explain it to us like we’re toddlers,” Miz muttered, footsteps sounding as he followed me and Honey. “We’re all older than you.”

“Exactly,” Madde agreed with sharp glee. “Senile in your old age.”

Death sighed. Heavily. “Go speak to pain. Take the ghost with you.”

Honey shot me a sidelong glance. “Who the hellisthat guy?”

There was no way I could explain my dark, violent inner voice so I just shook my head. “I think it’s physically impossible to explain what and who Madde is.”

A curl of satisfaction moved through the darkness lurking inside me. He liked that. And I was absolutelynotthinking about that. Or the fact that it pleased me. I squeezed Honey’s hand and focused on breakfast.

Not ghosts, not warnings carved into incorporeal skin, not dark figures stalking us. Not the toy I was aware of with every fucking step I took, disrupting my stress with a flare of arousaland panic. When would he turn it on? My heart quickened at the thought, nerves flickering through my belly.

One thing at a time. Breakfast,thentortured ghosts, existential dread, and the threat of a vibrator inside me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CAT

“That can’t be all we have,” I said, aghast as I stared into the little wooden box Virgil held, the two of us sitting on opposite sofas in one of Madde’s sitting rooms. The whole room smelled like honey and carnations from the black-edged purple blooms crowding vases on every surface. The box was cradled between Virgil’s hands like it contained precious matter. Because it did. Five vials of gleaming green liquid.Five.One of us had only two weeks of humanity left, the other only three weeks. That was all the time I had left to be Cat instead of the subject I’d accidentally transformed myself into by shattering the vial—two weeks.

“I thought there was more but…” Virgil looked away, his jaw clenching. “It took me a few efforts to inject myself. I was so focused on changing back, on helping you before you got yourself hurt … I must have smashed the others. This is all we have.”

“Can we make more?” I looked at him hopefully, his eyes so familiar. They used to be mine too, a rich amber shade that sparkled when the sunlight hit them the way Virgil’s did now. Mine were cursed grey, still that way even though everyone else had changed back. I didn’t know why the curse clung to me, why I still wasn’t wholly who I’d been before Halloween. Was it because I’d been cursed long before then, because where everyone else had been normal, innocent people, I’d had blood on my hands?

“Make it?” Virgil asked with a soft laugh, bitterness entering his voice as he stared into the box. “Fat chance of that, Prickly. I know we’re both studying medicine, but this is far beyond my abilities and I doubt Ford’s classes taught you this, either. Unless becoming thewifeofthreedifferentdeath godshas given you special abilities?”

I winced, scratching at the vibrant teal flower embroidered on the arm of the violet sofa. “I would have told you eventually.”

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