Page 117 of The Shadow Bride

Michal’s hand appears from nowhere to block the strike. Death doesn’t hesitate, however—grinning wildly now—driving the tip through Michal’s palm instead. Forcing it straight through the other side. And I do not think; I simply lunge.

I tear at the tendons in Death’s wrist, snarling and kicking and tackling him to the floor, but he seizes my hair with ease. He wrenches me off him—off my veryfeet—and my scalp nearly separates from my head as he snarls, “A couple of heroes. How touching.” Then, still grinning maniacally: “Shall I show you what Idoto heroes, my love? Shall I show you what awaits them in the end?”

Before I can answer, he seizes Michal’s broken ankle, and he drags the two of us outside.

Though I cannot see my mother, I hear her startled cry as he hurls us across the chasm, and we land in a crumpled heap beside an unconscious Odessa and Dimitri. I stifle a groan. Filippa hasbound them with silver chains, and the skin of their ankles and wrists smoke slightly, blistered and raw. A cross-shaped burn shines bright upon Dimitri’s cheek. It matches the necklace in Filippa’s clasped hands.

It also makes nosense. Dimitri served Death along with Filippa, unless—my eyes flit to Odessa, to the gash at her throat still bleeding freely—unless he fought to protect his sister. Unless he too drew his line in the sand. Dragging Michal into my lap, I wrench the stake from his ribs, his hand, fighting hysteria as he groans, his eyes fluttering.We will not die here.Michal will heal. Hehasto heal—

“It never needed to come to this.” Death bites each word, pacing in agitation as the last of Mathilde’s cottage slides into the abyss and the entire forest falls still. “We never needed to descend to such hostilities. Have I not beenperfectlypleasant?” He gestures wildly to the revenants, to Filippa, as if expecting each one to nod in fierce agreement, but our audience remains eerily silent. They do not revere him. They simply watch him, hollow-eyed, and await his next command.

Except Filippa. She stands beside my trembling mother and watchesme.

Death pays none of us any attention, however. He throws his arms wide, his strides lengthening as his agitation cracks open into full-blown rage. “Have I not asked nicely? Have I not painted a persuasive enough portrait? Everyone benefits when the veil comes down—everyone—yet somehow I am the villain in this wretched story. And how can I be otherwise when the heroes are so insufferable? When they refuse to see myvision?” Without warning, he seizes the nearest revenant, and it does not move as he rends its head from its shoulders. My mother screams, and I usethe distraction to tear up my sleeve, to slice open my hand on the edge of Dimitri’s chain. Though a phantom flash of silver appears near the chasm, I hastily duck my head, ignoring it, and bend low to whisper frantically in Michal’s ear.

“Drink.” I force my blood to his lips, and he groans, his eyes fluttering open. “Everything is going to be all right. Just drink,heal, and—”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Death kicks my hand aside with savage relish. “I’m not at all sure everything is going to be all right. I offered you a choice, after all, and you chose poorly. Now we must all suffer the consequences of your actions.” Snatching his foot, I sink my nails through his boot and try to yank him off-balance, to wrest him to the ground. Instead I wince as he seizes my throat. I mustn’t break, however; I need todistract—

“We will never—choose—you.” I buck in his grip, gasping as his fingers tighten. As they threaten to crush my windpipe. “You said it—yourself. True death is—balance, perspective, and—peace.” I scrabble at his wrist to draw his gaze, to drawalltheir gazes as that flash of silver solidifies, creeping closer. “The promise of life. Of meaning. It is not—our enemy.Youare. We will never—serve you. We will never help you corrupt—this realm.”

Instead of snarling as I expected, instead of baring his teeth and choking the life from me, Death nods solemnly. “I believe you,” he says.

Then he throws me to the ground and snatches the abandoned stake from the grass. “This consequence is your own, mon mariée.”

There is too much to comprehend in this moment, and it’s as though seconds flicker and fall like stars across the night sky. Images flash before me. Death. The stake.Michal.But I cannotunderstand—will not understand—the implication of Death’s white-knuckled grasp, of Michal’s eyes widening, of the grass and mud beneath my nails as I clamber forward, faster, faster, as my throat burns and blood roars in my ears. No, no, no, no.No.

I need to reach them. Michal cannot die. Nothim. Not ever—

“Enough.” The silver phantom streaks across the lawn, seizes Death’s wrist, and knocks the stake away. It lands beside me, rolling against my thigh as I finally reach Michal, and I pitch it as far as I can into the forest. It vanishes from view, and Mila smiles.

Mila.

She has not left us alone. ShesavedMichal, and now she—she—I frown, staring at the hand she holds surreptitiously behind her back. With the slightest movement, she rotates her index finger in a small circle before glancing back at me, and something in her eyes reminds me of another time. Another place.

Really, though, what do you expect when you repress your emotions? They have to go somewhere eventually, you know, and this realm is rather convenient.

She rotates her finger again, and suddenly, I understand. She wants me to tear through the veil. She wants us to escape through it, to give us a head start. A chance. I grab Michal’s hand, squeezing it once in reassurance. Because perhaps this really will be okay. We can free Odessa and Dimitri, battle the revenants, save my mother, and... and...

My heart constricts painfully in my chest as the thought withers. As it dies.With any luck at all.

When have I ever been lucky?

“You will leave them alone.” Mila speaks the words calmly, confidently, her hair billowing on the breeze as roses and brimstonethicken the air. She holds her head high, and she floats above Death, staring down at him like the monarch she would’ve been—like a queen, regal and unafraid. “Though you haven’t yet asked our opinion, those of us who exist between the realms of the living and the dead find you to be horribly, terribly”—she moves closer with each word until Death’s gaze narrows—“inconceivablyawful. Have you truly considered what this realm will look like without you? Whatanyrealm will look like without you?”

“The realmswillhave me—”

“No, they won’t.” She brushes a lock of his hair aside with obvious familiarity, tucking it behind his ear and trailing her fingers down his chin. The movement is strangely... sensual, and his gaze darkens in response. “They’re already losing you. Why else do you think everything is breaking—the veil, the witches, theworld?”

He caresses her hand on his face, a slow smile spreading across his lips, and I feel the change like lightning in my belly, terror striking me into action. I hook a swift finger in the veil near his feet. Concentrating on that first memory of Mila—on the laughing ghost who waltzed down my corridor—I begin to tear, but a hard boot crushes my hand.

“And that,” Death says, “was your final warning.”

Michal bolts upright. “Mila,run—”

For just an instant, I think she might escape, but that instant passes when Death plunges his hand straight through her chest to the place where her heart should be. But... her heart isn’t there; she is a ghost,of courseshe doesn’t have one. She grins at him, raising her brows in victory—and then he clenches his fist. His grip tightens on something glowing, brighter than the rest of her,hotter too, and she gasps in surprise.

“That’s interesting.” Death tilts his head, intrigued, as he examines his hand in her chest. “That’s very interesting.”

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