Page 50 of All Hallows Fate

“Oh, definitely,” Madde agreed brightly. “But that’s not the point.” He stabbed a finger at Pain. “How is a nun murder spree, that took place over six hours by the way, worse than that twisted village you established that’s still thriving today?”

“We agreed not to bring this up,” Pain groaned.

“Why do I think thriving means something very different in this case?” I cut in, distracted from my mounting dead despite myself.

“I might have made a quaint little village,” Pain admitted, rubbing the back of his neck, rumpling his mousy curls. “It was supposed to be a normal, picturesque village with a duck pond and pubs and a cute little stone bridge. But uh. My hand slipped.”

“Your hand slipped,” Tor drawled, giving me a look around Pain’s shoulder. “His magic took on a life of its own and the inhabitants of that village turned into power-hungry maniacs who sacrifice their own kids for power.”

“I did try to tell them to stop their little game, but they wouldn’t listen,” Pain muttered sullenly. “They still won’t, generations later.”

“You created a monster,” I guessed. “What’s the village called? And what happened to the ducks?”

“It’s called Sorrow, and the ducks are completely fine, thank you.”

“Except, they’re still alive,” Miz said. “Hundreds of years later.”

“Hey, you have no room to talk,” Pain protested, a flush on his cheeks making him look so damn cute. “You helped me. You’re an accomplice.”

Miz shrugged, his head high, a little smirk on his face. “You have no evidence of that.”

“I—” Pain cut off with a huff, and I guessed Miz was right.

I offered, “After the domain is stable, maybe we could visit Sorrow. Try to, uh, settle things sans sacrifice?”

“Good luck with that,” Madde quipped, seeming pleased that we all agreed Sorrow was worse than his killer nuns.

I would have replied, but my eyes snagged on something at the end of the cobbled street.

Not the statue that was half crumbled, not the open square with its abandoned market stalls, their canopies eaten through in places, fog swirling around the edges. It was the small terrace house halfway down the row that caught my attention. Where all the others were brown, grey, or ordinary brick, this was painted a striking blue. And it was still intact.

“Slight detour,” I said when we drew nearer, slowing Fuzzball enough that I could swing my leg over her back and jump down. “I’ll explain later, but I just need to knock on this door.”

34

Cat

“Cat?” Death urged Mort closer, sweeping down to the cobbles in a plume of dark magic.

I didn’t slow. “I had a dream, and the woman in it told me to go here. It’s hard to explain.”

Mostly because I could have hallucinated the entire thing, and there was nothing inside the house but cobwebs and fog. But if there really was an immortal woman here, and she could help us fight Violence, it would be worth knocking on the door.

“It could be a trap,” Death began, angling himself closer, an arm of shadow brushing my wrist but unable to stop me raising my knuckles to the cornflower blue door and rapping a quick beat.

I expected silence. Instead:

“Bugger off,” a belligerent voice snarled from inside.

“Um,” I began, but mentally rapped my own wrist. I was a death goddess, I was Judgement. So I straightened my back and reached for the door with a slow tendril of magic, winding around the handle, reaching through the narrow seams between the lock, depressing tumblers until the door swung open.

“I have news—”

A bright green streak of magic slammed into my throat and swung me around like a ragdoll. My back collided with a kitchen wall, rattling the three flying ducks hanging above my head.

“About your daughter,” I finished in a croak, pulling a ball of magic from my core and driving it into the glowing power around my throat.

I’d never seen magic like it. Not smoke, not shadow, not even the swirling fog that doused the whole domain. This was… verdant. And it glowed like a lightning bolt. It didn’t hurt where it touched me, but the sheer power coming from it made my heart quicken and my skin itch with awareness of how overpowered I was.