Page 71 of All Hallows Trick

Tor began to rise from the bed, but I gave him a wobbly smile that was meant to be reassuring. Madde strode across the floor and shattered my heart by pulling me into a squeezing hug.

Don’t leave,he breathed through the darkness, the words hitting me like a sledgehammer. I didn’t know if it was paranoia, or if he knew. He at least suspected.

Do you trust me?I whispered back, winding my arms around him and holding on desperately.

His answer came instantly.

Always.

I rolled up to kiss his jaw, struck anew by how tall he was, how strong and brave and loyal. My darkness made real.

“I just need a minute,” I said aloud, looking from him to Miz, watching me with a furrow of concern between his beautiful gold eyes; Death devastatingly beautiful even when he was hurt, looking one second away from leaping off the bed to come to my side even if he was weak; Tor hunched over the edge of the bed, turned to look at me over his shoulder with eyes so bleak and empty of their usual humour that it hurt to look at him, his tattooed hands curled up tight; and back to Madde, begging me with cashmere blue eyes, panic making his nostrils flare with rapid breaths, his body as tense as iron, like he was physically holding himself from me.

Just a minute.It was the biggest lie I’d ever told.

I barely felt the ground under my shoes as I walked into the hallway and down the stairs, ignoring the voices still coming from the sitting room, dragging myself through the front dooreven as my soulhowledat me to go back. It felt like I splintered myself in half. Like I’d never recover.

Cruelty waited at the bottom of the stone steps that flowed from Madde’s front door into the wide yard out front, still in her hooded bridal gown, looking almost sorry for me as she held out a hand.

“Don’t worry,” she said with a sympathetic smile that reminded me of Nightmare’s—so very close to convincing except for the soft bleat of an alarm in the back of my head. “You won’t be alone. We’re going to be best friends.”

I didn’t reply, didn’t accept the hand she held out, just walked past her towards the road down to the town. I didn’t know when I’d see it again. If I ever would.

But Miz was alive. Death and Tor were weak but they were safe, healing. Madde was strong; he’d be there for all of them, keeping them protected like he’d protected me.

Nightmare was gone. Poppy was dead. Her creatures had fled. I didn’t see what happened to the Stalker, but Poppy’s death had hit him hard. My men would be okay. It had all worked out. Even if it killed me to walk away, it had all worked out.

Cruelty’s hand snagged my wrist—and I gasped as the world warped around us, nothing like the darkness that had gathered me up and brought me here less than an hour ago. This was disorienting and made my stomach roil. When the magic set us down, we were back in front of Death’s castle. The sight of it made me falter, clutching my chest. I would miss this place almost as much as I’d miss the men I loved, and judging by the tiny smile on Cruelty’s face she knew and enjoyed my suffering.

I didn’t speak as she pulled me to the gates, not even as they swung open to let us through.

“Strange things, aren’t they?” she asked as we stepped through. “Gates? They’re completely useless without an anchor.”

I expected the winding moor road that led to Ford to spread out in front of us, but the gates opened up into thick forestland I didn’t recognise. Thick beech trees blotted out what light the moon offered, until all I could make out were their dense leaves and the knotted network of branches that reached through the dirt underfoot. This wasn’t Rosalind Woods. These were far older. I didn’t know where we were.

I glanced back, unable to help myself even though I knew it would be agony. I stumbled at the sight, ripping my wrist from Cruelty’s grip. I could see Death’s castle through the gates, now closed, but a thick white smog clouded the view.

“I’ve never seen the domain like that before,” I said, a catch in my breath.

“Haven’t you?” Cruelty tilted her head, coffee-brown hair spilling from her lace hood. “Didn’t you see the streets that faded from existence?”

It was suddenly hard to breathe, especially as the fog grew thicker, so dense I couldn’t make out the castle except for the rough spikes of towers. “That was you? You made those streets disappear?”

“Oh, no,” she laughed, twinkling and musical. “That was all you, Kitty.”

The blood drained from my face. “You’re lying.”

Her smile grew. “Am I?”

I jerked towards the gates as swirling fog wrapped around the bars of the gates, swallowing them. “What happens if the gates disappear? How do I get back?”

Cruelty took her time answering, savouring my distress as I reached for cold, reassuring iron and my fingers fell through mist. The gates were gone, and any view of the castle had vanished with them.

“You don’t,” she answered.

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