“I don’t care for riddles.” She decided that the moment he looked away, she would snag the poker. “Answer my question. Who are you?”
The way Aris watched her would have someone thinking he’d never seen a woman before. He scrutinized her face. Her hair. The way she shielded herself behind the chair, creating a barrier between them. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time.
“I am not a who so much as I am a what,” he admitted, and already Blythe was cringing, unable to believe she’d allowed this man’s lips to ever touch hers. “If I had to guess, it seems that after you died all those times, you earned the ability to catch glimpses behind the veil.”
“More riddles.” She no longer bothered to wait for him to turn away and made a grab for the poker. She held it into the flames, heating the metal without ever breaking eye contact. “What veil? And what are you, then?”
There was a grandness in the way he watched her, like a lord assessing his people. The look crawled over her skin, and in that moment Aris felt so much larger and more severe.
“The veil is what separates the world of the living from everything beyond.”
His clipped response was not what Blythe had been expecting. Her stomach clenched, mind working to find words. “What do you mean by beyond? Do you mean to tell me that I’m seeing the dead?”
“Not at all. I mean that you’re seeing things that living people cannot.” Blythe had every urge to kick him again for his nonsense, though this time she managed to refrain. “If you could see the dead, you’d already know. Your cousin is followed by shadows because she is a reaper. When she wills it, her touch is lethal.”
Blythe had already known this much from seeing Signa’s power in action. It was the fact that Aris was the one answering that sent Blythe’s heart spiraling, quickening her breath and making panic rise in her throat.
“Sometimes I see more than shadows beside Signa. I used to see her speak to them, and thought I was ridiculous and imagining things. But there’s someone else, isn’t there? Someone I can’t see.”
Aris’s jaw tightened as the fox shifted out of his lap and moved instead to nestle beside him. “There is. But are you certain you want to know who it is?”
She had her suspicions, and though she wasn’t certain that she wanted to hear the words aloud, Blythe forced herself to nod all the same.
“It’s Death himself that you’ve seen,” Aris said, his jaw flexing when Blythe stopped breathing.
Signa had spoken to that figure so tenderly. So lovingly.
“They’re together, aren’t they?” So light-headed was she that Blythe had to brace herself. “Is he why she’s like this? Is he why she killed my brother?”
Aris stood so quickly that Blythe barely had time to brandish the poker, its white-hot tip a mere inch from his throat. He glared down at her, as still as marble.
“With Death, your cousin is a reaper. With him, she will take the very lives she was meant to create. But with me, she could be so much more. That’s why I’m trying to save her, Miss Hawthorne.” Aris held his hands up, placating Blythe when she drew back. “All we have to do is convince her of that truth.”
“Can you do the same things she can?” Her voice was tight, and it took a great amount of will not to have it squeak. “Is that why you want to marry her?”
“It’s the powers that gave life to the foal that I prefer. But no, I cannot do the same things she can. I can control fate. From the moment a person is born, I weave their fate onto a tapestry. I can alter them, too.”
Signa must have known the truth. It’s why she’d tried to keep Blythe from Wisteria and why she’d had such a severe reaction to Blythe being near Aris. Signa had known, and she’d never told her.
“So you are the one responsible for what happened to my father?” The question fractured in her throat, and Aris frowned at such a pathetic sound.
“That’s like asking if I’m responsible for every time the earth quakes or a person catches a cold. Perhaps to some degree I am, but I didn’t force this to happen, and I’ve no vendetta against you or your family. I do not meddle in the affairs of humans when I can avoid it.”
“But you know what will happen to him. Don’t you?” Never had she looked at someone so closely, as if trying to read his very soul for confirmation of her suspicions. Though he gave no answer, the pity in his eyes told her enough.
Blythe let the poker drop to the floor. She wound her arms around her stomach, fighting to hold herself in while the truth shattered around her.