Belladonna

DEATH’S PRESENCE WAS FROST THAT BURNED INTO SIGNA’S VERY bones—an icy lake she’d plunged into headfirst. But rather than allow her to come up for air, he embraced her in those frigid waters with no intention of letting go.

“Hello, Little Bird. Come to stab me again?”

His voice was a balm for the gooseflesh along her skin, and Signa’s insides twisted in annoyance at her body’s response to him. Not anger nor fear but a deep, festering curiosity she couldn’t seem to shake.

“Tell me whether I can use more of your powers,” she demanded. If he would not hesitate, then neither would she.

She lifted her chin and turned to face him. Or at least she believed she was facing him. It was difficult to know, given his form. Death was little more than the shadows of the trees. The darkness lingering in the corners where light couldn’t quite reach. He was nowhere and he was everywhere, until slowly his shadows began to contract along the ground, consuming the forest floor and bathing it in darkness until he was there. No face, no mouth, but the form of a man who loomed over her.

“Tell me, Signa,” Death began, ignoring her question, “are you afraid of me?” His shadows drew closer until his form was smaller, less imposing. “Most people fear death. They fear it all their lives, though they never see me until their final breath. There are a handful of humans out there with a keener eye, of course. Those who spend their lives trying to bridge the gap between the living and the dead, and who catch glimpses behind the veil. But when I stand before them, even they are wise enough to fear me. Yet you have called me time and time again. You have questioned me. You have even gone as far as to attempt murder.” Though they were dark words, Signa didn’t miss the hint of humor within them. It lit a blazing, angry inferno inside her.

“Am I amusing to you, sir?” She clenched her teeth as the shadows danced among the trees.

“At times.” His voice was little more than a whisper in the roaring wind, though she heard it as clear as though it came from her own thoughts. “And other times you are an endless annoyance. Always, though, you are a fascination.”

Talking to Death felt like listening to a riddle. She could barely resist rolling her eyes at how long-winded he was and had to press two more berries to her tongue.

“Tell me whether I can do more with your powers,” she said, firmer this time but keeping her voice low in case Sylas was nearby. “You said that night that you could explain, so do it. Quickly.” If Death had eyes, she imagined she was glaring straight into them.

The trees fell quiet when he spoke. “Here, in this space between the living and the dead, it would seem as though you are able to do more than pester me, Little Bird. I don’t know the extent of your abilities, but I do believe you’ve barely scratched the surface.”

Signa swallowed down the fear that festered in her throat, her suspicions confirmed. “How is that possible? What have you done to me?”

When the ground beneath her feet trembled, Signa understood she’d asked the wrong question. “Because you are so quick to blame me,” Death said, “let it be known that I have not done anything. I am not responsible for your gifts. I am not responsible for what happened to your aunt, though sometimes I wish that I was. The things she put you through… Had you not wanted her alive, I might have taken her long ago.”

“My wanting someone alive has never stopped you before.” Her body was a tensed coil ready to spring. “Am I to believe you had nothing to do with the deaths that follow me wherever I go? That I alone am responsible for them?”

Night pulled closer as Death drew forward. “You bear no responsibility for those deaths. Magda’s was the first life you took. Even I was not expecting it.”

If what he said was true, and even he hadn’t been expecting that to happen, then…“How?”

The wind itself seemed to whisper the response. “There’s a reason you can see spirits, Signa. There’s a reason you’re able to cross the veil between life and death. Though I’ve not been able to confirm why, it seems your suspicions are correct. When you’re here—when you have crossed the veil and are able to see me—it seems you have access to an arsenal of skills similar to my own.”

So strange was the mix of relief and horror that Signa felt. Bile rose to her throat at the confirmation of what she’d done. None of the other deaths were her fault, which of course was a relief. Yet Magda’s death was her fault. Her aunt had died by Signa’s hands, and the thought alone made her want to curl up against the nearest tree and let herself be sick.

“Listen,” Death whispered. “Important rules were broken that night. Life and death is a game of balance, Signa. A balance that must always be maintained, otherwise you will bring chaos into this world. Magda was not meant to die that night. When a life is taken, another must be spared. Do you understand?”

His words, yes, but the actuality of them? Signa was barely comprehending any of it. Death’s sigh blew across her cheeks as his shadows drew around her. “When you killed Magda,” he explained, voice tiring, “I had to give life to another who was meant to die that same night. It was Blythe who I gave it to.”

Her eyes snapped up. “Blythe would have died?” Though their meetings had been short, Signa had seen how fiercely Blythe’s soul blazed. The girl was too young, too innocent, and too full of will to die before she’d gotten the chance to truly live. Though Signa knew it shouldn’t have—knew it wasn’t right—knowing that Aunt Magda’s death had saved Blythe made her feel… better.

Like something she’d be willing to do again, if given the choice.

“You saved Blythe?”

“You saved Blythe,” Death corrected her. “Though you killed another to do it. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Signa? There is a cost to everything.”

For a long moment Signa was too hung up on his words to speak.

She had saved Blythe.

She hadn’t doomed Blythe to a sudden death. She hadn’t cursed her or killed her or been the reason behind her suffering. Rather, for the first time ever, Signa had saved someone.

Mind reeling, she pressed her hands to her thundering chest as though to still her heart. In this space between life and death, she had the reaper’s powers. If that was true enough to both take and give life, then what else could she do with such powers? In the back of her mind an idea was brewing, though she needed to learn more before she could act on it.

“Lillian contacted me last night,” Signa admitted suddenly, whispering as though her spirit might overhear.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “Your actions already saved her daughter once. You and Blythe are connected now.”

“Did you know this would happen?” Signa asked, braver than she’d ever felt as she peered into the depths of his shadows. “Did you know I’d end up here at Thorn Grove?”

“I knew Blythe would die that night, just as I knew the Hawthornes were your last remaining family. I spared her so that you’d be welcome here, though I cannot take her ailments away.”

Perhaps it was unwise to challenge Death, but she didn’t care. “Am I truly welcomed, or are you the reason I’m here? What sorcery must you have cast upon the Hawthornes for them to accept me?”

“There was no sorcery,” he told her. “I merely helped speed along the process with a letter. Despite what you may think of me, I want you safe and in a stable home. Had I chosen someone other than Blythe, that opportunity would have been lost.”

Signa digested the information, uncertain what to believe. He didn’t sound like he was lying, but then again, he was Death. It was likely he who invented deceit.

“Lillian’s waiting for me.” She turned to face the garden gates. “There, inside the garden.” The locked garden.

“And how do you intend to get in?” Again, the most aggravating amusement stirred in his voice. “Climb up the ivy? I think I might enjoy watching that.”

Signa ignored him. If what he said was true and she really could possess his powers, then there was a way. If he could become incorporeal—if he could become the very shadows themselves—what was stopping her? Her only hesitation was that she wasn’t quite sure how to use such powers. The night she had killed Aunt Magda, she hadn’t meant to do anything to the woman but keep her away.

“Can you walk through walls?” Signa asked, though she thought she already knew the answer.

“I can walk through anything,” came Death’s response, voice lifting with intrigue.

“So if I wanted to walk through the garden gate—”

“You’d simply have to summon the power, make clear your intention, and do it.”

“And what of my body?” she asked. “Will I remain whole, or will I turn into a spirit?”

Death’s chuckle was a low rumble that shook the ground. “You will remain wholly yourself. You need only to be here with me, on the other side of the veil. Why don’t you give it a try?”

It wasn’t as though she had another choice.

Drawing a breath deep through her nose, Signa tried to gather her powers—which felt ridiculous, considering she couldn’t feel anything and still half believed this was all some cleverly contrived lie—and ran straight into the thick iron bars of the garden’s door.

To her surprise, she did not smack headfirst into the gate. But she didn’t quite get through it, either. At least not entirely.

The trees shook, and the earth quaked as Death’s laugh shuddered through Signa’s bones. She hadn’t even been sure he could make such a sound, though upon hearing it, she felt heat rising to her cheeks. For she was stuck in the garden gate, her front half inside the garden and her back half still with Death.

It felt like there was something hard inside her. Cold, biting metal that grated against her insides. Her hands trembled at the wrongness of it all, as though she’d been sawed into two parts.

“I forgot to mention,” Death added in that clear-meadow voice of his, “if your powers are the same as mine, then our skills are centered around intention. You can do anything you want, yet if you doubt yourself for a second… Well.” Again he laughed, and Signa couldn’t help noticing that the stars winked with the sound, as if they, too, found her ridiculous.

Just how much power, she wondered, did Death have? How much power did she have?

Signa hurried to shove several more berries into her mouth, not wanting to discover what might happen should she return to being fully corporeal in this state—or perhaps worse, discovered by Sylas. “Are you going to help me,” she hissed, “or will you simply stand there and continue to laugh, you useless heap of shadow?”

Slowly, Death’s laughter ceased. “Now, now, Little Bird. You need only ask for help, and it shall be yours.”

Annoyance boiled within her, spilling over. “Just get me out of here before—”

“Before your berries dwindle away and you’re fully mortal once more? Or before that boy finds you bottom up?” Though Signa couldn’t see him, she stilled at the brush of shadows that chilled her skin. “No one has dared speak to me in the way that you do. Why is it you are so polite to others? So demure and soft, and yet so bullish when we speak? Ask me kindly, Signa Farrow.”

She rolled her eyes. “Perhaps it’s because whenever you’re around, someone always ends up dead.” But there was more to it than that. Perhaps it was because Death couldn’t exist—because he shouldn’t exist, and Signa wasn’t fully convinced that he wasn’t part of her own imagination. Someone she’d manifested in her loneliness, as a way to explain the strange things happening around her.

Or perhaps it was because Death was real, and near him Signa grew too comfortable. With all her pretenses lost, her words became sharper and more venomous. Possibly, it was because there was no need to impress him. No need for social graces and second-guessing her every thought and action. With him, there was no pretending. Perhaps this was simply who she was.

“You’ve been watching me?” she asked.

“I find that you make the time pass quicker. Otherwise, I grow bored and weary, and who else can I taunt?” His response surprised her—so brazen, so forward.

She hated how flustered it made her. “Considering that you find me so fascinating, you’d better help me out of this before I solidify and bleed internally from the iron bars that are piercing my organs.” Death waited, still and patient and significantly more amused than he ought to have been, until Signa bitterly added a terse, “Please.”

“Ah, that’s better. I’m glad to see you’re learning.” He was before her then, shadows reaching toward her. Reaching… A hand? Signa had never seen anything remotely human about Death, but it was indeed a hand swathed in shadows. A hand that hesitated in the air for a moment before his fingers curled around hers. Life around them stilled, taking a breath.

And the world exhaled again as Death pulled her into the garden.