Page 19 of All Hallows Trick

“No, you wouldn’t have, and I wouldn’t have believed you if you had. The death god thing I can get behind. It might be the only way of taking down Nightmare and the other subjects. But three of them, Cat?”

I shrugged, my eyes on the antidotes. Only five left. “The curse made me the Bride of Death, but it was never just him. It was always the three of them, from the first time I met them all the way to now. It’s always been the three of them.”

Virgil made a throaty sound, drawing my attention, and I nearly laughed at the look on his face. “Sure, three. Why is there now a fourth?”

I widened my eyes innocently. “He’s just a stray we picked up, don’t worry about it.”

To my relief, Virgil laughed, creases forming around his eyes, softening his tired face. He was covered in scars and injection sites, and it hurt to look at him but I refused to look away.His body was a catalogue of the pain Nightmare had put him through. But if he still had the strength to laugh after everything, I would too. I wouldn’t let her get away with it, though. She would die screaming for mercy I would never give.

A surge of warmth and delight flowed through me, followed by a husky voice.I can’t wait to watch you slaughter her, lioness. I hope you make it as bloody and gory as possible.

I thought you were with Pain,I replied, still tentative speaking to him this way. It was bizarre to speak to someone inside my head, but even more bizarre that it felt natural, like I’d been doing this for years. Because I had. I’d always spoken back to the darkness, more in the last few months than ever before. It should have been alien and unwelcome, but it was just a part of me.Hewas a part of me. That at least made me a little uncomfortable.

Madde was a man I met for the first time yesterday. He shouldn’t have been a part of me, shouldn’t fit into my life so easily.

“Just don’t pick up any more strays,” Virgil said with a heavy eye roll, his eyes lingering on my face. “I might have a heart attack if I find out you’re married to ten of them.”

“Ten! Jesus.”1

“And anyway,” my brother said, sobering. “In the grand scheme of things, this barely registers as something to worry about.” He looked at the box of antidotes and sighed. “We need to go back to Ford, see if we can find any more of these.”

I’d been thinking the same, but it was a relief to hear someone else say it first. Five antidotes, five weeks between us, before we lost ourselves to the beasts we’d been made into.

“How did it… the liquid in the vials of blood, how does it work? How did it change me?”

Virgil sighed, his expression softening. He looked suddenly older, almost fifteen years older than me instead of five. “Iwish I knew, Cat. The best I can guess based on what I saw in that place and things I overheard… the solution being distilled isn’t an ordinary distillation. I think it must be magic in some way, connected to all of this.” He waved a hand at the room, the castle, the realm. “You shattered the vial and that’s what changed you. I was injected. I saw others injected, one with it poured into an open wound, one with it forced down their mouth.”

“God,” I breathed in horror. I was out of my seat before I processed the intention, sitting beside Virgil and pulling his hand into mine, squeezing tight. “I’m so sorry, Virgil.”

“Don’t even think about blaming yourself. You didn’t ask that psycho to kidnap me, or for any of this to happen. You’re as much a victim as I am. But we will find more vials, or we’ll steal their equipment and make it ourselves.” He met my eyes. “You’ve just gotta clear it with your husbands, because if we’re going back to that cottage, we need backup.”

“Virgil, if we can’t get more…” I chewed the inside of my lip. “I’ll hurt someone else, won’t I? I already bit Tor, and I know he’s overstating how healed he is. I made him weak, caused him pain, and I—I can’t let that happen again.”

“We’ll get more of the antidote,” Virgil said firmly, squeezing my hand. “Don’t entertain anything else. We’ll get more, and we’ll be fine. As for your husbands… yeah, they’re hurt. Worse than they’re letting on. I never knew what the effect of biting or scratching a death god would be, never even knew they existed, but I can guess it’s meant to take them down long enough for Nightmare to kill them.”

A low sound shook the back of my throat, making me jump. The sound strangled into silence.

“You’re protective of them,” Virgil realised.

Protective was putting it lightly. They were with the doctor again, getting a check-up, and I dreaded what the ghostly littleman would say. Tor seemed better today, but what if it was just the calm before the storm? Miz only had scratches on his arm but looks could be deceiving. And Death was so good at taking care of everyone else that he forgot about himself. I knew he’d hide the true extent of his injuries just to stop our fear. Andthatmade me even more afraid.

“Yeah,” I said lamely.

“I’m not an expert on any of this, but I think the way we’ve changed heightens our emotions. In the first week, mine were—volatile. You’ll be quicker to anger, you’ll feel pain more intensely, heartbreak too, probably.”

“What did you feel? In the first week?”

He squeezed my hand and said nothing.

“Virgil,” I prompted softly.

“Fear,” he admitted. “I was terrified I’d die there. And then…when I killed… hatred, like I’ve never felt before, so intense that I wished someone would end my life.”

I sucked in a harsh breath, hurt spearing my chest. I held onto him tighter. “Ihatethe thought of you getting killed. And I know the future’s all doom and gloom, and we need more antidotes or we might never be human again but—you deserve to live, Virgil. And I’m so selfishly glad you’re still here, because I need my big brother.”

He knocked his shoulder into mine, turning his face away. “You’ve always got me. Now, enough being sappy. I’m starting to think you like me.”

“I do like you,” I pointed out.

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