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“Nightmare is,” Miz corrected, his hands tightening on my waist. “We need to go. Something’s happening tonight and I don’t want you involved.”
I stared at the empty stretch of grass, and as much as I wanted to search the woods, the lake, and every building on campus until I found the hooded figure, I didn’t want to know. I wanted to cling to the last few scraps of doubt. It could be someone else. It might not be Byron.
“This way, Cat,” Misery said, something flat in his voice now. I wrapped my arm around his back, pulling him close. My own voice did that sometimes when I was overwhelmed.
“Miz?”
“We need to go this way,” he echoed, guiding me past the marquee and down the back of the laboratory building, the warm lights falling away here until the fog seemed less magical and more threatening. The twisted silhouettes of topiaries looked like watchful figures. I remembered the first time I met the guys, when fog had crept across the moors as Nightmare hunted me. I remembered her howl of frustration when Death stopped her with a veil of dark magic.
“Okay,” I soothed Miz, stroking his back. I didn’t know what had triggered his panic, but I could guess. The lake was too close here, and his memories must have been eating at him. “It’s okay, we’ll go this way.”
“Do you trust me?” he asked, trembling.
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation. I might not have trusted him two months ago, but I did now. He was an asshole sometimes, but he’d never physically hurt me. He’d never lied to me, unlike Byron. Did I still trust By…? I couldn’t answer that question until I spoke to him and found out what was going on.
It could be something innocent. He might not be working for Nightmare, stalking Ford students. I prayed for another explanation.
Miz led me across the manicured field where the garage sat, Rosalind Woods hugging the right edge of it. I kept my arm around him, kept him close for comfort, for warmth as the biting wind cut through my tulle dress. My fingers were so numb I could barely feel my silver clutch against my palm.
I scanned the field, and startled when I saw we weren’t the only ones here—ahead of us, strolling towards the garage was a squat female figure in a butter-yellow gown, her bronze skin luminous in the moonlight and long brown hair like a ribbon of silk down her back. For a moment, my heart stuttered and I thought it was Darya, but Darya was dead. I killed her.
I hugged Miz tighter, shivering against the cold both inside and outside my body. I wished Tor and Death were here, too, wanted them all at my back, wanted the safety of knowing they were with me.
“Are you okay?” I asked Miz.
Ahead of us, the woman in the yellow dress turned at the sound. My breath strangled in my throat.
I shook my head, staring at the woman, time slowing until she faced forward and began to run.
It was impossible. I stabbed her. She died. Death had to dispose of her body. But there was no denying it. The woman in the yellow dress was Darya.
I didn’t stop to think. I ran after her.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CAT
Darya fled past the garage and over a low wall onto the moors. I tore the tulle skirt of my dress climbing after her, but I didn’t stop to inspect the damage. I ran until I was out of breath, using the moonlight to see the rough grasses and heather underfoot. The Christmas scent of the gala had given way to wild grass and cold, biting air.
“Call Death and Tor,” I called as I ran, breathless and strained.
“Already done,” Miz replied, his stress at an all-time high because his voice was even flatter. I wanted to stop to hug him, but I couldn’t let Darya get away. I needed answers.
I killed her. But there she was, running across the moors ahead of me, the skirts of her yellow dress flying behind her. There was no mistaking it was her, even in the silvered light. She was alive.
“Darya!” I shouted. “Stop!” And because she might think I’d come to kill her again, I breathlessly added, “I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to talk. Please.”
But she didn’t slow, let alone stop. A stitch pulled across my side, until pain flashed like lightning through my body, my breathing strained and sharp.
“Stay close,” I panted to Miz, lifting the skirts of my dress above my ankles so I could run faster, never taking my eyes off the yellow dress streaking across the moors ahead of me.
I didn’t stop to wonder why Darya was running, didn’t think she might be leading me on an intentional chase until a cloud passed over the moon, casting the island into temporary darkness.
When it cleared, light beaming down on the moors again, Darya was no longer running. She stood a few metres ahead of where I ground to a sudden stop, a tall, robed figure and a familiar, smiling woman beside her.
Nightmare.
Darya had led me into a trap.
