Another laugh bubbled in her throat, though she fought this one down. His wife! The very idea was ludicrous, for this man had clearly never witnessed her deathly powers in action.
“It’s your brother that I love.” Signa spoke low and soft, as though placating a skittish fawn. “I’m not who you think I am, but I’ll help you look for her. We can find Life together.”
From the way Fate drew back, one might think she’d struck the man across the face. The gold in his eyes burned molten, and behind him all of Wisteria quivered. For a sliver of a moment Signa once again saw the palace for what it truly was—bare gray walls and cracked slate floors. Empty, hollow, and as lifeless as his marionettes that swayed as the ground beneath them trembled, kept on their feet only by their golden threads. Then they were back in the amber ballroom and surrounded by the laughter of guests, the transition so fast that Signa had to convince herself it wasn’t her imagination.
“My tapestries do not lie.” Fate was no longer reserved nor coy. His movements were erratic as he took her by the shoulders, bending to capture her gaze. “I am not a man who begs, but I am begging now for you to listen to me. I am begging you to think, Miss Farrow. To think about what it is that you want. Are you happy to spend the rest of your life surrounded by death? By pain and grief?”
Signa didn’t realize she was shaking until she reached up to knock him away from her. “It’s not so gruesome as that,” she whispered, recalling the night she’d first seen a soul, or the night Death had taken her to the bridge into the afterlife. “Death is simply the way of things.”
“‘The way of things’？” Fate scoffed. “What if those hands of yours could do more than kill? I could show you how. I could teach you. You’d want that, wouldn’t you?”
She didn’t.
She couldn’t.
Signa had only recently accepted the darkness within her, and found the beauty in it, and yet… There was that whisper, again. The one that warned if she was so hesitant to admit to Blythe what she was and the things she could do, then perhaps she was an abomination.
She didn’t want Blythe to be afraid of her. She didn’t want anyone she loved to fear her. But if they knew the truth… how could they not? There wasn’t a soul alive who would welcome a reaper with open arms.
Only for that reason did Signa feel a pull toward Fate’s promise, though there was no world in which she could entertain his help. If not because of how it would affect Death, then because she’d only recently started to feel comfortable in her own skin, and the idea of once again opening herself up for exploration was terrifying. And so Signa did not answer the question about her powers. Instead, she told Fate, “No matter what you say or what you might think, I love your brother. I will not leave him, nor is it fair to keep me away from him.”
Fate’s smile thinned, a darkness stirring in his eyes. “They say that all is fair in love and war. I have built my trench and brought my rifles, and I have no intention of retreating. I will pursue you until you remember who you are. If that means I need to court you, Signa Farrow, I will. Flowers, promenades, even poetry if that’s what you want. Whatever it is you enjoy, I will learn, and eventually you’ll remember the life we once had.”
This wasn’t going at all how Signa had expected. She could feel the prickle of nerves along her chest and had to step away to take the fan from Diana’s frozen hand, flipping it open in a desperate attempt to cool herself.
Fate had to be wrong. She wasn’t Life. She couldn’t be. She had killed her aunt Magda. She’d stolen lives, not given them. Fate was a foolishly hopeful man. But perhaps there was a way to use that to her advantage.
“Make a deal with me.” There was hardly time to consider her words before she spoke them aloud, stilling her fan.
“A deal?” he echoed. “I’m not certain that you understand the magnitude of making a deal with me.”
Of course she didn’t. A bargain with Fate felt every bit as dangerous as one with Death, and yet Signa could not seem to stop herself. If this was her one opportunity, she had to seize it. “I do not have to stand idly by while you throw flowers at me or show up at my doorstep. But if you restore my ability to communicate with Death, then I will entertain this fantasy of yours.”
Fate’s jaw clenched, and Wisteria Gardens felt like a furnace against her skin, the air stifling and oppressive. Though she wanted little more than to retreat to a window and escape the heat of his severity, Signa kept her shoulders squared and her chin held high until Fate’s expression turned sour.