There were more spirits still, some of them even likely wandering rooms of the manor that Signa hadn’t yet explored. The trio she’d met on her first night at Foxglove had poked their heads in and were watching while several others panicked from the surge of bodies that had kicked back into motion as golden threads spun around the ballroom.
Signa ignored them, as the worst of it had settled and, for the time being, all seemed to be in control. The music picked up midsong, but laughter was quickly shifting to whispers as people noticed the thin cuts along their bodies and shattered glass that several maids were already hurrying to clean up. Signa caught sight of Byron and followed his gaze across the floor, to where Eliza Wakefield was gathering her skirts. She’d been far enough from the tables to avoid injuries, though she appeared more sickly than ever seen, with ashen skin and eyes as hollow as a spirit’s as she stumbled toward the doors.
Behind her, Fate wore a grave expression and Signa understood that the moment Death returned, he would have someone else to claim.
Blythe’s eyes found Signa’s from across the ballroom, and without a word between them, they pushed through the crowd and followed Eliza down the stairs, out of Foxglove, and into the night.
THIRTY-NINE
ELIZA WAS ON HER KNEES IN THE GARDEN, THROWING UP IN THE POPPIES by the time they found her. She held her stomach, a sloshing vial of oiled herbs clutched tight in her fist.
Signa crouched beside her while Blythe seized hold of Eliza’s hand.
“Give that to me,” Blythe demanded with the chill of a wintertime storm. “Open your hand and give that to me now. How much have you taken?”
Though Eliza looked a breath away from death, she didn’t ease her grip on the vial and instead tried to obscure it from view.
“Leave me alone,” she seethed, every bit as lethal as Signa knew she could be. What Signa didn’t expect, however, was the edge of fear in Eliza’s voice as she clamped her eyes shut and curled into the dirt. “This is retribution. I’ll come back inside once I—” She cut off with a choke as she doubled over again, bile trailing down her lips.
“She’s delirious.” Blythe shifted so that she was behind Eliza, loosening the laces of her corset as Eliza cried in relief.
“She’s dying,” Signa clarified, not needing to look up to know that Death had arrived at last. The dirt was ice beneath her fingertips, and Eliza curled into herself, unable to stop her shivering. When the shadows pooled around her, Signa bared her teeth.
I will not make the same choice I did with Blythe, she told him. I will not demand the same sacrifice from you. But all the same, I will not let you have her. Not until I try everything.
Her clock is ticking, Little Bird, Death warned. There are battles even you cannot win.
Perhaps, though it would not be from a lack of effort. Signa pried off her gloves and took hold of Eliza’s hand, plucking her fingers from the glass one by one.
“I need it,” Eliza cried, fighting Signa to squeeze the vial. “You don’t understand—”
“Mugwort.” Blythe straightened from her crouch, fingers curling into the bark of the tree she braced herself against. “There’s mugwort and tansy in that thing. You can help her, can’t you?”
“Tansy?” It was a common enough herb, often used to aid with stomach pain or headaches. But Signa had to scan her brain over the mugwort, thinking through everything she’d ever heard about it. Everything she’d ever read. Its uses, its dangers…
She froze, face gaunt as she peered down to where Eliza clutched her stomach. Not around the middle, but lower, right on the swell of her belly. Blythe must have recognized the moment that Signa understood, for she leaned closer as Signa lifted Eliza’s dress over her knees and saw exactly what she’d feared—blood. Too much of it, soaking through her undergarments.
“You’re pregnant.” Signa was breathless. How had she not realized it before? The obsession with finding a husband. Her nausea… Eliza had been pregnant all this time. Though neither she nor the baby would survive if Signa didn’t act soon.
She looked to Blythe, who had already tossed her gloves aside and was pushing up her sleeves. There was no question in the look she slid Signa, only a demand—fix this.
“If you’re going to do it, then it needs to be now.” Death’s voice was no soft thing. It was every bit as powerful as he was as it cracked through the night, awakening a fervor of determination within her. “It needs to be before she dies, otherwise I cannot allow you to claim her.”
Fate’s warning from days ago echoed in her head, causing Signa to hesitate before she set her bare hands onto Eliza. She needed to heal not just one life, but two, and she hadn’t a clue where to begin.
She shut her eyes, focusing with everything in her on helping these two. On making them well and healthy. She envisioned it in her mind’s eye, just as Fate had instructed. She pictured Eliza with full and glowing cheeks, and a child who would live to see this world. Yet as she pressed her palms against Eliza, Signa could not escape intrusive thoughts that warned her of the burn that was to come.
It was too painful. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t—
“Don’t you dare give up.” Blythe took hold of Signa’s hand and pressed it down. “Help them, Signa.”
This time as the heat crept in, Signa threw the doors open and let it consume her. She didn’t stop when it felt like fire licking up her skin. Didn’t move even when she was convinced that this magic was melting her alive, or when her eyes stung so much that she worried she’d never see again.
She let the heat consume her until she saw only an abyss of pure white. There was nothing but endless space ahead until she heard a gentle, jovial laugh. A face took shape then—Fate’s face, though more relaxed as he laughed, holding someone. Holding her, she realized.
Only, Signa wasn’t herself, but another woman entirely. One with sweeping white hair as pure as snow, who laughed as she eased onto her toes to kiss him.
Vaguely, Signa understood that she was seeing another memory, this one of a time long ago, where the woman in her mind’s eye had burned for Fate’s touch, and his kiss alone could make her heart soar. It was a time when she saw Death sitting alone, watching beneath the shade of a wisteria tree, and she felt nothing for him.
As quickly as it came, the memory slipped away as Signa fell from Eliza. She took her head in her hands, aching with a pain so consuming that she wished she would faint. Yet her mind wouldn’t allow such an escape, not after all she’d just seen. The memory was short and vague, nothing more than passing glimpses. But she could no longer claim it as coincidence. Life’s memories were real, and as Death whispered words she could not focus enough to hear, Signa curled into herself.
Despite Life’s powers and all the proof she’d had so far, she’d been clinging to the hope that Fate was wrong. That everything she’d done thus far had been a fluke, and that they’d one day find the true reincarnation of his wife and be done with this mess. Signa could ignore a song, but she couldn’t deny these memories.
“Breathe, Little Bird,” Death whispered as he bent beside her. Signa was trying her best to save face, though she nearly lost herself at those words because this was the man she loved. This was the man she wanted to kiss, and whose presence alone put her body at ease. But Signa could feel that more memories were waiting, biding their time to surface when she least wanted them.
Eliza came to seconds later. Her clammy skin had begun to dry, and her bleeding had halted. But considering that Signa could still see Death hovering nearby, Eliza must not have been fully out of the woods yet.
Blythe hadn’t moved an inch, alert only when Eliza tried to peel her dress from her thighs, the dried blood clinging to her skin. “Careful,” Blythe whispered, her voice dazed. “You should move slowly.”
Eliza’s thin brows pinched toward her nose. She looked from the poppies to the trees surrounding her as she pried herself from the dirt. “What on earth happened?”