Page 5 of All Hallows Trick

“We’ll be okay, little bride,” he promised, the eye contact settling me, those smoke-grey eyes calming my heart from a frantic sprint to a steady beat. “We’ll be safe here.”

Miz had stalked after Madness through a doorway under the dark staircase that led up to the mezzanine, disappearing into a room on the ground floor instead of scaling the stairs. He wouldn’t have gone with Madness if he didn’t believe we’d be okay here, too. Even if they weren’t friends with Madness, they all trusted him.

“Who is he?” I asked, aware of Tor leaning against me, his eyes fluttering, and aware of my brother and Honey hovering, listening.

“A god, like us. He’s one of the most psychotic, but the least cruel, so we consider him an ally. Plus, he’s never challenged me despite possessing an equal amount of power. Maybe even more power. That counts for a lot with me. He doesn’t hunger for status and control like most of the gods, so I trust him. To a point.”

“To a point,” I echoed, the phrase not exactly inspiring confidence. But I picked up my feet and he and I carried Tor towards the door Madness and Misery had flowed through.

“This whole thing is insane,” Honey breathed, scrubbing her hands over her face. I didn’t know what she’d done with the gun. “I shot Nightmare. IshotNightmare.”

“It was a good shot, too,” Death replied with a faint smile. “You likely saved all of us with that shot.”

“Oh, well, I’m not as impressive as a death god, but my dad taught me how to shoot.”

I laughed at that, selfishly glad she was here. “If your mum finds out about that, she’ll have a hernia.” Her very conservative vicar mother. I imagined how her face would turn purple, and the smile felt more natural on my face.

A clattering din shattered the quiet and I flinched into Tor, knocking a groan from him. Death shored us both up, bracing his feet on the polished floor. “It’s just the rain on the roof, little one. We’re safe now. You’re okay.”

You’re okay.I was okay. Death was here, my men were here, they had me, I was okay. I exhaled a ragged breath and nodded. I had a feeling whatever strength I had right now, whatever strange strength the sight of Madness had given me, it would flee the moment I knew my husbands would be okay.

“Oof, look at that nasty thing,” Madness was saying as we entered, leaning down with his nose wrinkled as he peered at Miz’s arm. “It’soozing.”

“What?”I demanded, leaning Tor into Death’s arms and rushing across the deep pink rug to Miz, barely noticing the warm living room around us, fire crackling from a mammoth fireplace to my left, a whole bank of glass windows on the wall behind the two death gods. All I saw was the gash on Miz’s arm that leaked a vicious black ichor as well as blood. “When did this happen?”

“I’m fine,” Misery said gently, lifting his good arm to curve his hand around the back of my head. “I’ve healed from worse. And I shouldn’t have said that,” he added at whatever he saw on my face.

“You should dismember anyone who ever hurt him,” Madness suggested seriously, “and rip out the hearts of every last one of them.”

“Yes,” I agreed, my chest swelling with a dark, violent need, the urge to slaughter everyone who’d ever hurt my man so strong my breath caught. “Wait.”

I jerked my face around to stare at Madness. He was watching me with a smile rounding his cheeks and something eerily close to adoration now in his eyes.

“That’s… but…” Those were the words my darkness spoke to me, that dangerous drive to kill that lived inside me, spoke to me. In Madness’s voice. It was the same voice.

“You’re my darkness,” I realised. My stomach plummeted. I didn’t know what this meant, how the hell it was even possible, but it explained why I kept waiting for true fear to hit me and it never did. Not just because Death trusted Madness, to a point, but because I… knew him.

Madness gasped loudly, his hands flying to his face, hearts decorating his knuckles, the backs of his hands inked with twohalves of a broken heart. His eyessparkled.I swore there were hearts in them, too. “You called meyours.”

I… hadn’t meant it that way. I didn’t understand his reaction. I didn’t understandanyof this. I was tired and stressed and I didn’t want to think about anything that had happened tonight. And as Madness clapped his hands with frantic excitement, twirling in a circle on the rug like his joy couldn’t be contained, this was officially too much for my head to compute.

“Oh! Doctor’s here!” he said, some of his bright, manic joy softening at the ragged relief I did a bad job of hiding. “Kinda weird that none of you have asked how Virgil and Honey are still alive, by the way. I thought you’d be shouting at me by now.”

“What?” I whipped my stare between him, my brother, and my best friend. “Why wouldn’t they be…?”

“Entering my domain is a death sentence to all living beings,” Death said with a roughness to his voice, a burr of emotion.

Shame, I realised with a pinch in my stomach. “Shit, I didn’t even think. I’m so sorry. Madness, how did you do it?”

“I put up a lovely bubble of enchantments after I caught the scent of my lioness here last week. As long as neither one of you cuties step foot outside the front door—or the back door, I suppose—you won’t wither and fade away. Easy peasy, no decease-y.”

“That’s not alarming at all,” Honey muttered, tiredness weighing on her as she sat on the arm of a deep red tufted chair.

Virgil just stared at the god, measuring him in a way that was both familiar and completely new. There was a dangerous edge to my brother now.

My lioness.

He deserves so much more. End him, lioness.

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