“I reallyshouldn’tlet you go,” Cruelty said, tapping her foot on the floor. “My brother’s just looking for a reason to punish you again. He told me it was so fun the first time.”
I launched forward with a snarl, Death right there with me. Shadows snapped across the floor, creeping along the walls.With Pain and Madde, we surrounded Cat. Both protection and backup, if she wanted to launch an attack. Tor’s neck hung under this psychotic executioner’s blade, so I wouldn’t risk making the first move, but if Cat attacked, we’d figure out how to blast through that shield behind us.
“But,” Cruelty added after she’d savoured the moment of tension, “since you’re my best friend, and this is only your first rule break, I’ll let you go. But I warn you, Kitty, one more infraction and you’ll be in detention.”
“Detention,” Cat repeated breathily, squeezing my wrist. “Is that code for something?”
“Nope.” Cruelty swept a look over all of us—hostility barely sheered out by the soft veil of cordiality. “We’ll have you writing lines until you learn your lesson. My governess used to makemewrite lines all the time and look how I turned out.”
“Batshit insane?” Madde guessed.
“Well balanced,”Cruelty corrected through gritted teeth. She took a step aside. “Go, before I change my mind and bring Violence to fix this bad behaviour.”
I cast a look over my shoulder at the door, but if we pushed, Tor would pay for it. So even though my stomach twisted and burned, I followed the others to the staircase and back into our room.
CHAPTER 19
CAT
When we got back to my room, it was to find two students in blood red uniforms standing opposite the door. Cruelty might have let us go, but we were now guarded. I snarled at them, the beast running hot in my blood, but Death quickly ushered me inside. He’d regained his strength in the past hour, but it didn’t stop me glancing at him every few moments.
Hours later, I’d finally stopped pacing the rug on the floor, and now I sat at the small desk, doodling absent lines on a scrap of paper with a fountain pen I found in the drawer. It was solid gold and encrusted with diamante and gold filigree, and I was keeping it. Although, if it gave me one more buzz of static, I might relegate it to a life in the drawer. I shook out my fingers as it zapped me for the second time.
“Soooo,” Madde said, leaning against the table beside me. He’d changed clothes and now wore a pair of my short pyjamas. They were purple and white striped silk, had little ducks allover them, and the sight of my husband wearing them made me smile. “There’s another way to break that shield. Nasty thing, made of blood and bone and a scream of someone close to death. I got through one once, but it nearly sent me insane.”
“Nearly,” Miz drawled, leaning against the headboard of the bed beside Death, a pale eyebrow lifted.
Madde stuck his tongue out at him. “But there’s a way to break through it; I found it in a book the old Madness kept in a stuffy box in the library. I bet I could summon it here.”
“I bet you couldn’t,” Pain disagreed, sitting on the windowsill as his shadows filled the cracks in the old window, guarding us. “This place is locked down harder than Fort Knox.”
“Have you everbeento Fort Knox?” Madde enquired saucily.
Pain flicked a shadow to snap at his ankles. “It’s just an expression. Contrary little shit.”
Madde’s smile grew. “Contrary little shit. I like that. I’ll add it to my CV.”
“You have a CV?” I asked, leaning into his side.
“Not yet. But now I’ve got something to add to it.” He gazed down at me, his eyes bright and glittering. “How do you think I should format it?”
“Format? You mean you’re not going to handwrite it in a glittery pink gel pen?”
He swooped down and kissed me so suddenly, so thoroughly that my head spun a little and my heart got all out of sync. “You are the most wonderful, stupendously perfect woman in the known universe.”
“I am…?”
“No one comes close,” he confirmed with a hard nod, his eyes so vivid I saw constellations within them. “Ooh!” He held up his finger like he’d had a revelation. “I should rail you senseless.”
A laugh punched from my chest. “Later.” I leaned forward to kiss the swath of his chest exposed by the V neck of the pyjamas.“Can you try to summon that book, so we can break the shield and bring Tor home?”
“Carefully,” Death added. “If we risk angering Cruelty again…”
“Got it.” Madde nodded seriously, shaking out his arms, then dropping into a lunge. “Avoid Cruelty turning Tor into a blood splatter painting.”
The visual made me jerk, my heart spiking into my throat.
“What are you doing?” Pain asked, a furrow between his brows. “This looks super weird through my shadows, just so you know.”
