Belladonna (Belladonna #1)(69)

“Have a wonderful night, Sylas.” She folded her hands in her lap, wondering if she should try to look more affronted that he’d sneaked in through the window, and less like his doing so thrilled her.

Sylas made his way toward the window and hauled himself onto the willow tree as respectfully as one could do such a thing. When he was secure he turned back to her, moonlight glinting in his eyes. “Have a good evening, Miss Farrow. I’ll be in touch soon.”





TWENTY-NINE





WHEN MIDNIGHT STRUCK LATER THAT NIGHT, SIGNA WAS READY.

She paced the length of the sitting room as she waited for the darkness to pull inward as Death filled her room, bringing with him the chill of late autumn. Signa was glad for the slippers she wore and the robe she’d pulled over her thin chemise. The warning of the approaching winter hung in the air, it’s chill bitter and biting across her skin.

“You did well. I’m glad you found a way to help Blythe.” Death took in the dark tresses that Signa had brushed and the cheeks that she’d pinched life into. She’d spent the past hour since Sylas had left letting her mind whirl as she readied herself, thinking through everything she wanted to ask him. Everything she wanted to discuss.

“Only because you warned me.” Signa wrung her hands. “Though the solution is temporary. Tell me… are you certain you haven’t any clue who could be behind Lillian’s murder?”

Death took a seat on the arm of the chaise. “This is no elaborate scheme. It’s as I’ve told you before—I’m limited in what I can see. When I touch someone, I claim their life. With that touch, I can see snippets of their living years, but I’m no psychic, nor am I all-knowing.”

Signa sighed. While she’d expected as much, it would have been so much easier if he knew something.

“And what of your powers, Signa?” He rose from the chaise and prowled toward her. Every step he took caused a flurry in her chest, a cold burn creeping into her lungs. “There’s something I’ve been curious about for a while. When you touched Magda, did you see anything?”

She’d buried the memory of that night deep, preferring never to think of what she’d done. But she did consider the question, and she shook her head. Death might have been able to see the lives of those he claimed, but Signa hadn’t seen a thing when she’d touched Magda.

Death made a low hum under his breath. “While you do have my powers,” he said, “it would seem that you’re not able to use them to the same extent. At least not yet.”

“What do you mean, ‘not yet’?” Signa remained still as he drew a step closer to her.

The shadows swayed on the walls around him, a back-and-forth dance that lulled her into a sense of comfort. “It’s merely a thought, though I wonder if you might be able to access your abilities better, Little Bird, if you were dead.”

Finally, she had the sense to take a step back. “But I cannot die. I don’t want to die.”

“Exactly,” he said. “You have a very long and full life ahead of you, rest assured. It’s only a theory, but I do believe that when your life is over—and it will be eventually, Signa—these powers will be awaiting you.”

Signa wrapped her arms around herself. “You think I’m like you.” Her words were little more than a puff of air, fast and disbelieving. “You think I’m… What? Death?”

Death’s shadows shifted, making him a touch smaller and less intimidating. “A reaper,” he clarified in perhaps the softest voice she’d ever heard. A lake beneath the stars, still and quiet. “Yes.”

It was a theory, he said, as though the idea wasn’t enough to make her head spin. A theory, but one that had more merit than she cared to consider.

Suddenly, the cold was enough to make Signa shiver, though this time it wasn’t because of Death’s presence. She gripped the edge of a table to steady herself, and when that didn’t work, she stumbled back into a chair as the idea pounded against her temples. “How would that be possible? Were you human once, too?”

He knelt before her. “No, I don’t believe I was. It’s impossible to remember everything, old as I am—though I’m certain I’d have remembered that.”

It didn’t make sense. Why, after all this time, would Fate decide that another reaper needed to exist in this world? Signa couldn’t say with confidence that’s what she was, but it was… a possibility. A damning one she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around, but a possibility nonetheless.

“I think it’d be wise to test the limits of your abilities.” Death spoke as though Signa were a child. As though she were a small, fragile thing that needed to be coddled. It didn’t go unnoticed, and it wasn’t difficult to think of where he might have learned to speak with a softness that felt so unlike the Death she believed had always existed. For so many years she’d seen him only as the reaper—a shadow with a lethal touch who’d pluck away any and every person in her life. But as he set a hand upon her knee with a touch that made Signa’s heart leap into her throat, she realized he was something else entirely.

Death was the ferrier of souls; he was not a demon or a monster, but the one who guided wayward spirits. She’d seen how they clung to him. How they sought him out in anticipation. And for those who were afraid… Well, he had to have learned his softness somewhere.