Page 116 of The Shadow Bride

Michal.

My chest seizes as the bathtub collides with his back, and his grasp on Death’s neck falters as the impact topples them both to the floor, which splinters beneath them.

Terror grips my heart.

Where half of the cottage fell away, the abyss yawns black, ancient, insidious, and the scents of roses and candle smoke—no,brimstone—rise from its infinite depths. They curl upward asMichal falls through the floorboards, and the bathtub falls with him—ontopof him, pinning his hips and legs and rendering him immobile. Trapped. Only his upper body remains visible through the smoke. His face, his chest, hisarms. The latter strain toward the heavy leg of the settee for leverage as the house continues to collapse around us. Toburn.

We need to get out of here.

Whatever Michal planned to do, he cannot do it with shattered legs. When I lunge toward him, however—desperate to help, to escape—Mathilde’s carafe cracks against my skull. Boiling café spills over my hair; it scalds my skin, melts myflesh, but I whirl just in time to catch the cart before it barrels into me too, shuddering with righteous indignation.

Death heaves himself upright with a bitter curse. “Thisfuckinghouse—”

He kicks aside Michal’s hand as flaming sugar cubes pelt his head, and I want to charge at him too, to tear him limb from limb like one of his precious revenants. The situation has grown too volatile, however; the entirecottagethreatens to plunge straight into whatever hell waits at the bottom of that chasm. It also seems to be—fightingus, somehow, if the carafe and cart and sugar cubes are any indication.Protecting Mathilde.Death’s presence might’ve unleashed this chasm, but clearly, her house still obeys its master, and it does not want us here.

Swinging the cart with all my might, I hurl it at the back of Death’s knees.

It collides with a sickeningcrack, and Death falls again. We have no time to celebrate, however, as Michal is still trapped. Though he twists to hoist the bathtub above him—his arms straining witheffort—his legs lie too still beneath it. Broken. Shattered.

Useless.

What are we going to do?

The black abyss edges my vision, until the world around us feels the same. Dark. Everything is so dark,toodark, and—and we’re trapped. The cottage quakes violently; it groans in an attempt to remain upright as I glance at Death, whose nose drips blood onto the settee. His hand curls slowly around its leg, and he snaps the wood with barely concealed rage. “Well, well,well, if it isn’t my meddling little wife. That was quite the cheap shot, wasn’t it? Not very submissive of you. Not verynice.”

Panic threatens to suffocate me, sharp claws squeezing my lungs, puncturing my chest, but when Michal’s gaze meets mine—fierce and hot—I rush forward, forcing myself to remain in the moment. Just like he taught me

Pick something, and describe it to me.

Ash stains Michal’s cheek—gray like a stormy night sky—as I grip the side of the bathtub—ivory clouds instead of gray—and together, we pitch the cast iron into the chasm. He tries to rise, his jaw set and his face white, but those legs cannot hold him. He collapses almost instantly.

When I wrap my arms around his waist to lift him, he grimaces and shakes his head. “The cottage won’t hold for much longer. We need torun—”

“I must confess”—Death stalks toward us with a hard smile—“I am growing rather tired of these antics.” Lifting the settee leg in his hand, he examines its sharp tip with interest, and my blood runs cold at the sight.

A stake.

An ominous silence descends as he presses the tip against his finger, drawing blood, and an evil smile splits his face.Oh God.My arms tighten around Michal. This is not a fight I can win without him, and he can hardly stand. Instinctively, my eyes dart around for another means of escape, finding none. We really are trapped.

Death knows it.

He strikes with the speed of an adder, swooping low, but I anticipate the movement, lashing out to knock the stake aside before diving sideways, around him.He will not kill me. I will not let him.He catches my wrist with his free hand, however. He snaps the bone like a twig in his fingers. Though stars burst across my vision and sharp, debilitating pain radiates up my arm, I stifle my scream because that pain is nothing,nothing, to the fist of terror that seizes my heart as Death flings my hand aside, as he brings the stake hurtling down.

Down.

Not toward me, but toward—

Michal turns at the last second, and it plunges into his side instead of his heart.

And now Iamscreaming; I am screaming, and Michal is curling inward, his entire body shuddering, clenching, as Death bares his teeth in a furious smile. “Rightthere between the ribs. Uncomfortable, isn’t it? Inconvenient.” His eyes flash when Michal clamps his teeth, refusing to make a sound even as Death pushes the wood deeper, as he twists it with brutal force. “Though perhaps not uncomfortable enough. Let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?”

The front door hurtles past us, the cauldron, the skulls, themantel.

In the next second, the roof goes too—it tears from the cottage with a thunderousboom, and the rooms around us tumble with it, faster now. Even Mathilde’s furniture cannot fight forever, vanishing into the abyss.

“Stop it! Please, we need toleave—” Tears stream down my face as I claw at Death’s hand, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t seem tocare. Instead he rips another leg from the settee when it flies past, and my eyes widen in horror. No. No, no,no—

I throw myself over Michal’s chest as Death stabs the second stake toward him, but Death shifts with the movement. Even in my periphery, the trajectory of his strike feels wrong, strange—and directed at me. Atme, finally, and not Michal, but the realization comes too late; it paralyzes my senses, and I cannot react fast enough, cannot do anything but watch as the stake hurtles down—

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