Page 55 of All Hallows Masque

“Miss Peach Melba,” Misery snapped, serious enough that she froze and gave him a startled look. “No.Noeating Madde’s food. Madness, eat. You need the strength.”

“When did you become such a busybody?” Tor asked, watching him with a soft expression that hurt to see. Cat looked at me like that. My bottom lip caved in, but I cradled Peach in the crook of my elbow and shoved tinned fruit into my mouth.

“I learned it from you,” Miz fired back without missing a beat.

Tor snorted. On the surface, they seemed normal. Tor was his usual scowling, snarky self on the surface, but I saw the cracks, the truth. None of us were sleeping. Tor had dark circles ringing his eyes, his face was rough with stubble, and he’d been wearing those clothes for days. The peaches were probably the only thing he’d eaten today, same as me. We needed our Cat back.

I sniffled again, and lost the battle with my tears, breaking down for the third time today. I was exhausted from crying, from hurting, from missing my girl so damn much, but I couldn’t seem to stop the tears. No one told me to get my shit together, or that crying was unhelpful in finding Cat—or Pain, who we now knew was the other god missing. Not counting that psycho bastard Violence, who had to be with his sister.

“Tor,” Death said urgently, drawing all our attention. But his gaze was fixed on the shell in the middle of the map, which had once belonged to Pain. It had sat dead and still for days but now it was spinning like crazy.

Tor lunged and grabbed the shell, folding his fingers around it and closing his eyes, shadows flickering around his shoulders, coiling around his arm, reaching closer and closer to his hand. When they reached his hand, he gasped.

“Blood,” he laughed, gruffly. “He’s fucking bleeding. Clever bastard.”

“Make sense, boy,” Neglect snapped. “What’s happening?”

“There’s blood on this shell,” Tor explained. “Just a drop, but enough to connect to Pain now he’s bleeding wherever the fuck he’s ended up.”

“Can you use it to track him?” Misery demanded.

Tor’s answering grin was sharp. “I already am. Miz, go get every weapon we own. This could be a trap, but if it is, we’re walking into it armed to the teeth.”

Hope wrapped itself around my neck like a noose. “Do you really think Cat will be there? Will this take us to her?”

Tor looked at the shell in his palm. “Only one way to find out.”

34

Torment

After days of failures, endless hours of feeling useless when every shadow and attempt to track Pain and Cat led to dead ends, it felt surreal to finally have a concrete lead. The thought of Cat alone with Cruelty, suffering but so brave, in pain but so defiant, fuckingkilledme. That was my girl, my beautiful wife. I was supposed to be protecting her, standing between her and anyone who so much as glared at her. But she’d endured it alone, enduredfuck knows whatkind of pain and mind games and torment. I knew the way Cruelty worked. She played games with people like they were pawns on a board, and would sacrifice any of them to protect the king and queen—herself and her heartless brother.

I curled my hands into fists, barely holding onto my temper. When I blinked, visions of Cat crawling filled my vision. Broken bones prevented her from walking, so she had to drag herself along the floor, a trail of blood behind her and all that gorgeoushair tainted and dark with vital blood. In my vision, she lifted her hand to plead for mercy, but it was ignored as a fist swung from the darkness and smashed into her cheek. Her nose broke, blood gushing from her mouth, teeth broken, lips bleeding, sobs making her body jerk as tears carved tracks through the blood on her cheeks and—

“Tor,” Death said with a gentleness that made me want to lash out, made my chestache.

I inhaled raggedly, trying to push away those visions. Yet another thing I failed at. If anything, that nightmare of Cat crawling, bloody, begging to be spared, sharpened. Grew teeth and sank them into me.

“You have to stay positive, Tor,” Death said in a voice rough with emotion.

“I know,” I muttered, sending the shadow tracking Pain further. I’d reached the edge of the realm now, where the gates used to be, and the dark tendril had punched through the veil. Not something I knew I was capable without the gates, but I was too stressed to be excited about discovering a new ability.

“We’ll find her,” Death said, almost to himself. “She’ll be fine; she’s strong, and Cruelty won’t hurt her physically. That’s not her style.”

“I know.” That was Violence’s wheelhouse.

“Cat survived all of Nightmare’s machinations. She survived an attack from the goddess herself—”

“Iknow,Death,” I snapped loudly, more images pelting my head. Cat’s eyes flaring with pure panic in the garden when she heard Nightmare’s taunt. Her voice, increasingly frightened, calling for me through the darkness, forever out of reach as I grew so pathetically weak from a single scratch. The look on her face when she saw Miz so close to death.

“Fuck off and bother someone else,” I growled, ripping my focus back to that single tendril of shadow stretching intothe mortal realm, probing, searching, desperate. “I need to concentrate.”

Death physically recoiled, and that flinch hit me like a fist to the solar plexus. Shit. I wasn’t the only one terrified for our wife, and lashing out wasn’t hurting anyone.

“Death,” I began, turning to him.

“It’s fine.” He nodded to the shell in my hand. “You focus. Find Pain. I’ll make sure the others are ready.”

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