Page 51 of All Hallows Trick

Honey giggle-snorted. “Return post haste.”

I laughed and left her at the kitchen island, skipping up the stairs to the bathroom on the first floor. Why Madde didn’t have a downstairs bathroom, I would never know. But I paused when I saw a red envelope had been pinned to door to my bedroom.

CAT, it said in sweeping cursive.

Giddiness made my stomach swoop as I pulled out the pin. Was it from Madde, or one of the others? A smile pulled at my lips as I cracked the silver wax seal on the back and pulled out the thick letter paper.

The smile dropped from my face instantly. It wasn’t a love note. The message was written in a dark, rusty ink that reminded me of dried blood. It even smelled coppery like blood. I read the words three times, my heart clattering against my ribs.

Your husband is dying, but I can save him. Meet me at Death’s garden. Tomorrow. 8PM.

CHAPTER TWENTY

CAT

Ihid the note between a copy of Aesop’s Fables and the Kama Sutra in the bedside table, but I felt the burn of those words all night. I could barely sleep, my heart refusing to slow down, my body too wound up to relax.

When I woke up the next morning, my head pounded and my mood was brittle, ragged. Listening to Madde chatter about anything and everything over breakfast had me grinding my teeth before I forced them open to choke down another mouthful of coffee. It was my favourite, and he must have gone to Earth to get it, but I couldn’t summon the will to care.

Your husband is dying, but I can save him. Meet me at Death’s garden. Tomorrow. 8PM.

Who? I rubbed my tired eyes, clutching my coffee in my other hand. Everything was so fucked up that I didn’t even know who the note meant. Misery—or Death? Another street had begun to slip away overnight, just vanishing into the blank nothingness that was eating the realm, and I knew it weakened Death everytime. I’d watched him obsessively last night after I convinced Honey to expand our girl’s night to include the guys. I’d watched themall,searching for signs of illness and decay. Tor still held himself stiffly, and I told myself it was just bruises but I couldn’t know for sure. Miz was hiding how bad he really was; that was the thing that messed with my head. I knew he kept experiencing flashes of pain, and even the wisps of magic he had before were gone, but I could tell there was more to it.

Who was dying? And who sent the note?

I went over and over it all day, my mind running in circles. It could be Nightmare trying to lure me out, but she couldn’t get into the domain. If she could, I knew damn well she’d have marched through the gates already and killed us all. It could have been one of her followers, but if they were setting up a trap, they’d say to meet at Ford’s End, not the castle.

It was someone from this realm, someone who wanted to meet in secret, mysterious, maybe even elusive. And someone close enough to us toknowone of my husbands was sick.

Your husband is dying, but I can save him.

It was either a glaring trap, and I’d be a fool to walk into it, or someone was trying to help us. But I couldn’t take the chance it was a trap. I wasn’t an idiot. If I went to the garden alone, I’d be murdered, or worse. I didn’t think there was much worse than turning into a monster perfectly content to slaughter my loved ones, but every time I thought things couldn’t get worse, theydid.I wasn’t keen to reach my next level of suffering. The smartest thing would be to ignore the note.

Well, the smartest thing would be to show someone, but I couldn’t. I kept it tucked away in the bedside drawer and told no one. Virgil knew something was wrong; he kept trying to get me to talk, stubbornly refusing to budge from my side until I gave him something.

“I hate this,” I hissed after an hour of coddling. “I hate what I am now, and westilldon’t have more of the antidote.” Madde’s master scientist was working on it, but it was taking too long and we had three vials left.Three.

Virgil had sighed and pulled me into a tight hug. He’d said only two words, “I know.” They were enough to make guilt scythe through my stomach. I didn’t like lying or keeping secrets. I didn’t even want to admit to myselfwhyI was keeping it a secret.

And if Virgil followed me around for most of the afternoon, Madde did the opposite. After breakfast, he avoided me like I was infectious, leaving a room the moment I entered it. It hurt, piercing the vulnerable parts of me that were already too tender.

“He regrets it,” I said in a small voice, my eyes burning as Miz pulled me into his side. The two of us sat on the cerise sofa in the plant-dominated sitting room at the back of the house, my laptop open in front of me with a passing attempt at coursework. I couldn’t concentrate, my mind fixed on those four words, over and over and over.Your husband is dying.

Miz squeezed my hip. “Who regrets what?”

“Madde,” I said through my swollen throat, my snappish attitude from the morning turning to heartache. “He regrets being with me last night. He’s been avoiding me all day.”

“Cat, that man is obsessed with you.” Misery tucked a strand of colourless hair behind my ear. “I guarantee he doesn’t regret anything. He’s probably just reacting to…”

I glanced away, pretending to read the information on my laptop screen. “To what?”

“To how you’ve been all day. You’re troubled, my universe, and we can all feel it.”

I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “I don’t mean to… to…” I waved a hand to encompass everything. “I’m just tired of pretending everything’s okay when it’s not. I’m scared, Miz.You’re getting weaker, Death’s pretending he’s fine, and Tor’s acting like he isn’t every bit as afraid as I am. Nothing is okay.”

Miz held me tighter, his lips feathering over my temple, so warm and sweet that he couldn’t possibly be dying. “It will be. We just need to get stronger and—”

“And take the block off your magic?” I asked. Pleaded. I locked gazes with him and hated the hesitance and pain darkening his golden eyes, pinching his brow.

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