Page 37 of All Hallows Masque

“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Ender said, still in that blunt, bitten-off tone that covered hurt with rage. “To consider how I should have done things, to find a way out of here and back to her, even if she doesn’t remember me. Balance is necessary—it all comes down to the equally balanced scales of life and death. I’m assuming you’ve neglected your deathly duties since meeting Cat?”

I winced. “Yes. The others have, too.”

“That was your first mistake. Not fixing the emotional turmoil between you and her was the second. Balance can be found in her death, or in you fixing your mistakes. All of this—” He flicked his fingers at the fog, “tells me her soul isstillin turmoil. So step one, get out of here. Step two, find her—and the others bound to her—and work on your damn relationship. Make sure it’s stable and unbreakable. Step three—do your damn job,and sow death among mortals in the appropriate numbers. Step four—never come back here so I never have to see your face again.”

I gave it thought. If Nightmare fucking with our little bride had made us unstable, and the domain was tied to Cat as much as it was tied to us death gods, maybe Ender was right and all we needed to do was find peace. Safety. Contentment.

“Your solution is for us to live happily ever after?” I asked, making sure I’d got that right.

He shrugged. “Balance. This started from disorder. So counter it with order.”

Nightmare was dead, so she couldn’t threaten us again, and Poppy was removed from the picture but— “Cruelty is going to be an issue.”

“So kill her and befriend the next Cruelty. Problem solved.”

My mouth twitched but I refused to let it form a smile. Ender grated my nerves, but he had a sense of humour at least. He and Tor would get along well. “Something tells me it won’t be so simple.”

“Then simplify it.”

I narrowed my eyes at the bastard, changing my mind. “And what about step one? How do I get out?”

“Stop following the blind tug in your gut for one,” he huffed. “It’s leading you deeper into Exile, genius. Ignore that, and focus on your bond to Cat. She’s living. You should, in theory, be able to follow it out of Exile.”

“In theory,” I echoed.

He gave me a vulgar gesture. “It’s the best idea I have, so try being grateful. It’s more than I’ve got; I’m stuck here forever.”

I exhaled a hard breath. He was right. If there was a small chance I could get out of Exile, at least that was a chance. Ender didn’t have that. “Because she passed?” I asked carefully.

He jerked his head in an abrupt nod. I didn’t press further. I halted Mort and tried to find the bond Ender insisted existed between me and Cat. I remembered the first time I felt her, likea disturbance in the calm of the afterlife, like chaos and life and defiance in monotony.

The first time I saw her, afraid but beautiful, fleeing down the moors road as I materialised atop Mort, cloaked in shadow. The way she’d looked at me when I removed the helm. The way her silver eyes turned smoky and dark when she was needy and aroused. The easy affection she showed with casual touches, rolling to the tips of her toes to kiss me, her hands splayed across my chest.

I thought of the way she clung to me when she was breathless with panic, the trust I saw in her eyes, the way she reached for me for comfort and reassurance. It was an honour to be that for her, to be steady ground under her feet, to be the darkness shielding her from piercing, ruthless light.

“Have you got it yet?” Ender asked.

I reached across and shoved him, keeping my eyes closed, letting the memories wash over me, fill up all my hollow places until I could almost smell peaches and cream, and hear the soft, husky rumble of her laughter, and feel her eyes on me, stroking from my face down my body in the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.

I didn’t know what the bond felt like, or how I’d know I’d found it, let alone how to follow it through Exile to my wife. But I held tight to those memories until I felt the imprint of Cat sitting on Mort in front of me, nestled close to my body, her hand resting on my arm and her head tipped back against my chest.

And I got the sense, she could show Mort where to go—and show me how to find her.

“Now that’s more like it,” Ender said with approval when I picked up Mort’s reins and angled her where Cat guided me. In my fantasy she tipped her head back to gaze at me and feathered her lips over my jaw, the touch so soft and full of love that my heart clenched outside the illusion.

I felt Mort pick up the pace, trotting and then full-out sprinting, but I didn’t open my eyes, didn’t look away from Cat as she guided me across Exile. The image of her grew so strong that I could count the individual eyelashes framing her silver eyes, the freckles scattered haphazardly across her nose.

“Ah,” Ender said, threatening the perfect image of Cat curled up against me. The only thing that could make this fantasy better was Miz and Tor riding on either side of me. Instead I had the irritated grey stallion and Ender, a man whose special talent was finding the edge of my temper.

“What do you meanah?”I muttered, tightening my grip on Cat with my eyes closed. Magic shivered around me, like the air was full of it, and I wanted to open my eyes to see what the fuck Ender was doing but I resisted the urge. I couldn’t lose the fantasy now, when I finally had a way back to Cat.

“The good news is I know where the chasm is, and your death magic should make it possible for you to cross. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be possible.”

“That good news sounds a little shaky,” I remarked tightly.Shouldwas not a word I wanted to hear right now, when my loves were realms away.

“You haven’t heard the bad news yet,” he drawled, and that was enough to make me open my eyes.

The chasm lay a hundred feet ahead of us, not a crack in the ground as I’d been picturing but a rip in the atmosphere like the veil was made of actual fabric and someone had taken a razor-sharp sword to it. Part of it hung open, revealing darkness on the other side. The sight of that black void was a welcome relief after days of white, blank nothingness. Or was it weeks?

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