“What?” I demanded at the same time Pain blurted, “You’re out of your damn mind.”
“Duh. Madness.” Madde tipped the goblet to his mouth and swallowed some of the pearly liquid before we could stop him.I practically crawled across Miz to get to him, scanning him for sudden signs of sickness or poison.
“Tastes like fish,” Madde said, wrinkling his nose. “Your turn next, my lioness.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to, now I knew it had eau de tuna. “You’re alright, though? You don’t feel faint or hot or sick?”
“Super hot,” he said, kissing the tip of my nose as I ran my hands over his face, neck, and chest, “but like in the normal, sexy way.”
I took the goblet from him and kept Tor’s face in my mind as I choked down a mouthful. The taste made me gag but I handed the goblet to Death. “It’s fine. Doesn’t taste like a sardine and strawberry soupat all.”
The goblet made its way around the circle, and I tried not to wince too hard when Pain sloshed some of the pearly liquid down his shirt.
“It’s not a big stain, right?” he asked, returning the dregs of the potion to Madde, who for some reason slurped it down like it was an ice cream shake.
“No, only tiny,” I promised Pain, even if the smear was as big as my hand. “So, what happens now?” I asked Madde.
He wiggled his fingers. “Now, we walk through that nasty little shield and get back our grumpy brother-husband.”
CHAPTER 24
TORMENT
Iresisted banging my head against the warped glass of the mirror when it showed me another random vision instead of my family. Hell, I’d happily see the frowning face of Neglect right now.
“Show meCat,”I tried for the tenth time in the last few hours. “No, not an actual cat,” I growled when the glass flickered and showed the interior of a different room. Not the box room with its rounded walls that I’d spent too damn long staring at. A different building, in a place where the sea was visible through a window opposite. Unfamiliar, but not Darkmore Manor. Not wherever they’d brought me to, either.
A grey cat trotted across the broad stones that made up the floor, its tail high in the air and stomping gait full of importance and confidence.
“Hey, where are you going, kitty?” a familiar voice called. Cruelty. I gnashed my teeth when she came into view, trailing lace from the wedding gown she never took off. “Ha, caughtyou,” she said when she’d snatched the cat up off the floor, cuddling it to her chest despite its attempts to squirm free.
“You can’t run away, kitty,” she chided the animal as I snarled, my lip curled back from my teeth and pure hatred racing through my veins. How the fuck dare she have a normal life, all picturesque and quaint and shit? Although there was nothing quaint about the churning waves outside and the angle that suggested this was another fucking palace. I tried to gauge if it was in Death’s domain, but it was impossible with the tiny glint of scenery I could see through the window. The scent in the air was tropical—sunshine and ocean salt and lemons. Not helpful, either.
“You need to stay with me,” Cruelty said to the cat, her voice high and babying. “We’re almost packed, then we’re leaving. You’ll like that, won’t you? I’ll get you a big room in our new home, with scratching posts and as many toys as you want. I just have to find the last Cruelty, get him to take back his job, and we can have thebestlife! Just you and me, living happily ever after forever, with no stupid rules, no cruelty to sow, no death and pain and suffering, just happiness!”
I narrowed my eyes, leaning closer to the glass. It wasn’t possible for a previous death god to return to their position. From what I knew—which wasn’t much—when we died like this, when the last seed of magic keeping us alive as a death god faded, we’d move into a new life. But remember nothing that came before it.
If Cruelty thought it was possible, she was deluded. But shewasdeluded. The last Cruelty… It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her mention him in these glimpses through the mirror, but it was the first I’d heard her hint at why she wanted to find him. And a stone sank fast in my stomach when I remembered he wasn’t the only person she wanted to find, to the point of obsession.
“Fuck,” I grunted, the sound of my voice enough to make the vision swirl and dance away. When the ripples cleared from the mirror, it was to show a face pressed to the glass, eyes so bright they practically glowed and a grin hooked so wide it was like the Cheshire fucking cat.
“Jesus!” I yelled, startling into the back of the mirror.
“Hi, Tor!” Madness said happily. “Did you miss me?”
I inched forward a step. “Are you real?”
“There’s no faking this level of crazy,” he informed me proudly, then glanced over his shoulder at—I had to blink the sting from my eyes—Death, Cat, Miz, and Pain.
“You bastards took long enough,” I growled, mostly to cover up the strangling lump in my throat. They found me. Despite Cruelty’s and Violence’s taunts that they’d never find me where they’d stashed me, they actually did it. “Get me the fuck out of this thing.”
“That’s a slight problem,” Death said with that soft burr to his voice and the look in his eyes that told me I was screwed, and he was trying to soften the blow.
But Madness shook his head with a scoff. “No, it’s not. No problemo whatsoevo.”
“Are you okay?” Miz demanded, hoarsely enough that I knew his head had been a mess over me being trapped here. Cat was right behind him, the two of them rushing at the mirror as Madde pressed his palms against the spotted surface of the glass and—reached inside.
“How the fuck?” I blurted, but I didn’t struggle when the mad bastard grabbed my arms and pulled me through. The mirror fought, clinging to me like the hands of a hundred greedy ghosts, but then my head whipped forward on my neck, my feet scrambled to meet the floor, and I was free.
