Our steps were mere whispers, but my breathing was so loud I was certain the sibling gods would hear it and snatch us away before we could reach the top stair.
It’s a lovely place for an accident, this staircase,Madde said, right behind me as I scaled the stairs, the scent of dust, history,and malice filling my lungs as I choked down breath after breath.It would be so easy to break someone’s neck here.
Madde,I chided, even though I needed his voice in my head, needed to cling to his darkness so I could take one step after another.
I think he sensed that too, because he shrugged, an incorrigible grin on his face when a bend in the staircase gave me a view of him.What? I’m just saying. This is a very desirable murder spot. Prime neck breaking location. Anyone would be lucky to die in a place so cold, creepy, and haunted like this.
The thought of hauntings made me think of Darya, whose ghost helped Miz kill Byron, but I didn’t want to think about that. I wanted to remember him living, so bright with life and love and sarcasm. I wanted—
I gasped, a hand flying to my chest, and I faltered on the next step as the ghostly tug in my chest burst into sudden clarity.
“Did you feel that?” Pain asked nervously. “That was a ward. We just tripped a perimeter.”
“That means we’re going in the right direction,” Miz breathed, hope bathing our bond in warmth.
“And we need to hurry,” Death added. “They’ll know we’re rescuing him.”
“I can feel him,” I said as we quickened our steps, our feet no longer whispering on the old stone, but there was no point in stealth now we’d alerted Cruelty and Violence. And for the first time since the manor, I wasn’t suffocated by fear at the thought of them. All my focus was on the sensation growing within me. Heat and reassurance. The low growl of a threat, the way Tor always threatened anyone who hurt me. “I can feel him!”
I raced up the staircase faster, throwing everything I had at that feeling of Tor, holding onto it and petrified it would unravel from my grasp.
“Right,” I panted when we reached the top. We were at the very top of the spire, I realised with a glance out the narrow window. We must have been just under the roof. Higher than I’d ever been before, because no one came up here. A perfect prison to hide someone you didn’t want to be found.
A short corridor met us at the top, and Miz wasted no time racing right as I directed. There was a single door at the end, the wood painted a dark grey, secured by an ordinary looking lock.
“I can break it,” Pain panted, brushing his hand over my lower back.
“I’ll do it,” Death said with a shake of his head, pausing to kiss my cheek as he moved to the front of the group. “We might need your magic when—”
He didn’t need to finish. The thought was abhorrent. We might need his pain management when we got Tor out of this room, because he might bethatbadly injured.
My stomach twisted, coiled. I saw my hurt and fear reflected in Death’s stiff back as he strode down the hallway, in Miz’s golden eyes as he ground his jaw, in the twitch of his hands before they curled into fists at his sides.
“No matter what, he’ll be okay,” I whispered, reaching forward to stroke my thumb over his coiled fist. “We’ll make sure of it.”
Miz jerked his head in a nod, and I would have thought it was rage that kept his mouth shut if I couldn’t feel the searing pain of him fighting back tears through our bond.
Shadows pooled around Death, as we crossed the short hallway, the back of my neck tingling as I waited to be caught. How long would we have to get Tor out before the gods responded to that trip wire?
Quicker,I began to urge my men, but what emerged instead was a cry so sharp and high it echoed off the stone ceiling.
Death stumbled, and a ripple of pearlescent shadow moved across the hallway. A shield—another shield. And it had hurt my husband.
“Death,” I breathed, launching forward to catch him when his knees buckled. “Where are you hurt? Tell me where, and we’ll fix it.”
Pain was already kneeling beside us when we hit the ground, his hands hovering over Death’s chest, shadows entwined with his long, artist’s fingers.
I pulled at the loose black shirt wrapping Death’s chest, searching for blood, for wounds, for claws that had ripped deep into his flesh and torn through the muscle beneath. I could feel it raking through my skin, feel the punch of pain, and the thought of Death experiencing something even remotely similar made me want to scream.
“There’s no blood,” I blurted, finding it harder to breathe as his soul erupted with suffering. “But I can feel how badly it hurts. The magic—”
“Cat,” Death breathed, his eyes fluttering.
“No, don’t close your eyes!” I pleaded. “Death.” I clutched his hand and squeezed. “Daddy, please—”
We all heard it. The absence of sound. A cluster of heartbeats, then—silence.
His heart had stopped.
