Foxglove (Belladonna, #2)(5)
Elijah would be fine. There would be a few questions, and then the alleged involvement of the Hawthorne brothers in this death would be put to rest before a coroner even arrived to retrieve the body.
Signa squeezed Blythe’s hand to signal as much, though her cousin wasn’t looking at her, or even at her departing father. Instead, Fate was the sole focus of Blythe’s rage. Before either she or Death could stop her, Blythe slipped her hand from Signa’s and marched across the ballroom, clutching her skirts so tightly that it seemed she might tear the fabric.
“You saw no such thing tonight, neither from my father nor my uncle!” Even in heels, Blythe was a good deal shorter than Fate, though that didn’t stop Blythe from getting as close as physically possible and stabbing her finger into his stomach like it was a weapon. “I don’t know what you want from my family, but I’ll be damned before I ever allow you to have it.” Blythe shoved past him without concern for who might have been watching and started toward Thorn Grove’s butler, Charles Warwick. Fate scoffed but did not spare her another glance before he turned back toward Death and Signa.
“It’s your move, brother,” he said. “Make it a good one.”
As quickly as he had appeared, Fate was gone again, leaving only chaos in his wake.
TWO
AN HOUR LATER, THE HALLS OF THORN GROVE WERE EERIE IN THEIR STILLNESS.
Signa kept close to the shadows, her fingers curling into the banister’s gnarled wood as she took her time descending the stairs with cautious steps. When the iron bolts locked behind the last of the gossipmongers and Warwick had retired to his quarters, Signa became overly aware of every groan and creak of the wood that echoed through the foyer.
Her nose tickled from the smoke of too many hastily blown-out candles, which cast the manor into such darkness that Signa shouldn’t have been able to see her own two hands before her. Yet she may as well have been in a summer glade, for the glow of a spirit seeped beneath the ballroom’s threshold and illuminated an effortless path toward the double doors. She expected that Death must still be in there preparing the late duke, and she was trying to peer discreetly inside when the hairs along the back of her neck rose and a voice sounded behind her.
“He’s asked for a few minutes alone with his son.”
Signa stumbled back, having been ready to abandon her own skin before she realized that the low, resonant voice belonged to Death. She checked behind her, ensuring that no one was lurking on the stairwell before she waved him down the hall. The last thing the Hawthornes needed was to find her alone in the darkness, talking to herself moments after a murder.
Death had returned to the form of his shadow self, gliding across the walls behind Signa, who tried not to shiver from his nearness. A million questions plagued her mind, but the first that slipped out as she sealed the parlor doors shut was: “When were you going to tell me that you have a brother?”
Death’s sigh came as a soft brush of wind that blew wisps of hair from Signa’s face as he took her hands into his own. Had she not been gloved, his touch would have been enough to still her heart and bring out the powers of the reaper that lay dormant within her. But because of those gloves, Signa remained entirely human as she curled her fingers around his.
“I’ve not spoken to him in several hundred years,” Death answered at last, his shadows gentle as they tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with great care not to touch her skin. “Were it not impossible for us to die, I wouldn’t even be certain I still had a brother.”
Signa recalled the way he’d shrunk in Fate’s presence and the tension in his grip as he’d held her. Even now, alone and pressed against the bookcases in a corner of the room, Death kept his voice low. She tried not to grind her teeth, hating to see him so anxious. Death was not meant to cower. He was not meant to fear. Who was Fate, exactly, to sweep in and make his brother respond in such a way?
“He’s toying with us,” Signa said. Her skin itched, and she was more unnerved than she cared to admit. She eased only when Death pulled her close, her heart fluttering as his thumb stroked a soothing line down the length of one glove.
“Of course he is. Fate controls the lives of his creations—what they see, what they say, how they move… Their paths and actions are all foretold by his hand. My brother is dangerous, and whatever his reason for being here, we can be sure that he has no good intentions.”
Signa didn’t care much for being referred to as one of Fate’s “creations.” After all she’d overcome, boiling her choices down to Fate made her success feel unearned. Like he somehow had a hand in all her hardest decisions and her biggest triumphs.
“He certainly didn’t treat you like a brother.” Signa pressed her thumb softly into Death’s palms, wanting only to pry her gloves off so that she might feel more of him.
“For the longest time, the two of us had only each other,” Death said. “We came to view ourselves as brothers, though that title means little these days. Fate hates me more than any person in this world ever has.” Signa didn’t have the opportunity to press for more before Death stole his hand away to take hold of her chin, tipping it toward him. As dark as it was in the parlor, Signa could still see the cut of his jaw among the ever-shifting shadows. The tension in her shoulders eased as he touched her bare skin for the first time that night. Coolness flooded through her body, and Signa tipped her head against him, savoring the touch.