“What about when you’ve used them in the past?” Amity asked, wisps of her body fading and then resurfacing as a breeze blew by. “Was there any constant?”
It was a good thread, and one that Signa pulled on, sorting through the memories. Both times she’d used her powers, there had been heat. Sweltering, blistering heat that felt like she’d fallen into a furnace.
Signa stood at once. She gathered up her blanket and tucked it under her arm, wondering how close she could get to Foxglove’s hearth without melting herself. Anything was worth trying at this point.
“Have you got another idea?” Amity hopped to her feet, shifting so close to Signa that had it been anyone else, the proximity would have been unnerving. Yet Amity had become her most favored company over the past few days. And though Signa tried to keep away and remind herself how unwise it was to get close to a spirit, Foxglove felt far too empty without Amity’s happy chatter.
“I do. Follow me.” Signa snapped two twigs from the juniper bush before she hurried into Foxglove, relieved to find that the maid had already tended to the hearth and that Gundry was curled beside it. Signa checked over her shoulder before she sat and scooted so close to the flames that they nearly licked the toes of her boots. Amity lingered behind, floating several inches higher than normal to get a good view. Signa leaned in and shuddered as the warmth devoured any last tendrils of cold flooding through her. Cupping one of the snapped twigs in her palms, she shut her eyes and focused with everything in her.
“Grow.” As often as she’d said that word over the past two days, it was almost a chant at this point. “Grow, grow, grow, grow—”
“I’m a little confused… Are you trying to burn them?”
“I’m trying to burn myself, relatively speaking.” Signa had to temper her annoyance, loosening her grip to avoid breaking the twig in half. “Haven’t you anything better to do than watch me suffer? At this rate I’ll be here all night.”
Signa hadn’t meant it cruelly, yet Amity’s lips drew downward all the same.
“No,” she whispered, voice fracturing. “I do not have anything better to do.”
Immediately Signa regretted an entire lifetime of ever opening her mouth. Given that spirits operated on heightened emotions, Signa should have known better than to say anything. Amity had been alone just as many years as Signa had. Surely, she craved company, and what else was there for her to do?
As Amity’s eyes pooled with bloody tears, Signa set the juniper twig aside and made her voice every bit as soft and placating as Death’s.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m glad for your company, Amity, truly.”
Amity only sniffled, avoiding her stare.
“Who else would have waited twenty years just to make sure I was safe?” Signa pressed, trying not to consider how hard she was working to placate a spirit she’d sworn not to let herself get close to. “I appreciate you waiting, truly. But what would you have done if I’d never arrived?” And what will you do now that I’m here? was the question Signa didn’t dare ask aloud. As much as Signa was growing to rely on the spirit’s company, twenty years was a long time. Surely, Amity had to be curious about what came next.
“I never thought I’d have the chance to speak with you.” Amity took a seat beside Signa on the edge of the hearth. “I planned to leave once I saw you settled… though it wasn’t only for you that I stayed. I’d hoped that the others would be out of their awful loops by now.” Amity’s eyes lifted to the stairs, toward the ballroom.
Signa followed her gaze. “You care for that woman, don’t you? For Briar?”
“More than words could ever describe.” Amity’s smile reminded Signa of the twig she held between her fingertips, poised to crack at the slightest pressure. “But still she does not know it. I can’t leave here without her.”
Signa had no question that, were she in Amity’s position, she, too, would wander the halls for an eternity before she willingly left Death behind. What torture that would be—while Briar had no idea what was happening outside her loop, Amity spent her days aware of every moment. Signa’s heart ached at the thought, and though she knew it was unwise to get involved, she couldn’t help but think back to Henry.
Her mouth opened, and Signa was seconds away from making Amity a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep when Death’s chill frosted over the parlor, tamping the flames.