Page 33 of All Hallows Masque

It was empty; the scent died here. Goosebumps prickled my arms. Was he even real?

“A ghost,” I breathed, a shudder ripping through me. Was he the third robed figure? I remembered him disappearing last week around the time the ritual began, but my memory was too hazy to recall if he’d vanished before or after it began.

I turned back to Old Ford Hall and cried out when a cool, dry hand covered my mouth, pushing me back until I slammed into the wall. I grunted at the impact but the hand over my mouth muffled the noise.

This wasn’t the bartender. He was shorter, broader, and the slash of his mouth beneath the dark edge of his mask was mean. Violence curled the edges into a smile that made me freeze.

“Choose the man in green. You know the one.”

I blinked, panic and anger knotting with surprise inside me. I’d spoken to a man early on who’d been dressed in green velvet that appeared black in the right light, his voice low and rasping as he spoke about the notes in the wine. I hadn’t singled him out as familiar, but then again I hadn’t singled out anyone.

“How do you know he’s the right one?” I asked, my voice barely audible.

“Choose the man in green,” he repeated, staring at me in a way that made me squirm. “Or you’ll regret it.”

He stepped back, leaving me shaking against the wall, and slipped back into the masquerade without another word. It sounded like advice, but gasping for air, I couldn’t see it as anything other than a threat.

21

Cat

Istayed against the wall until I’d got the tremble in my muscles under control, until I could breathe again. I finally worked up the courage to go back in, to find Death even if it killed me, but when I took a step something rustled against my dress. No, inside the small slit of a pocket.

The man with the mean smile—he left me a note? But when I pulled it out and unfurled the small scroll, the words didn’t match his tone at all.

It’s not real. Choose with your instincts.

My instincts. That made two people who’d given me that advice, whoever had written this note and Alfie, the bartender. I brushed my thumb over the word, settling deeper into my soul, wishing I had a psychic bond with Death the way I did with Madde. Hurt cut through me at the loss of it, but I couldn’t let that paralyse me now. When I got back to Darkmore Manor, when I was wrapped in the sheets in bed, alone, I could fallapart. Now, I had a chance to save my husband and I wasn’t going to waste it.

I read the note once more and slipped it back into my pocket.It’s not real.What wasn’t real? The thin illusion that everyone chose to be there, that no single courtier was in that room doing Cruelty’s bidding? The banquet, the music, the glittering jewels and dark silks?Everythingwas fake, a carefully constructed painting made by a goddess who loved playing games. It was easier to say whatwasreal.1

I took a steadying breath, and went back inside.

It’s not real. Choose with your instincts.

I repeated those words in my head as I straightened the white lace mask over my face and paused by the door, scanning the couples dancing in their gothic, vampire-esque dresses like a scene out ofDracula. With narrowed eyes, I watched people mingling at the bar or trying to ignore each other at the long, elaborate buffet table, plucking red velvet cupcakes from crimson platters or helping themselves to the big, cut-crystal punch bowl.

I made my way back into the melee, stalking through the masked courtiers like my jaguar would hunt her prey. I pushed the human part of me to the back of my mind and let the twisted, damaged Cat come to the forefront. She’d been wrecked by the curse and the serum, but she was stronger, sharper.

Vermillion light bounced from the chandeliers hanging above, casting ruddy, decadent lighting over everyone when the string quartet’s song changed,Sicilianounfurling through the room. I didn’t spot Cruelty, but that wasn’t surprising. She enjoyed lighting the touch paper and stepping back to watch the chaos of flames reign through Ford.

A scent met my nose, and my heartbeat quickened in response. Chocolate and caramel. Not a familiar scent but, there, right under it, standingbehindthe portly man who smelled likea Mars bar2 was a tall, broad-shouldered man with his back to me. Dark, glossy hair was pulled into a ponytail at the back of his collar, which was nothing like Death’s braids, and his skin was a few shades too light, but thatscent,that sweet and smoky scent of burned sugar, was so familiar it made my heart soar.

I broke into a run, not caring about the tuts and disgruntled glares fired my way. That wasDeath’sscent, and I didn’t care about anything else.

“Did no one teach you manners, girl?” a statuesque woman demanded as I barrelled past her, not stopping to throw a comeback at her. But did no one teachhernot to get in the way of a wife scorned and her damsel husband?

I dove around a young man in a tux and frilly shirt, and then the portly, Mars-bar-scent man was before me, and just behind him…

“Death?” I blurted, my voice vulnerable and weak. My eyes burned as I reached him, and I didn’t care that he looked nothing like he should. It washim.I could feel it. His scent settled over me, his presence wrapped around me, and I sobbed when he inhaled sharply and grasped my shoulders.

I threw my arms around him and held on tightly, a lump rising to my throat when the illusion veiling his true form tore away, and there he was, devastating and handsome and smiling at me. I buried my face in his chest as tears scalded my eyes, a vicious quake working its way through my whole body. He was here. I finally found him.

“Where have youbeen?”I demanded, tilting my head back to look up at him, devouring the sight of him like a woman starved. Smooth brown skin, a face formed of sharp planes and kindness, and grey eyes so stormy and deep I could get lost in them forever. “I looked everywhere for you.”

“I—” he began in a tight voice. “I don’t know.”

Pressure formed in my chest. It took serious effort to prise one of my arms from his waist so I could wipe the tears from my eyes, not giving a shit if I smudged my makeup. Death didn’t care about things like that; he loved me no matter what, even with awful makeup and a dress that made me look like a Victorian Vampire Barbie. I blinked to focus my eyes, desperate for every glimpse of him, unable to take my eyes away.

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