“You drifted into a daydream, silly,” Cruelty chided, tapping my notebook. I still gripped the filigree pen, my sentence incomplete atI will not break.
She didn’t know. There’d be no concealing the rage in her face if she knew what I’d just seen. Unless it was another trick, and she’dgivenme the vision.
I shook my head and resumed writing.
CHAPTER 29
DEATH
“We should burn it,” Tor said in a quiet growl, the five of us grouped close together, heads bowed as we inspected the envelope that had just fluttered, on its own ghostly wind, through the open window on the library mezzanine where we monitored Cat’s detention. “Before Cat sees it.”
“Before Cat seeswhat?”the woman herself asked in a frosty voice. When we turned to face the corridor behind us, Cat stood there with her arms crossed over her grey blouse and an eyebrow arched. The reproach in her expression was the only thing keeping my eyes from dipping to the collar of her shirt and the cleavage I could see there from the corner of my eye.
I pushed back the urge to swoop her into my arms, tear off her clothes, and fuck her against the balustrade railing, uncaring of anyone in the library around us. The vision was distracting enough that my wife was able to slip around me and snatch theenvelope from my pocket. She gave me a dirty look as she lifted the ripped edge and slid out the paper from inside.
Meet me at the bookshop in Ford’s End. Only bring one of your bonded.
O.F.
“O.F,” she mused, a furrow between her brows.
“It’s clearly a trap, and we’re not stupid enough to fall for it,” Tor said, a burr in his voice as he took the letter from her and stashed it in a pocket of his dark jeans.
“O.F. Orwell Ford,” Pain said, with a strange note to his voice. “We can trust him. Even if he’s a prick,” he added.
“You have history with him,” Cat guessed.
“Not that kind,” Pain said hurriedly. “But we’re friends.”
“Yeah, it sounds like it,” Tor muttered. “Let’s get out of here and figure out which two of us are going to meet the fucker.”
“Me,” Cat said, giving him a look that dared him to argue.
“Not a fucking chance, my beautiful little succulent.” Tor took her shoulders and turned her towards the staircase, dropping a kiss on her head. “You can stay here, where no one will attempt to murder you.”
“Good idea,” she snarked. “Let me stay in the school run by the personifications ofViolenceandCruelty.”
Tor tried to argue with that one and failed.
CHAPTER 30
CAT
The bookshop in Ford’s End was a little hole-in-the-wall shop between a florist that had its windows and door boarded up1 and a tearoom that was full inside and empty outside because of the drizzle that hung in the air. It was a dreary and grey day over the village; I wrapped my wool coat tighter around myself as Death opened the bookshop door for me, both of us pretending not to see the new statues that lined either side of the short street.
Did these statues have people trapped inside like the statues at the masquerades and in Darkmore Manor? I promised myself we’d help them when we’d found Peach, and ducked inside the dry haven of the bookshop, searching its narrow aisles and buckling shelves. What space remained on the floor was eaten up by stacks as tall as I was, making the whole room smell like paper and ink.
I didn’t see Orwell anywhere, and with his new stature he was pretty hard to miss. Poppy had conducted experiments on him,turned him into a super soldier with massive shoulders, hands like slabs of meat, and the sunny disposition of a serial killer.
We moved deeper into the shop, scanning the cluttered space and wary of traps. Tor was probably right that this was meant to lure us away from Ford, but it was too late now to turn back. If Cruelty was behind this, the door would have locked the moment we closed the door. Or maybe the bookshop didn’t exist, and this was an elaborate scheme.
We wove through the winding rows of stacks, passing a few shoppers and an ordinary looking teenager on the cash register. Nothing out of place.
Yet.
“Cat,” Death breathed, catching my arm to stop me. He was looking at the rack of newspapers. Today’s, judging by the date.
“What is it?” I asked, frowning as we approached the stand.
