Page 62 of All Hallows Trick

“Like I was saying,” Honey said, sharp with annoyance, “this ismymoment. You may have done all those things, but you didn’t trick Cat into thinking I was her best friend. That wasme.”

My paws faltered. It was harder to push away the words she’d spoken and the fact there was a hole blast through my shoulder by my best friend.

I’m just borrowing her face. Honey is dead.

“It was so easy to kill her,” Honey said, her voice too high, too clear. A sweet, tinkling voice that made my skin itch. “Are you listening, Cat? Did you know your sweet, innocent best friend murdered a professor? It was eating her up inside, day after day. The roses I sent her probably didn’t help. Did you know red roses are the flower of Lancashire?”

Lancashire. Professor Lancashire… God. Honey had killed him, had been suffering with that all this time, and she hadn’t told me. No, this was Phil lying. I shook my head, fur trembling, and kept moving, ignoring the hot drip of blood across my fur. I was leaving a trail of it, but I ignored that, too.

“Honey wasgladwhen I killed her. I saw it in her eyes—the gratitude.”

The abrupt shift in her voice, clearer, higher, pealing like a bell, made my head whip around to her. The bottom crashed out of my stomach. It wasn’t Honey holding the gun; it was the woman who left the message, who told me to meet her here. She was wearing the same lace gown and hood she did an hour ago. Why did she come back—because of Nightmare? It didn’t matter. It wasn’t Honey, wasn’t even Phil. Honey had never been here at all. She must be safe back at Ford, far away from this woman and Nightmare. That was good. She should stay there, safe.

“Aren’t you wondering when it happened?” She asked, the train of her gown whispering over the ground. “Aren’t you wondering how long I’ve been impersonating your friend?”

I shook my head like I could dislodge her words but they burrowed, locking in my mind. Honey wasn’t dead. I hadn’t lost her like I lost Byron. She wasfine.I gulped down air, the scent of violets from the trampled flowers overpowering everything for a moment.

“I was watching you all the night you found Virgil—you included, Nightmare. I watched youa lot.”

“Just hurry up your monologue,” Nightmare snapped, tossing Madde aside like she was bored of him. “I have things to do here.”

“Oh, I know,” the woman who’d pretended to be Honey purred. “Where do you think you got all your ideas?”

I jumped across the path when Madde fell to the dirt, a soft grunt his only response. I nudged him with my nose, choking back a gasp at a fiery arrow of pain across my ribs. I shouldn’t have moved so fast. Fuck. The world spun at the edges of my vision.

Madde, open your eyes. Look at me. You said you’d deny me nothing, so open your eyes.

The wounds in his throat had slowed bleeding but the fact he was unconscious, just like Tor, had cold clashing with the flames of pain tearing through me. He’d wake up; they’d both wake up. They had to. I couldn’t lose them like I’d lost Byron, like this psycho bride wanted me to think I’d lost Honey.

“It was me since Nightmare confronted you on that moors road,” she said, noticing my attention on her, a slow smile softening her porcelain face. “I was the one with the gun.” She lifted the shotgun for emphasis, waving it at Nightmare, then me on the ground beside Madde. “I came to Madness’s castle with you. Honey has been dead for over a week.” She laughed at the expression on my face, my horror visible even in jaguar features. She had to be lying, but…what ifa tiny voice whispered. What if she was telling the truth?

Tiny little things came to me. Honey shooting Nightmare when she’d never known how to shoot. The way her laugh had been louder this week, completely different to her subdued laugh since Halloween.

Just because I can rock the look doesn’t mean I want to be furry again.

You were never furry.

I shook my head and nudged Madde. I needed him to wake up. I needed us to find Tor and go home where none of this could touch me.

“It was my idea,” Nightmare informed me smugly.

The other woman laughed. “It’s charming that you think so.”

Something was happening, a shift of power, and it turned my blood to ice. We had to get out of here. Madde was unconscious and I’d promised to keep him safe. I wouldn’t let him down.

Nightmare turned her back to us, and I seized the chance, dragging a breath through my nose, the scent of blood and mud and violets thick in my throat as I carefully picked up Madde in my teeth. I kept low to the ground as I backed towards the castle, no plan except panic driving me to get inside and hide.

My leg buckled when Madde’s limp legs hit the bleeding hole in my side, and a whimper escaped before I could trap it. The back of my neck tingled, fur standing on end. I staggered faster, my legs unsteady, pain hammering at me in a hot, insistent beat. I choked down breath after breath, aware the voices behind me had fallen silent. My heart threw itself against my ribs.

“Oh, Kitty?” the woman called, her voice singsong.

I broke into a run, the pain debilitating. I crashed to the ground, hauled myself up, and kept running. I was too hot. The pain crested a wave thatkeptcresting.

“Stop there, won’t you, dear?”

My legs slammed to a halt, my whole body freezing like someone had grabbed me and held me still.No. Not this again.I couldn’t take it, not after Nightmare controlled me and made me deliver Darya to her death.

I heaved on my paws, begging them to lift from the ground, threw myself sideways and silently growled when I didn’t budge. If Nightmare had held me in wicked claws, digging sharp tips into my soul, these bindings were like the elaborate strings of apuppet master. No matter which way I ran or shifted or threw myself against the cage of my body, she held me still.

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