Belladonna (Belladonna #1)(102)

Nineteen years Signa had spent avoiding the truth. Avoiding all that made her different. But no longer did these powers of hers feel like such a bad thing. It seemed there could be beauty in them, too.

“Yes,” she told him as Lillian pressed her forehead against her husband’s back, winding her arms around him. “She’s right here.”

Elijah reached a trembling hand toward where Lillian’s arms wound around him, his body shaking. “I knew you were. All this time, I knew you were still with me.”

“Yes, my love.” Lillian spoke clearly, the only hesitation in her words coming from a tremor of emotion that she was barely keeping down. “I’ve been with you this whole time.”

Though he couldn’t see her, probably couldn’t even hear her, he dipped his head against the garden gate and shut his eyes as they poured tears. “I should have taken better care of this place,” he said. “I never should have shut these doors.”

A breeze picked up, easing the gates fully open. There was no sign of Percy inside. No sign of anything but snow and charred trees, and wisps of smoke still fading into the night.

“So open them now,” she whispered against the back of his neck. Her body was beginning to disappear at the edges. Signa knew she’d remain forever if she could, but there was no time. Her spirit was wisping away like the wind itself. “Open them and enjoy my garden. Visit this place and think of me.”

Death took a step forward. “There’s not much time left if you wish to pass on,” he said, not sternly but with finality. Whether Lillian chose to go or not, her spirit was not long for this world.

Lillian clutched her husband tighter. “I am still with you, my love, and I will always be. When you wish to see me, look at the child of our love, and there I’ll be. Take care of her, as I will take care of our son.” She drew away until her hands fell to her sides.

As though he were able to feel her absence, Elijah spun around. “Stay. I will do better by you, I swear it. But stay, Lillian. Stay. I don’t know how to be without you.”

Through her tears, Lillian smiled. “Then you will learn.” She took a long, final look at her husband and then turned to stroke Mitra’s mane and plant a final kiss upon the horse. Mitra’s ears flattened.

“I was happy in this life,” Lillian told Signa. “I was the happiest I’ve ever been here with him, and I wouldn’t change any part of it. Tell him that for me, would you?”

Signa bowed her head, her eyes hot. The two before her had the sort of love she’d spent her life dreaming about. It may not have been perfect, but it had been true. She looked to the shadows beside Lillian where Death waited, and she wondered what an eternity with that love might feel like. “I will,” Signa promised her, earning Elijah’s attention just as Lillian took hold of the reaper’s hand.

Death cast one final look at Signa as Lillian took her final steps in this world. I’ll be back soon. And I’ll explain everything.

Signa looked forward to it; she was tired of puzzles. But for now she turned to Elijah, and she told him gently, in the softest voice possible, “She’s gone, Elijah. She’s finally at peace.”

And then she held him as he fell to his knees outside the garden gates and cried.





FORTY-FIVE





BY THE TIME SIGNA AND ELIJAH RETURNED TO THE STABLES, DAWN had crept into the sky.

She was relieved that Elijah hadn’t pressed her about the garden. That he’d not yet asked about Percy or how she’d known Lillian was truly gone. She was glad for the moment of peace his silence gave her. The opportunity to sink into her bed just before the sun awoke.

She felt Death before she saw him, that familiar cold slipping into her bones. That icy chill she’d come to anticipate drawing her eyes open and her attention into focus.

He was not his shadow self but the stable boy she knew, a hound at his side. Gundry took one look at Signa, jumped into her bed, and circled a few times before curling up at her feet.

“I understand if you don’t want to speak with me,” Death said—or was she meant to call him Sylas now? “But I promise that I’ll answer your questions with nothing but honesty, if you’re ready to ask.”

Of course she was ready to ask. There were a million questions spinning in her head. “How long have you been at Thorn Grove?” was her first. “How long have you managed this charade?”

He kept his head dipped low. “I was never truly at Thorn Grove,” he admitted, grimacing when Signa rubbed her temples. “As far as anyone else here knows, Sylas Thorly never existed. To anyone but you, I was invisible.” He took a seat on the edge of the bed next to Gundry but stood swiftly when she gave him a pointed kick. She had no intention of letting him relax for even a moment.

She took her time responding, letting him stew as she thought through all that had happened in the past weeks. When Elijah had sent for her at Aunt Magda’s, she’d certainly thought it odd that he’d have her travel with a young man who was not a blood relation. At the train station, too, he’d walked ahead without communicating with anyone, and he had let her catch up. But everything at Thorn Grove was strange, and she merely thought Sylas rude. “The sweets on the train,” she said aloud, remembering how he’d devoured them. Tasting them for the first time most likely. “Elijah doesn’t seem like the type who would have gifted me those.”