Ninety-nine.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety—
“Cat.”
I jumped as a voice intruded in my bedroom. Not Mum or Dad’s voices, not even my brothers’. I knew this voice, but Icouldn’t.I couldn’t allow myself to remember. Everything outside my room hurt too much.
I wrapped my arms around myself and hunched my shoulders, pretending I couldn’t hear even if something crumpled in my chest and tears gathered in my eyes. The bedroom blurred, navy blue walls, my four-poster bed, the wardrobe full of clothes, and Polaroids of Honey, Byron and I turning into one big smear.
“Little Bride.”
The voice was so tender, rich with affection and worry. I squeezed my eyes shut, my breathing hitching, cracking. “I can’t go back.”
“You can’t stay here, my universe.”
I covered my face with my hands, a sob crushing all the air from my chest. Were they all here? Had all my husbands come to find me?
“I don’t want to leave,” I confessed, the tremble in my voice moving to my hands when arms came around me, squeezing so tightly that they could only belong to Madde.
“We’ll stay here with you then,” he said, resting his head on my shoulder and taking a long breath. “We’ll live here forever.”
“We can’t,” Death said carefully. “This is Cat’s mind.” When gentle fingers moved through my hair, stroking comfort right down to my soul, I knew it was him.
I waited for Tor to snatch me away and accuse them of hogging me, but it was Miz who pressed a long kiss to my forehead, his scent a delicate brush of snow and violets. “You’re safe now, Cat, we’ve got you. And I willneverlet anyone hurt you that way again. It’s over.”
I blinked the tears from my eyes and had to fight back a fresh wave of them when I saw them. Death, Madde, Miz, and Pain. “Cruelty… is she dead?”
Pain ran his hand through his curls, wincing. That was answer enough.
“So I’m not safe,” I rasped, swallowing the knot in my throat. “If I leave, she’ll find me, and Violence—”
“I’m going to kill him,” Madde interrupted in a rush, his eyes feverish. “I’m going to rip his tongue out, and stab all his balls—both the eye and testicle variety—and I’m going to find a rack, and stretch and stretch until all his limbs pop off and—”
My sob made him fall silent. I didn’t know how to explain it was a rush of emotion, a hot torrent of tears pouring down my cheeks because I’d missed him, missed all of them. And sitting here in my room, hiding, lying to myself… it kept me safe, but at a cost.
“Group hug,” Madde declared, grabbing Pain and pulling him into us, throwing his arms around all of us. “We’re going to be fine, because I’m going to make all our enemies eunuchs and—what do you call a headless chicken?”
“A headless chicken,” Pain suggested, winding his arms around my middle but carefully, as if I was injured. Was I—outside? Was I still cut in all the places Violence had carved into me?
“Yeah,” Madde agreed. “That.”
I swallowed, gathered all my nerves, and looked at Miz and Death, their silence making my chest hurt. Guilt wound like a parasite through my blood. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Little one,” Death breathed, his eyes so sad when they met mine. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” I opened my mouth to disagree. “I don’t want to hear that word from you again. Understand?”
A smile touched the edges of my mouth. “Yeah,” I rasped. “I understand.”
I looked from him to Miz, hoping they’d acknowledge what I didn’t have the nerve to ask. A lead weight crushed my chest, so real and solid it ought to leave a mark on my skin. I’d been trying not to notice the shadow hovering over us, the gaping hole, the eerie silence where a voice full of gravel and love and snark should have filled it. But I couldn’t deny it anymore.
“Where’s Tor?”
For a moment, they all wore the same expression. Hurt, blended with reluctance and guilt. It was the grief that sharpened Misery’s stare, that painted a sheen across his beautiful gold eyes, that terrified me.
“Where’s Tor?”I demanded, fear making my voice hard, loud. I pulled away from my husbands, cold rushing into every corner of my body. My heart quickened, casting itself against my ribcage over and over. “Where is he? Where is my husband?”
“Gone,” Miz croaked. “Cruelty took him.”
