You most certainly are not fine. Death’s voice once again filled the space of her mind, and Signa couldn’t help her resentful scowl. She wanted him to stay with her. To hear his voice spoken aloud. To hold him. The reek of death clings to your skin, Signa. What’s going on?
She lowered her face to stare at the floor. “It’s nothing. Merely a fever.” The chattering of her teeth was lessening with each word, and slowly she was beginning to feel more herself.
This is no fever. His shadows twisted behind her, drawing from the bed a blanket that he carefully wrapped over her shoulders. It did little to calm the shivers racking through her. Why are you not surprised by this?
Signa gripped a corner of the blanket with one hand. Though she had a theory about what was happening, she had no desire to speak the truth into existence. Unfortunately, Death was nothing if not a patient man. It wasn’t as though she could be rid of him, either, considering he could speak quite literally into her mind. She had little choice but to tell him the truth.
“Now isn’t the first time something like this has happened.”
There was a long beat in which Death did not respond, and in that moment, Signa’s heart raced. Would he leave? Had he already left? She was about to call for him but then heard his voice once more, clipped and firm as he asked, When?
“Last night,” she whispered, feeling herself shatter with each word. She knew already what he would think, just as she also knew that there could be no more secrets between them. “After you left with Lord Wakefield, I began coughing up blood.”
There was a shift in the room, and Signa could sense that Death had moved farther from her. After you crossed the veil back into life, he said. I knew those berries were a bad idea. If stepping in and out of the veil is what’s causing you to be sick, then you must stop taking them.
She clenched her free hand against the floor, nails grating against the wood planks. She couldn’t just stop. Couldn’t just not see him. But saying that would do her no good, so instead she asked, “How else am I to defend myself against your brother?”
I told you already that Fate is my responsibility. His voice sounded even more distant, and she knew from the trail of it that he was backing toward the window. Should he even dream of touching you, I will be there. If you must use the berries, do so in emergencies only. Promise me, this time. Swear it. This sickness is surely Fate’s doing.
Signa glanced to where Fate’s note lay on the table, golden and gleaming. Perhaps their animosity had started as a feud between two brothers, but the moment that Fate involved the Hawthornes, it became Signa’s war. And so, she did not answer him, knowing that she had every intention of going to that party and confronting Fate face-to-face. Instead, she asked, “Why is he doing this? What happened between you two?”
As much as I wish I could tell you it was all a misunderstanding, I’m afraid my brother has every right to hate me. The response was quiet at first, as though she were listening to him through water-clogged ears. Signa had to strain her focus to hear him when he said, I have not seen him since the year 1346, when I killed the only woman that Fate has ever loved.
Signa clung to the end of that sentence, waiting for more. And yet the silence dragged on, first for a minute, then for two.
“Death?” Signa hauled herself to her feet, clutching the blanket. There was a stillness in her mind that she’d not had in a long while, one so heavy that she at once understood something was wrong.
“Death!” she called again, dread burning her throat. She could still feel his presence in the air that had gone frigid with his nearness, and knew he was still there from the goose bumps that spiked along her skin.
But she could not see him. Could not touch him. And now, with a growing panic rising in her chest, Signa realized that she could no longer hear him.
EIGHT
SIGNA SEARCHED FOR DEATH EVERYWHERE. SOMETIMES, WHEN THE temperature plummeted or she felt the caress of a particularly gentle breeze across her cheek, she would imagine that he was there beside her. She took her morning walks when the springtime sky was still a dreary gray and the lawn sparkled with the morning dew, ensuring she was alone as she spoke to a man who she couldn’t be certain was even there, giving him the updates of her investigation.
Nearly a week had passed since the day Elijah had been taken. Nearly a week of tailing Byron as he puttered around Thorn Grove, busying himself with hiring staff and assigning duties, inspecting all work with a critical eye. With the deal for Grey’s Gentleman’s Club having fallen through, he often took to Elijah’s study from sunrise to sunset to go over ledgers and paperwork.