Page 40 of All Hallows Masque

Anger and hurt and deep, aching longing for my men pushed me out of the bedroom, and I fully intended to grab Cruelty and demand her tell me where Death was—

No, not Death. She’d never had Death. She hadhim.Alfie. The charming, cheeky, curly-haired man who’d made those masquerades bearable.

I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he was mine, and Cruelty didn’t get to play games with him. She didn’t get to keep him from me.

The moment I stepped into the hall, all my plans ground to a halt, and my anger skipped a beat. Fairy lights had been strung in great swags along the walls, swaths of gold silk and silver velvet tangled around them. I followed the line of the fabric with my eyes, not sure if it was a guide rope that would lead me out of the darkness or a velvet arrow pointing into hell. Probably the latter.

At the end of the hall stood a tall, looming statue.

“Motherfucker,” I hissed, grinding my teeth. It was made of the same alabaster as the statues she’d arrayed in Old Ford House, and a golden mask made of laurel leaves perched on the statue’s cheekbones.

I couldn’t help but notice the dress and mask hanging from a hook by the window. Pure black fabric was cut in an elegant sheath, but when I picked it up, gritting my teeth, it was backless except for a spinal cord made entirely of gilded bones. The mask matched, a flimsy construction of what looked like finger bones.

My stomach dropped.

Cruelty had thrown another masquerade ball, right here in Darkmore.

24

Cat walked right past me without a second glance, which was pretty damn annoying. But given my whole body was covered in dried plaster, my skin a sickly shade of alabaster, and a delicate gold mask covered my face, I wouldn’t hold it against her. Cruelty had taken great pleasure in snapping the elastic against the back of my head, which shouldn’t have hurt, but apparently even being a statue didn’t spare me any pain.

Typical.

I tugged on my magic, trying to coax out another wisp of a shadow so I could see my porcelain fingers. The scant bit of magic I already had hold of allowed me to make out the corridor in dim, shadowy impressions in my head, but I needed more. If I was going to get out of this damn plaster, I needed more magic. I needed a whole swarm of darkness, not a mere trickle.

Well,twotrickles. It took me long, long minutes to summon the second, and Cat had already walked past me in a fucking devastating dress. The new shadow spawned just in time to give me a clear impression of her body in a dress the shade of true midnight, her white and pink hair unbound and falling over hershoulders. When she walked past, I had my shadows trail her and swore so viciously inside my head I was surprised the force of it didn’t shatter the statue I’d been trapped in. Honestly, I was surprised my boner didn’t at least crack the plaster.

The dress she wore was backless, but a golden spine clung to her bare skin. Deadly and sharp and so goddamn beautiful. She looked like a queen. Like a death goddess.

Focus,I snapped at myself when she’d been gone for minutes and I wasstillthinking about the fit of the fabric to her hips, that golden spine enticing my fingertips to trace her bare skin.Get it together.

I rallied my second shadow until I could assess my fingers. I was still bleeding. With any luck the other gods would use it to track me. Tor was a tracking prodigy; if anyone could find Cat and I, it was him.

Every last hope I had now was pinned on that gruff, tattooed smartass.

And that was depressing.

25

Cat

Iyanked the black dress over my head, feeling the golden spine settle cold against my back, my skin instantly awash with goosebumps. I refused to wear the mask. The dress was a bribe, a way to catch Cruelty off guard so she’d think I was playing along and not suspect me until my knife was buried in her gut.1 But I refused to wear the fucking mask.

I untwisted the delicate frame of golden finger bones, really, really hoping they weren’trealfinger bones spray painted gold. It took long minutes but spite and rage fuelled me until I was done, and the bones were manipulated into a hollow circle. Remembering Madde’s pleading from my dream, not quite able to shake the fact it wasreal,I settled that circlet of bones on my head. My reflection was a stranger—dangerous and foreboding and regal.

The woman in the mirror was the sort of woman who could avenge Byron and Honey’s deaths, find Alfie, and end Cruelty for good.

I straightened my spine, the gold embellishments cold against my back, and strode back into the hallway. This time I didn’t stop, marching past the statues placed at hallway corners, eyeing them warily when I realised their raised arms pointed towards the staircase.

The scent of cloying violets hit me like an assault when I descended the stairs. I rocked back as memories rose—fighting Nightmare, my husbands yelling in pain, Madde’s voice slurring in my mind.

I don’t feel too good, my lion.

That was all Cruelty’s doing, not Nightmare’s. Poppy, the Stalker, injuring my men. Nightmare was the puppet. Cruelty was her master.

Another statue waited at the bottom, this one a plump woman draped in a gorgeous dress, the pleats of fabric across her bodice so realistic I brushed a fingertip across it to check it really was plaster. Cold stone met my fingers and I shook my head at my own paranoia.

I stopped dead in the foyer, the sight of hundreds upon hundreds of lime green tulips overflowing vases like a hatchet to the chest. She was mocking me now, reminding me she knew everything about me. Every soft moment I’d shared with Death. Everything that mattered to me.

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