“I can keep going,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
He smiled. That predator’s mouth curving upward, sending a shiver up my spine. “Good. Surrender becomes easier, the more you do it. And I will help in ways I can. Remind me, and I will give you an herb to stop your monthly flux. That will help you shed the limitations of your sex and allow you to more easily overcome your will.”
It unsettled me to hear him talk so casually about something so intimate, but maybe because he was so direct. The moment lingered, turning awkward and strange. I dipped my head to make it less embarrassing. “How did you become Death?” I asked.
“I …” But he stopped, as if struggling for words. I thought he would ignore the question like he did so many other times, but he began again. “A long time ago, I was conscripted, you could say. The last time I was powerless.” But he stopped and pressed his mouth tight. I felt the edge of his secrets in that silence, and they stood firm against me.
There was someone behind this mask of Death. Shaped like a man, vulnerable, despite the strange shimmer of shadow warping around him. A thousand other questions flew to the tip of my tongue—who had he been before this role? He spoke as if he still remembered thathumanity now, even in this form. Maybe I could glimpse the man behind this strange shadow god.
“I’ll return you to your rooms,” he said abruptly, as if he’d heard my thoughts and become uncomfortable. He reached down, lifting me out of the moment where I’d gotten stuck.
I wasn’t the only one who could feel laid bare. I followed him with a lowered head and a small, secret smile.
He led me to a hallway, long and tucked deep inside the labyrinth of the house. The pain in my ribs nearly cut off my breath entirely, but this time he went slowly. I’d done what he asked, I’d gotten his reward, and now the exaltation flooded my blood with relief.
“I will not be with you always,” he said. “I must be gone long stretches to fulfill my duties. When I am gone, you will need to surrender to my home, to my rules. I will leave tasks for you to continue your training, and I expect to see progress even without me.”
“Oh,” I said rather stupidly. Foolishly, I hadn’t thought of Death outside his home, outside of me.
He stopped at the top of another long corridor, dotted with closed doors and torches flickering in a peaceful silence. “In this hallway are many rooms. I have prepared trials for you to work through while I am gone.”
I did not want to be alone in this strange house. I thought of the leering ceiling, the way things just appeared. “Lord …”
“Do not fear,” he interrupted. “Nothing will take your life. I am master over your time, especially here in my own home. But each trial will be difficult. They are for you alone. When I return, we will continue together.” He pulled a ring of keys from his cloak. “Here are the keys to the house. You are only to use the ones that fit this hall. No other doors. Remember, you must be in your room before nightfall, and you cannot leave before sunrise. No matter what you think you hear or see.”
He stepped closer, suddenly angling the full attention of his bodytoward me. The keys hung off his extended finger—a thick, iron ring. Despite the beauty of his face and all that we had just shared only a moment ago, his expression was empty—like it had all been locked deep inside and maybe even forgotten.
But I had not forgotten. I had perceived that humanity, that vulnerability behind his mask, and though I was woefully inferior in status and skill, I squared my shoulders, looking up at him as an equal. “I will show you,” I said softly.
XII.
Once Upon a Time, There Was a Man
Idreamed I was lost again. Separated from him and so it had all returned to ruins. The roses that led me to him, now a trail of blood, spilling between my fingers and dripping onto the stones. No creature came to lick at the blood trail, and this, more than anything, made me uneasy. Where were the spirits? The monsters? The things I had always seen and longed to be free from? Shouldn’t they be here, in Death’s domain?
It was just a dream, I told myself. If I had the key, I could cross back over. I only needed to find the key. I clutched at my dress, but it was the shift I’d been buried in—the one I had burned—and there was no key. I was so foolish not to have held it tighter. How had I lost it? I ran through the hallway, looking for where I might have dropped it. But all the halls were the same. Had I noticed that before? Whispers crowded in the thickening air behind me. But there was no one. Only shadows. They shifted—the faint outline of purple, bruised bodies. They were different—corpses not souls, but maybe this is how they looked in his realm. They wanted me to join them. They were hunger and nightfall, a curtain falling between this world and the next. I would not get trapped here.
If I focused, I could feel the hard edges of iron, but when I looked in my hand, it was only blood, thickened and sticky. It stretched as I pulled my fingers apart. Scarlet threads, sewed through my fingertipslike a doll. I wiped it away, but it was still there, drawing me tighter and tighter together, cutting into my throat, into my ankles. Somewhere far away the wolves howled from the forest.
I ran and I ran. I was trapped and night fell.
When I woke, the light was gray. I blinked at the heavy wooden beams girding the ceiling, my heart still pounding from fear. Above me, the ceiling rippled. At first, I thought it was a trick of my sight, blurry from sleep, and I blinked rapidly. But the beams, once fixed, were now liquid. The carvings unspooled. I couldn’t move. Something was holding me down. Watching. The ceiling warped into a pair of leering eyes. The darkness laughed.
I bolted upright.
It was a dream. Only dreams. My chest heaved, drenched in sweat, heart pounding under my skull with so much intensity it nearly made me sick. Was I truly awake this time?
The room was a normal kind of quiet, bathed in the flat light of midday. The ceiling beams and trim did not look back at me. Shadows collected only in the deepest blue corners, and I stared at them, frozen until I was sure they did not move. Finally, I felt assured my nightmares were only nightmares and pushed back the blankets.
As he’d promised, food was laid out on the little table. I sat gingerly, taking my time to eat and drink, listening to the silence as I chewed.
When he didn’t appear in a storm of shadows, I felt confident he had truly left. I put down my food and untied my shift at the neck, sliding one bare arm and breast out into the sun and craning my sore neck at the injury. It wasn’t hard to spot, even in such a difficult place to fully see. The angry black-and-purple bruise spread over my rib cage, and bright red abrasions dotted the surface with a mottle of colors.
How was I going to do any tests while in such a state? I knew from experience with Maxime that this injury would take weeks to heal on its own. Until then, I’d have a hard time moving or even breathing without pain. I groaned and the sound seemed overly loud—too human, toobase. Pulling the shift back over my shoulder, I tied the neck. My head pulsed in unrelenting protest. What was I supposed to do?
The memory of Valerie’s weathered hands smoothing a poultice on my leg drifted in my head as if in answer. And then, slowly, a hazy memory returned to me. I’d fallen out of a tree picking apples to throw at some village boys who’d pulled Rochelle’s hair. Valerie had found me screaming in the grass. After she’d reset the shoulder joint, she treated the heavy bruise with a poultice. It had smelled green and sharp. For a moment, the memory seemed so close it was as if I could smell it again. But just as quickly, it turned to fat, hot and crispy, and I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat and pushed away the food.
I knew what herbs I needed and where to find them, but that meant going back into the forest. Out my window it looked like a dark sea, and I imagined swimming with creatures eager to swallow me whole. I thought about trying to reach for them, like I did eggs in the yard, but then scoffed at myself. Eggs were already there, waiting. The herbs I needed must be sought. There was no other way: I’d have to leave the safety of my room. I picked up the clothes from the chair—another wool tunic, a pair of thick wool stockings, and … a cloak. I dropped it quickly. A strange prickling feeling rose along my spine.
