“You’re going to need my help, Miss Hawthorne.” Blythe hated how desperately she clung to each of Aris’s words, and she knew in that moment that should Aris ask for the sun, she would find a way to give it to him. For her father, Blythe would give everything.
“Today, your father will be sentenced to hang. He’ll have two weeks to live before they come for him—two weeks for you to get me Miss Farrow’s hand. If you do, I promise that Elijah Hawthorne will be spared.” As if from thin air, Aris produced a small piece of what appeared to be a golden tapestry, which he handed to her. It was warm to the touch, and so uncomfortably strange—almost alive—that she had to fight the urge to drop it. The longer she stared at it, the brighter the threads became, a halo of gold surrounding them when she squinted.
“What is this?” She stroked her thumb across the threads, tensing when she noticed that Aris shuddered. He reached forward to touch her gloved hand, stilling it around the tapestry.
“The deal will be made when Miss Farrow places a drop of her blood upon those threads. It will bind her as my wife, though the offer must be made willingly.”
Blythe wanted so badly to hate Signa for what she’d done to her family, and yet… maybe none of this was Signa’s fault. Maybe she’d had no choice in taking Percy, and Death was to blame.
Blythe had lost a brother, but she would not lose her father. And perhaps… perhaps she did not have to lose her cousin, either.
Tucking the tapestry against her chest, Blythe took her first easy breath in months. And with her exhale she made a bargain with Fate.
THIRTY-THREE
TWO DAYS HAD PASSED SINCE SIGNA HAD HELPED HENRY MOVE ON to the afterlife.
She’d returned to Foxglove, unable to focus on anything but the comforting warmth spreading through her despite being windswept with her cheeks reddened from the thrashing gale.
Yet the happier and more settled she became in her new home, the guiltier she felt as the days continued to tick by without any reprieve for Elijah. Why should she feel at peace when he was still trapped in a cell, curled on the cold stone floor and alone in the darkness? Death had been watching over him, ensuring there was no more abuse and that Elijah at least received his meals, but it wasn’t enough. With every passing day, she felt further from the truth than ever.
She had to do something, which was why she stood in the garden, her fingertips resting on the twig of a juniper bush.
“Are you sure you weren’t simply imagining that you have other powers?” Amity asked from where she lay on a blanket of poppies, her hair strewn about the flowers. “You’ve been trying for an awfully long time.”
Considering that the sun was headed west and Signa had been out there well since dawn, that was an understatement. As she crouched before the dried juniper and gripped its naked branches, she willed the powers of Life to fill her. Yet every time she tried, the blood in her veins thrummed with longing for her reaper powers, instead. Her body was overly aware of all the souls that waited inside, pulled toward them now more than ever since that night with Henry. She tried to ignore their calls, for it was Life’s powers that she needed, not the reaper’s.
Elijah’s verdict would be read any minute, and should the worst happen, she would be there. Forget finding the murderer—she would make whoever it was irrelevant. Should Elijah Hawthorne be sentenced to hang, Signa would use Life’s powers to ensure he would not stay dead for long.
It was a secret hope, made of nothing but dying embers. But for Elijah Hawthorne, this was the least she could do.
“Grow,” Signa urged the frail juniper bush. “Grow, you silly little thing.” Her eyes bore into the branches for one minute. Two. By the third she groaned and fell back on her blanket, wishing to roll herself in it like a cocoon and mope in that very spot.
Amity propped herself onto her elbows, watching. “You’re just as dramatic as your mother.”
“Oh? Did you ever watch my mother try to bring the dead back to life?”
Amity pursed her heart-shaped lips, twirling a ringlet around one finger. “I can’t say that I did.”
“Then I don’t want to hear it.” Signa curled her fingers in the blanket for the sole purpose of not tearing them through her hair. “There has to be something I’m missing. There are conditions I must meet first if I’m to use my powers as a reaper. Perhaps there are conditions for Life’s powers, too.” Or perhaps she was simply too afraid of the pain to allow herself to access them, for every time she tricked her mind into believing she was close to unlocking them, she’d clam up in anticipation of the oncoming pain.