I held out my hand and he rushed to knit our fingers together, his face collapsing, voice ragged when he said, “I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t bound my magic, you wouldn’t have gone to Cruelty to save me and—”
I stroked his jaw with my thumb, leaning up to kiss the apology from his lips. “Remember what Death said earlier?”
A surliness darkened his eyes. “You have nothing to apologise for.”
“That applies to you, too. You’re not the mastermind behind all this, and you never could have guessed what would have happened. No one could. Cruelty’s a master manipulator. She plays games none of us could predict.”
His throat rose and fell with a swallow but his eyes darkened, hardened. “I want her dead. I want thembothdead. I want them to suffer, to know how it feels to be terrified, to know misery so acute their hearts give out.”
“Sounds good,” I said with a weak smile. “This time, we’ll makethemscream.” I glanced at the pit, the yawning void beckoning me closer, promising a return to my body. To pain and hell, but care and heaven, too. “Jump on three?”
“Uh, am I the only one a tiny bit terrified at the thought of jumping into a black hole?” Pain asked, edging closer to me but warily avoiding the pit. “Call me crazy, but pit jumping is not on my list of hobbies.”
“It’ll be fun,” Madde said with wildly different energy. “Like a trampoline, except there’s no bottom.”
“Yay, broken limbs. Are you sure this is the only way out, darling woe?”
“I’m sure.”
“Oh, that’s a cute name. Great job.” Madde held his hand out for a high-five. I suspected Pain saw it with his shadows but pretended not to. “My lioness is a better name, that goes without saying.”
A ripple went through the void within the pit, a tremor of unfamiliar magic. Instead of a sinister threat, it felt encouraging. Gentle and old and maternal. I took that as a good omen and reached for Death’s hand, his quietness making my chest hurt.
“I’ll count us down,” he offered, with a whole storm of emotions playing across his face. “One—”
“Technically, that’s countingup,”Pain pointed out. When Death gave him a stony stare, he quickly said, “Shutting up now, message received, please continue with your epic count-up.”
A rusty laugh formed in my chest.
“Two—”
I sucked in a breath, taking a last look at the room that had been my haven, that had cradled me when I couldn’t handle the guilt of killing someone, that had guarded me when Violence’s torture became too much.
“Three.”
I didn’t think of the distance, the danger, or the void. I thought of Tor and jumped.
CHAPTER 7
CAT
Aviolent charge went through my heart, startling it inside my chest, and my eyes flew open as I hauled gasps of air into my lungs. There was so much to see around me, so many faces, and an overwhelming assault of new surroundings, that my head pounded and I didn’t know where to look.
“Back up,” Pain said in a stern voice I remembered from Cruelty’s manor. “Give Cat space, we’re crowding her.”
I shot him a relieved glance as air flowed into the places they’d occupied, peering desperately into my face. Not that they went far; a few inches were all they allowed me.
“Where are we?” I asked, flattening my hand to my galloping heart and staring at the rustic, old-brick room, the roaring fire, the dark furniture. I didn’t recognise any of it.
“A safe house,” Death answered, clasping my other hand and running his thumb over my knuckles, soothing me in a way nothing else could. I gulped down his scent, sugar and smoke wrapping around my senses, but bitter with worry. “It’sshielded, and no one will get within a mile radius without us knowing about it.”
I held onto his hand, my heartbeat settling, that strange magic still rippling around me. “What is that magic…?”
Miz frowned, glancing around the room. “I don’t feel anything.”
“I do,” Death said. “I think it’s the stones.”
“The what?” I pushed out of the chair, unable to sit still, Tor’s absence gnawing at me, cutting a hole through my heart.
