Blythe threw herself from the desk and away from the growing earth with a squeal, kicking at moss that worked its way up her boots. She rubbed at her watering eyes as if trying to disillusion herself, though when she lowered her hands, ripe green stems stretched from the wall and curled around her fingers. This time Blythe screamed as she stumbled over a chair.
We should leave. Death grabbed a fistful of the ivy that had ensnared Signa’s hands. Thorns dug into her skin, drawing wisps of darkness rather than blood. She couldn’t see straight enough to get them off herself, and she was shaking as Death ripped them free and hurried her out of the study. They didn’t stop once on their way back to Signa’s suite. Not to speak. Not to ask questions. Not for anything. But the moment they were back, the flowering vines fell away from their bodies, swept aside by the shadows that Death let drip from him as he returned to his human form. Only then could Signa see the pointedness of his gaze and how he set about watching her as though he’d never seen her before.
“I’m sorry,” she rasped. “I swear I didn’t mean to. I—I didn’t know it was true. I didn’t… I didn’t think—” Her chest was tight as breath swept back into her lungs. The blood in her veins burned, and her body flickered in and out of view. But she wasn’t sick yet. She wasn’t coughing blood or throwing up, and she clung to that victory.
“Say something,” Signa all but whimpered when she finally got the courage to address Death. Usually, he did a fine job at playing human, but in that moment he’d forgotten to blink as he stared at her. Signa tried to ground herself. Tried to stay steady and calm any way she could, since it would do neither of them any good if she started sprouting things again.
Death’s fingers curled one by one around hers and he shut his eyes. “You grew that, Signa.”
“I know. I didn’t mean—”
“You’re not listening to me.” He squeezed her hand tight, and Signa’s fear surged. It couldn’t have been true.
It couldn’t have. She’d killed Percy. She’d killed Magda. Her hands were lethal. Poisonous and deadly, because she was a reaper.
She was a reaper.
But one look into Death’s gray eyes, and her entire world shifted.
“You grew something.” There was a perilous calm to Death’s words as he bent to capture her stare. “You didn’t claim a life. You didn’t take anyone or anything away. You created something. There is only one person in this world with the powers to do such a thing.”
Signa would have given up her entire fortune to stop him from speaking. To hit the clock and still time forever, because although she understood the words that were to come and that some deep, secret part of her wanted to hear them, there was nothing to prepare her for the weight of what they meant as Death said, “Signa. You used Life’s powers.”
This time there was no denying it. She had seen the thorns and the vines sprout from beneath her own feet. Had watched as they’d climbed up the shadows and crept along her skin. Still, it seemed impossible. Because if she had Life’s powers… If she could give life…
All her life those around Signa had treated her like she was evil incarnate. Over the years she had grown to lean in to the oddities of who she was and what she could do—and she finally felt comfortable in her own skin.
And yet… For years Signa had internalized this hatred for herself. Though she thought she’d managed to put it behind her, it seemed that change did not come so easily. There was no switch she could simply press that would allow her to forget how much she had hated herself. The memories were as lashing as the sea, threatening to drown her in the self-loathing that consumed her.
All this time, her life never had to be this way.
“Did you know?” Death’s voice was a scythe that cleaved through her chest. “Did you know that this was why my brother came here?”
She held firmly to his hand, for in the back of her mind a voice warned her not to let go. That if she did, everything would be different. “I was afraid to believe it could be true.”
Death’s grip tensed. “But it is true, Signa. All this time I have been nothing but a fool to believe that you and I were made for each other. That if Fate had his counterpart, then surely I might have one as well. I thought it was a sign that I could touch you without killing you, but now I know why—”
“This is precisely why I was afraid!” Signa’s mind was a flurry of thoughts that had turned her words sharp. “Don’t you dare get philosophical on me. Don’t you dare think for even a moment that this changes anything between us. You told me before that you were the one to reap Life’s soul. How did you do it?”
Death stilled. “The same way I always do.”
“Through touching her, right?” Signa was so relieved when Death nodded, she had to choke back a laugh. “Then don’t you see? I don’t know what I am, but I cannot be her. I don’t die when you touch me, Death. I am not her.”
“But you have her powers,” he said. “Which means that your options are limitless, Little Bird. You no longer need to be consumed so thoroughly by all that’s dead or dying.”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me.” She would wage war on this hill if doing so would make him come to his senses. “You don’t get to tell me what I should do, and you don’t get to pull away from me. Not now.”
He seemed to recognize the intensity of the emotion pouring through her before she did, for his lips brushed the back of her hand as he drew her close. “I would never dream of it. You mean more to me than you will ever understand, and I will not willingly leave. But if we’re going to be together, then I want it to be by choice. Don’t shut out this other side of you simply because you’re afraid of how I might feel. If you’re who I think you are… you deserve to explore that. You deserve to know what it means.”
Perhaps, though there were no words for how deeply the idea unsettled her. These powers were no soft thing. They were wildfire upon her skin and felt as if they would burn her whole if she allowed them to.
“Whatever you decide, I will be here,” Death promised. “Until the moment you tell me to leave, I will be by your side.”
Signa leaned her head against his chest, trying to fill the ache in her heart. “What of Fate? If it’s true that I may be who he’s looking for, then where does he fit into our picture?”
She was glad for the sudden tightness in Death’s face. Glad when he wound himself around her and pulled her in close. “Whatever you are and whatever you can do, you are not who Fate expects you to be. You are still Signa Farrow, and I am not a good enough man to allow my brother to take you from me.”
Those were the words she wanted—that she needed—and she could only hope that Death meant them. Because Signa Farrow had another secret—one that she didn’t dare admit aloud. And it was that while the vines tore through the floor and the burn of Life’s powers lanced through her, Signa had heard the song that she and Fate had danced to.
She had heard the song he’d asked her to remember.
SIXTEEN
BLYTHE
SURELY, BLYTHE WAS BEING POISONED AGAIN, FOR WHAT ELSE COULD explain what she’d seen in her father’s study?
She had never run faster than she did the moment she was able to free herself from the ivy, and it had taken hours of pacing and fretting and convincing herself that she must be seeing things before she’d gathered enough nerve to return to the study, only to find that no plants waited inside. Every floorboard was unscathed, and the desk and its papers were free from even a bit of earth.
It was then that Blythe realized she was losing her mind.