Page 21 of All Hallows Trick

And to hunt down your traitorous friend,Madde said with a dark note of vengeance.

I glanced at him in surprise. Phil hadn’t even hit my radar, but the fact he was furious on my behalf at her betrayal, that he’d never forgotten, warmed the parts of me that even softness and care couldn’t reach. The parts that were drawn to the darkness, to the violence and wrath in the world.

I cleared my throat, rising onto my tiptoes to kiss Death’s cheek. “Let’s go, guys.”

Madde took that as a cue to sing the intro to Shania Twain’sMan! I Feel Like A Woman!

Laughing, I let Death go and focused on Tor and Miz. “Are you strong enough to take us to Ford?”

Tor nodded instantly, but there was something in his brown eyes, something secretive and stubborn that made me think he wasn’t.

“I’ll take us, lioness,” Madde offered.

Tor’s expression darkened.

“Just this one time,” I murmured, reaching for him, my hands settling on his chest. “Just until you’re healed. Please?”

He looked at me for a long moment, then sighed. “I wish I could deny you a single thing, beautiful, but I can’t. Just this once. But if he brings us anywhere else, or takes unnecessary risks, I’ll eviscerate the bastard.” These final words were directed to Madness, who only smiled wider.

“Just happy to be included,” Madde chirped, stepping closer, darkness forming around us like a cloud of void. I reached for Miz’s hand, holding onto both of them as the velvety shadows of Madde’s magic swept us up and the living room disappeared, replaced by the familiar winding road that led from the gates to Ford’s campus.

My stomach tangled, my heart beat kicking up.

For better or worse, we were back.

CHAPTER NINE

MISERY

There was a howling, drumming rage inside my head and I should have ignored it, but anything was better than the memories trying to rise up and choke me. I’d barely survived them the night of Byron’s memorial, not only because I was the one who killed Cat’s best friend but because I’d beenthere.The old Ford house. My home. The house where I’d lived with the Fords, where they died, one by one, at my hand. I’d built a wall of obsidian around the memories, but they always found a way through. I locked down a flinch now as Cat led us off the road and into the woods towards the tin-roofed cottage where Nightmare had experimented on students.

Come on, Cai, don’t be a misery guts. Say you’ll go to the dance with me. Percy and Theo won’t come with me, and Baldric is too pompously busy, as always. You’re my last hope, Cai, say you’ll come.

Rosalind’s voice cut so deep I expected my chest to weep blood. I killed all of them under Nightmare’s control, but I didn’trememberthe others. Rosalind… I remembered every moment. And it was ripping me apart.

So, it was a lot easier to focus on the fiery emotion urging me to burn Madness from the inside out, to flay his skin meticulously with my magic, heightening every last second of his misery until he would ratherdiethan look at my wife again.

I should have been focused on the search for the antidotes, and I was—I hated the fear I saw in my Cat’s face, hated the self-loathing I recognised in her storm-grey eyes—but my emotions were in too much of a mess to concentrate. So I planned Madde’s murder, over and over, while Virgil kicked open the door to the small cottage and Tor summoned a flicker of shadow. Madness called up a whole fucking deluge, the show off.

“Overcompensating?” I asked sweetly, hanging back as Tor and Cat followed Virgil into the place where so many had been tortured and experimented on and, no doubt, killed. It was a horrible place, the pain and suffering hanging in the air until I could taste the blood. I should have been ashamed of the power that gave me, the way I felt stronger than I had since last night.

“Threatened?” Madness threw back with the same sugary acid. He looked delighted at the prospect.

Yes. And I didn’t fucking like it. “She ismywife.”

“Our wife,” he countered with a shit-eating grin. “Better make peace with that, Mizzy boy. I think she wants to keep me.”

“Unless she keeps you ina cage,it isn’t happening,” I hissed, keeping my voice low so it wouldn’t reach her as we crossed the threshold, the sense of misery and death even more concentrated than I remembered. Not that I’d been conscious of the power lingering here last time; I’d been a little more concerned with the fact my wife had become a jaguar with ram’s horns, claws, and killer teeth.

“Ooh,” Madde said, his constant optimism grinding my nerves, “like a puppy?”

I gave him a heavy look.

“You know, how mortals keep puppies in their cute little crates? If it’s like that, I amsogame. You should see the amenities some of these puppies have on Instagram, it’s like a little puppy paradise in there.”

He said it so genuinely that I wanted to smack the smile off his face. “You,” I snarled, casting a look around the cottage, my hackles rising at the blood soaked into the ground, both visible and invisible, “are not a puppy.”

He pouted.

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