Foxglove (Belladonna, #2)(113)
Death had given them some space after Fate had left, but he slowly drew back to Signa’s side. He pressed a kiss onto the top of her head, and Signa nearly wept when it didn’t steal her breath or still her heart. She eased into Death’s arms as Blythe started toward the door. At the threshold, however, Blythe turned to look back not at her cousin but at Death, whose shadows had slipped from him.
He didn’t notice at first because it was impossible. A fluke. And yet he stilled as Blythe continued to stare, observing his human form with narrowed interest.
“Take care of her.” Blythe’s words were not a kindness, but a threat. “My cousin seems to see the good in you, and I’ll trust her judgment. But if you so much as bring a single tear to her eye, I’ll have your head on a pike. Do you understand me?”
Both Signa and Death were at a loss for words as they stared at Blythe’s retreating figure. They listened to the soft clacking of her boots against the stairs before they turned to each other, and Signa could not help herself as her sob gave way to laughter.
They had won. They’d conquered Fate. They’d saved Elijah, her relationship with Blythe was on the mend, and now Signa could see Death. She could hold him.
“Blythe can see you.”
“A side effect from nearly dying, perhaps,” Death said, though he sounded distant as he continued to stare at the door. It took Signa laughing again and cupping his face in her bare hands to steal his attention, which he was more than happy to offer as he bent to her touch.
“You’re so warm,” he whispered, “I can feel it.” The crack in his voice was enough for the emotion to swell within her once more. Signa threw her arms around him, kissing him through hot, happy tears. She wound her legs around him as Death all but tackled her to the ground, squeezing her tight. Signa savored each one of her breaths as she tucked herself against his chest. They had won, and for the rest of their eternity she would never let go.
“So I take it that you’re staying, then?” Tilly stood at the edge of the parlor, her head poking inside. The disappointment in her voice had Signa cackling as she clasped Death’s hand in hers and raised it toward the spirit.
“Yes, I’m afraid we are.”
The other two spirits approached then, timid as they glanced around the room. Eventually Tilly’s mother, Victoria, looked to Signa with a disapproving pucker of her lips. “We would appreciate if you at least kept better company. The man was far too bright for my taste.”
“There was another who glowed, too, just like the lady’s maid,” Tilly added, voice conspiratorial. “I do wish you’d stop bringing them. The light is bothersome on my eyes.”
Signa felt her grin slip. “There was someone else with a glow? Who was it?”
“She’s asleep upstairs now.” Oliver was once again trying to wipe away the smudge he could never seem to clean from his glasses. “The one everyone’s making such a fuss about.”
“As they should!” Victoria piped. “She’s pregnant and unmarried! They were up all night scheming up ways to conceal it. How tasteless it is to—”
“They speak of Eliza,” Signa interrupted, ignoring Victoria’s huffing as she spun toward Death, who didn’t look nearly as concerned as she felt.
“You healed her, Signa.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, no longer silver. “Perhaps the glow is a side effect of that.”
“Perhaps,” she echoed, though the words didn’t sit right in her gut. “But I’ve never done anything for Elaine.”
It was then that her eye caught sight of something behind Death. Or rather a lack of something. Signa’s spine went rigid as she looked to where the tapestry had once lain. Blythe had torn open her palm in that spot, and yet despite all the blood she’d spilled, there was not a drop of it on the wood.
Cold dread swept over Signa as she thought to the ring of light Blythe had showed her, upon the finger of an unblemished hand.
“Death,” Signa spoke his name slowly, testing each word before allowing it into existence. “Amity once asked me whether there was a constant to Life’s magic. Something present whenever I used it.” From the vines in Elijah’s study, to the foal in the stables, and again with Eliza… Blythe had been a constant. “What if it’s not me who caused that glow?” She picked up the poker Blythe had slashed her hand on—uncomfortably warm from being near the hearth—only to find that there wasn’t a speck of blood upon it. Death took it from her, and the moment the iron fell upon his fingers he jolted back, dropping it with a clang.
He clutched his hand to his chest as the skin hissed and smoked, shadows swathing over it. Immediately Death crouched for a better look at the poker, and though there was a long moment in which he wore no expression, in the end his face broke into the most joyous laughter Signa had ever heard as tears rolled over his beaming cheeks.
“You found her.” He scooped up the poker once more, laughing as it sizzled against his palm. With his free hand he grabbed Signa, pulling her into his embrace. His tears were cold as they fell onto her shoulder, his voice soft as snowfall as he whispered, “After all these years, you truly found her. It would seem, Little Bird, that fate always has a way of working itself out in the end.”
Signa’s body numbed with disbelief, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts. It couldn’t be true… and yet it was the only explanation that made sense.