Page 68 of All Hallows Fate

“The night you dragged me to that place,” I said, holding her gaze, “what did he threaten to do?”

Phil held her middle tighter and shrugged. “Oh, the usual. Let the serum take me. Unleash me upon the village so I’d maul some innocent person. Encourage my bloodlust until I couldn’t ignore the urge to kill. Make me kill my friends.”

I nodded. I’d expected as much.

“Tor, Miz,” I said, facing them. “Can you handle Wil?”

“Quickly?” Tor asked, his expression hard. “Or should we stash him somewhere for a repeat performance?”

“The latter.”

Miz’s smile was sharp. “As our wife wishes.”

I faced Death and Pain. “I need you to come up with a game plan. A way we can get into Ford without Violence knowing.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Pain said with a salute and… I realised I was in charge. Giving them orders that they didn’t hesitate to follow.

It felt good.

“I have an idea about how to get in,” Death said from within his dark hood. “Madde, take care of Cat.”

“Sexually?” Madde’s expression brightened.

“No,” I said at the same time as Death.

I caught my madman’s hand. “Madde, I need you to find Joanna. If we’re taking the fight to Violence—and we are—we need her, too.”

“That leaves you alone,” he pointed out, his mouth thinning.

“I want to talk to Phil, just the two of us.” I held their gazes, not looking away first. “I’m Judgement. She can’t hurt me. Trust me?”

Death groaned. “How can I say no to that? Of course I trust you, little bride.” He brushed my cheek with a flicker of magic. “Be careful.”

“No hurting my lioness,” Madde warned Phil who stood inside the cell, watching us anxiously. “Or I’ll suck your bone marrow out with a straw.”

“Oh, I love that,” Wrath whispered, leaning against the stone staircase. “I’m stealing that for my next torture session.”

Madde curtsied. “Why, thank you, and you are welcome.” He met my gaze, held eye contact for a moment. “Be careful,” he said with that heart-stopping seriousness I saw in the mine.

“I will. Promise.” I held out my pinky finger, and smiled when he linked his with mine.

When they’d filtered out, and Wrath sighed and retreated upstairs at the pointed look I gave her, I stretched out a filament of shadow and used it on the lock to Phil’s cell, letting myself inside.

She shifted nervously, and maybe she didn’t realise I couldn’t hurt her now she was a ghost, or maybe she thought I had Wrath’s trick at torturing spirits.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked with a sigh, a heavy weight on my chest. My magic was gathering, swelling, furious.

“I didn’t want anyone to know,” she muttered, eyes on the floor. “They’d think I was a monster—”

“Not about the serum,” I said in my gentlest voice, leaving space between us. “Why didn’t you tell me about what he did after he injected you?”

While she was weak, disoriented, before strength and wild hunger raced through her veins.

Phil took a step back. “Nothing happened.”

“I died too, you know?” I said, finding it easier to say the words the more I said them. “Violence slit my throat on a chessboard in one of Cruelty’s games. That’s when I found out Wil was a fucking traitor.”

Not just a traitor. Violent. A predator. And a damn good liar, because I just fell for his spiel literal minutes ago. He might well have had a gambling problem and been promised a cure, but part of him loved manipulating our lives, loved watching people have mental breaks and commit murder. Maybe he loved fooling us into thinking he was our friend, sharing jokes and sympathetic comments, all the while he was evil.