Gentry groaned as Fortune won the final hand, and Feo joined in, a rare frown marring her face.
Clearing my throat, I interrupted them all, tapping my fork against my wine glass gently. “I have something I’d like to say—”
“Shhh,” Fortune admonished Day, quieting him with a chaste kiss.
Giggling with nothing but affection and wine sweet on my tongue, I continued. “It means a lot to have you all here. At almost one hundred and forty-eight, you’d expect me to have lived a far more exciting life, but for a long time, I’d been ashamed of my reality…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I allowed grief to overwhelm me.”
The room fell silent, the only sound my own labored breath, thick and uneven as I fought to speak the words caught in my throat. A shadow passed over the room, soft but sudden, followed by that familiar tug in my chest.
He wasn’t here. I knew that.
But somehow… it still felt like him.
“I haven’t been happy. In a long time. One can only bury their loved ones so many times before it eats away at you.” Clearing my throat, I looked to Gentry, finding strength in the firm press of his lips and rapt attention. “I spent many years in denial, believing that if I just did one good deed, I’d somehow redeem myself out of the curse. Grim showed me the error in that. Healso showed me that there is no fear in death, not when you were fortunate to live and to love.”
Day began to softly cry, his eyes red and swollen as I glanced at each of them.
“I may never be granted the sanctity of death, but I can confidently say that if I were, I’d meet it with triumph and glee, knowing that I, above anyone else, had gotten to live and to love. Because ofall of you. Because of Grim, and because of my children. My mother and grandmother, and even my father.” My hand flew to my chest, pulling at the chain of my necklace, a motion I’d found soothing.
“I’d like to propose a toast to new beginnings,” I said, raising my glass. “This cottage marks the start of finding my own way, no matter what tries to hold me back. It felt only right to name it Scythe Manor—in honor of the cleaving. Of cutting myself in two. Of leaving behind what is dead and gone, and beginning again, fresh and whole.”
I rubbed the star disc, holding it to my skin.
“In honor of Death… and the love that destroyed me—so something new could rise from the ashes.”
“To Scythe Manor, and to Astoria Devlin Tempest Reeves,” Gentry bellowed, standing to raise his glass to mine.
The others followed suit, and we knocked the glasses back, celebrating the life and the time I’d been given.
I woke early as the scent of coffee wafted up the stairs, sneaking through the crack under my door—inviting, familiar. Day must’ve already been up, probably prepping for his morning run. I slipped into a simple dress and boots, tugging Grim’ssweater over top. One of the two meager tokens I had left of him. Too many times, I’d considered stalking the hospital halls for a dying soul, just to bait him. Would he come to collect? Would he stay away? Did he think of me at all? Day liked to joke he’d be happy to take me to see him, but I couldn’t face him—not when every time I closed my eyes, the faces of those we’d killed flashed across my mind. Not when he had paraded me through their last breaths to teach me a lesson.
In that respect, Death had never stopped pursuing me. I was still being stalked, hunted, and marked. I would be, forevermore. Unless I broke the curse.
I grabbed my notebook and pen from the bedside table, shoved them into my bag, and padded downstairs. The dining room wasn’t the mess I’d left it in the night before; everything was clean, filled with the sharp scent of lemon and coffee.
Surprised, I found it wasn’t Day in the kitchen—it was Gentry, making a colossal mess and absolutely burning the bacon.
“Hi… hey, I just thought—” he stammered, turning off the stove and yanking the pan off the burner. He froze, hands on his hips, shoulders tense, then smiled. “You look beautiful.”
My cheeks flushed with heat. “Thanks… What are you doing here?”
He glanced around, panicked, spotted a cup of coffee he must’ve brought from town, and handed it to me like it might fix everything. “I brought this. And I cleaned. And I sort of hoped you’d be up early.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, sipping the coffee. It was exactly how I liked it. He scratched the back of his neck.
“Right. So… I know you were planning to visit the cemetery today. But before that, I was hoping you’d come with me somewhere.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Where?”
He hesitated, then leaned against the counter, still holding the spatula like a shield. “There’s a place I’ve been trying to get access to. Lord Stanton’s old estate. Or what’s left of it. Most of the property’s been sold off or turned to farmland, but one of the original residences still stands. Private ownership. I pulled a few strings to get us in.”
“You pulled strings? On a Saturday morning?”
“Yeah.” He avoided my gaze. “Let’s just say I had help.”
I studied him for a moment. “You think there’s something there.”
“I think there might be. Something about the curse. I don’t know exactly, but I have a feeling.”
