Page 53 of All Hallows Fate

“But you’re—” Alive. Exceedingly powerful. “How?”

An enigmatic smile curled her mouth, cutting smile lines into her face. “That’s the other question, which I won’t answer because it’s none of your beeswax.”

Madde sat beside me and rested his elbows on the table, his chin propped on both hands. “What if we asked really, really nicely?”

“No.” She used a bright stream of magic to knock his elbows down. “Now tell me what you know of my daughter, and I’ll tell you what I know of Violence.”

“But—how are you here?” I blurted, unable to get beyond it. There was no lie in her eyes, in her voice. This was Joanna. The last time I saw her she was four and she was dead. Murdered like the rest of the Ford family. Nightmare’s doing, or my own under her control. I thought of Rosalind and—

My whole body jerked. “If Cat spoke to your sister in a dream—”

“Rosalind,” Joanna agreed, slurping at her tea. “Why she’s spoken to that girl and not her own sister, I’ll never know.”

“Maybe it’s because Cat died at Ford, too,” Madde supplied, tapping the chimney of Ford House on the table. “Stranger things have connected two spirits across worlds. Do you believe that my lioness spoke to her then?”

“I do,” Joanna replied, and considered Madde. “I like when a man can acknowledge a woman as a greater predator.” She reached back and snagged a tin painted with swirls of clouds and sky. “Have a cookie, Madness.”

“Don’t mind if I doodle.” Madde eagerly opened the tin and helped himself.

“I don’t know anything about your daughter,” I told Joanna with a wince. “Until today, I didn’t know you had a daughter. You’re just a baby in my memory. But I’ll help you save her. We all will.”

“I don’t expect help,” Joanna muttered.

“Tough shit,” Madde said around a chocolate covered biscuit. “You’re getting it.” He glanced at me. “She’s your family.” I nodded in confirmation. “And we’re brother-husbands, which makes her my family, too.”

“We are not brother-husbands,” I protested.

“I say we go get your daughter, murder Violence, and then all go get ice cream sundaes.”

Joanna shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

“But we need to weaken him first. He keeps stealing too much magic from the domain, and my lioness is working on a way to steal it back.” Madde gave her a hopeful look. “You don’t have a weapon that can kill him, do you?”

“Better.” Joanna smiled. Sharp and dangerous. This was not the sweet little girl I’d known hundreds of years ago. This was a woman who’d won her life through battles and ferocity. “I can show you how to do it yourself.”

36

Cat

Ikept sneaking glances across the stately necks of our horses at where the woman—Joanna Ford, somehow immortal and very much alive—walked beside Verbena, talking to Miz in a quiet, straightforward sort of way. If she upset him, I’d find the edge of a cliff to throw her off, and I wouldn’t feel bad about it. She might once have been an innocent girl, but now she was a sharp-tongued immortal woman who was too mysterious and secretive for my liking.

She offered to teach us how to kill Violence without explaining how she knew how to end him. She also said she’d show us when the time was right. Which was complete bullshit. But I was trying to hide my suspicions, because when Miz’s shock wore off it was clear he was happy to see her. Happy to have this unexpected link to his family, and I knew how badly he was tortured by what happened to the Fords. So I bit my tongue all the way up the hill to Death’s castle.

My chest squeezed tight at the sight of its ruined spots, and the newly destroyed spire the decay had eaten through. It was in a worse state then when we’d left, and it hurt even more now my memories had trickled back. The window where Miz fucked me was gone. The dining hall where Death had once held me, where they’d done filthy things to me, had fallen through a pit in the floor.

I turned my back to the desolation, a lump in my throat, and faced the stretch of opaque fog where I knew the gates had been. How I knew, how I remembered that, I wasn’t sure, but the pen had been warm in my pocket all morning and every time a memory had recovered, it had heated.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted, dismounting Fuzzball in a movement that was becoming more and more familiar. Not just because of my memories, but the hours we’d spent together since I’d become a death god. “The list doesn’t come with instructions.”

“Any ideas?” Miz asked Joanna as she stopped beside me, arms crossed over her cardiganed chest as she contemplated the stretch of fog.

“Not a clue,” she replied. “This is death magic. Presumably, Death’s the one to ask.”

I looked at my husband, hating how quiet he’d been, and tried to feel for his emotions the way they all seemed to sense mine. I didn’t know if I was doing it right, but I got the faint impression of utter stillness, as if he was frozen inside.

“I’ve done something similar before,” Pain said when Death had no answer. “Not with the gates, but I repaired a shield that was anchored to Fear’s garden fence and the mechanics are more or less the same.”

“More or less,” Miz echoed dubiously.