Page 14

Cat

“ W hat is she doing?” I demanded, whipping around to give the bartender a panicked look.

My heart crashed when I found the space behind the bar empty.

He was gone. “Fuck,” I hissed, staring back at the tight circle of robed figures.

These bastards had brought Nightmare back, and killed Orwell, Milani, Rone, Mason.

They were the reason I was cursed, the reason I killed Darya, the reason Byron and Honey were dead.

Rage struck my bleeding, grieving heart like a match against touch paper, and I was shoving off the bar and pushing through the crowd in an instant.

Woah, shit. The world swooped and swirled around me, and my legs were nowhere as stable as I expected. Those double vodkas had done something after all. But being wobbly and lightheaded wouldn’t stop me attacking the robed bastards.

An elbow hooked mine, dragging me to a sudden stop. My head jerked on my neck, giving me fucking whiplash, and I glared at Cruelty with the full force of my hatred. I couldn’t fake being her bestie right now. I wanted her, and the robes, and whoever the fuck else was here dead.

I blinked until she came into focus.

“Isn’t this fun?” Cruelty asked with a smile brighter than the sun.

Her hair was still arranged to perfection, unlike mine, where strands had worked themselves free.

Probably because talking to so many strangers made my skin buzz and I kept trying to run my fingers through my hair.

Her makeup looked identical to earlier too, and I was sure I didn’t want to know what mine morphed into.

She was clearly immortal. It was worse because she didn’t give me even a judgy once-over.

She just beamed at me, like my presence was a gift she truly valued.

That knocked the rage out of me and I forced my breath out in a long sigh. Be friendly, get her on side, and find out what she has planned for my husbands. Then you can kill her.

“Does it remind you of your glory days?” At my blank look, she laughed loudly, her glittering voice rising above even the robed cultist’s chanting. “The Halloween party, silly.”

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat when my voice came out gravelly. “It’s exactly like that. What curse are you casting?”

“Curse.” She scoffed, knocking her shoulder into mine. “That’s such a dreary, boring way to describe it. I like to think of them as little pockets of delight. Gifts.”

“What gift are you casting?” I asked without missing a beat, my back crawling with awareness of the power hanging in the air. It didn’t throb with a beat like when Nightmare resurrected, killing four students, but there was a clear tingle of magic all around us. Nothing good could come of this.

“Just a little something something,” she replied, as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning.

From a distance we could be inverted twins, her brown-haired and fair in a blue dress, me pale-complexioned with pink- threaded white hair in my silver dress.

Up close, would anyone notice the rage and desperation in my eyes?

Would they see that this friendship was all a charade?

Could they see beyond the perfect illusion to the mask of death I still saw whenever I looked in the mirror, a sick, twisted remnant of Nightmare’s curse.

“I just thought, we’ve been having so much fun lately. And you’re getting quicker at shifting every time I set you one of my little tests. And you need to keep all your focus on the masquerades.”

Masquerades, plural? Ice shot through me, forcing a shudder.

“And keep your focus on your best friend, of course!” she added with a little shimmy of excitement. “I know you’ve been distracted lately, but my little gift will take away all those distractions, and you can focus on being strong and deadly and my best girl.”

I blinked fast to keep my eyes focused, but the room was blurring and I regretted not staying sober. “What distractions?” I asked, dread creeping up on me like a shadow. Cold and foreboding and all-consuming.

She gave me a sly look. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that little tête-à-tête you had with Madness.

Naughty Kitty,” she chided playfully, smiling from me to the three robe-clad cultists as their chanting grew louder.

Ice solidified in my veins, making every breath I dragged in as sharp as shattered pieces of a frozen lake.

I’d rather jump into the lake on Ford’s grounds than witness whatever Cruelty was doing here.

“It was nothing,” I breathed, faint and dizzy. “We were talking about the weather.” Did she hear us speaking? Could she reach through my skull and brain matter into that secret space where Madde’s voice lived? Fear made my temperature plummet, when I should have been hot with protective rage.

“Of course it was nothing, but you can’t let Madness steal your focus. You’re doing so well! Just yesterday you hunted that deer, and you took it down so fast.”

I was trying to forget.

“You could have lost yourself to the bloodlust but you came right back, and shifted into your pretty human form.” She squeezed my arm. “So this is my gift to you, to help you control your creature like I promised. I always keep my promises, Kitty.”

“I know,” I muttered, hairs rising on the back of my neck. Oh god, had I miscalculated and she hadn’t taken Death but Madde? “But I can concentrate, you don’t need to hurt Madde. I promise. And I don’t break my promises, either.”

“We’re so alike,” Cruelty said with a soft smile, meeting my eyes. “And this won’t hurt one bit. Pinky swear.”

I didn’t know what I was going to say, but her chanting, robed guys took a step back, revealing a collapsed mass on the ground. Red velvet clung to frail shoulders, masking their shape so I couldn’t see who was beneath the cloak. Their head was bowed, lank hair concealing their face.

I was moving before I could second guess myself, my wobbly legs and weak knees somehow carrying me through the murmuring crowd of masked, glittering courtiers. I elbowed aside a tall, hooded figure, my stomach dropping at the way my arm went all the way through their incorporeal body.

They were spirits? But how did their chanting have power? How could they hurt people? Kill people? How the fuck did three ghosts summon Nightmare to Ford?

Questions for later.

I dropped to the polished hall floor beside the slumped figure and reached for their face, moulding my hand to their cheek to lift their face, to see which of the people I loved Cruelty had kidnapped and threatened and—

A stranger lifted her face. Dark eyes locked on mine with visceral demand, and my heart clanged against my ribs as I dropped my hand. Not my men, not my family, not my friends. They were safe. My shoulders slumped. The woman’s body did the opposite, tightening in increments.

“Who are you?” I whispered, my words drowned out by the sudden rise in chanting. Shivers rolled over my skin, especially now I knew the robes were hiding ghosts, but I blocked them out.

Her hair was a striking contrast, ink-black on her left side, ash-silver on her right, and she was beautiful. Young, only a few years older than me, with a heart-shaped face and delicate features. Her eyes were fierce, though, blazing with pure rage.

“Moth,” she hissed, her voice an accusation and an omen.

“Don’t spoil my fun, Kitty,” Cruelty chided, the sharp clip of her shoes cutting through the silence. A chill crawled across my spine when I realised the string quartet had gone silent, and even the chanting had cut off dead. “It took a lot of convincing for my brother to give up his pet project.”

Moth bared her teeth in a deeper hiss, hatred turning her eyes into a void. “Fuck you, and fuck your brother.”

Cruelty’s laugh was bright and loud. It turned the ice in my blood to stone. “Oh, don’t be that way. Kitty, tell her to stop being so dull.”

I’d never met this woman before but I knew instantly she was like me—a fly caught in the web of a vindictive spider.

“You can’t kill her,” I said, standing with my arms tight to my sides so I didn’t bump into the ghostly cultists. Had they always been dead, even at the Halloween party?

Cruelty rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to kill her. You’re always so dramatic, Kitty. I just need to pinch a little magic, that’s all.”

“Get fucked,” Moth spat, shaking as she tried to stand. She fell back to the ground, slumping beneath the swath of crimson velvet. “Up the arse. With a broken bottle, and no lube.”

“She’ll kill you,” I hissed at the woman, who clearly had no self-preservation instincts.

Moth rolled her eyes and tried to stand again.

Fingers latched around my wrist and I jumped, my heart crashing into the cage of bone folded around it when Cruelty pulled me away from Moth and the ghosts, back into the gilded fold of the courtiers. As if that was their cue, the robed spirits cried an unfamiliar word over and over.

And I felt it. A sharp yank in my chest made me gasp, pain striking my heart like someone had made an incision and ripped out something essential.

“Stop,” I growled, guttural. “Cruelty, enough.”

I slammed my hand to my heart, my beast side rising in response to the threat, pricking my nail beds as my nails sharpened into claws, my gums throbbing as my teeth sharpened.

Shit, I couldn’t change forms here. I couldn’t risk losing control when Cruelty was playing mind games and reaching into my chest to rip pieces out.

A snarl tore from my lips as the pain rushed in a higher wave, spiking until tears veiled my vision.

I wasn’t the only one crying out. A woman’s scream pierced the hall, as sharp and clear as broken glass.

Moth. They were stealing her magic to crush my connection to Madde.

Oh, god. I tried to find the place in my chest where the tearing began, tried to stop the flow of cruel magic, to hold onto my Madness.

I pushed my hand harder against my chest, claws slicing up the grey dress as the pain made tears slide down my cheeks and stopped as abruptly as it had started.

I panted, my head spinning. Silence fell across the hall, and then the perfectly level murmurs of courtiers rolled back in, followed by the clinking of glasses and the slow distorted sound of the string quartet as they struck up a haunted version of waltz. no 2.

“What did you do?” I rasped, staring at Cruelty as she squeezed my shoulders, giving me a soft look.

The absence of pain left me cold, hollow. Or maybe that was the loss. The emptiness where my darkness should live.

“I fixed it,” she replied, tucking a stray lock of hair back into my updo. “Now you can spend all your time focusing on your best friend!”

You’re a monster, I wanted to snarl, but I choked down the words and nodded, tears burning my eyes. “How do I get it back? When I master control over my creature. How do I get my connection back?”

Cruelty batted my shoulder like I’d said something funny. “Whyever would you want it back?”

Breathe. Choke back the hatred. Breathe.

Through gritted teeth I asked, “What if you and your brother had a connection, and you lost it?” I looked beyond her, unsettled by how the dancers had gone right back to twirling and spinning, the dark-robed cultists gone. Like it never happened.

But I heard Moth scream, even through my pain; I knew they’d hurt her. Yet, where she’d been slumped on the floor, now there was only a swath of red velvet.

“I’d burn the whole world to get it back, I suppose,” Cruelty answered contemplatively. “But you won’t burn the world, Kitty, you’re too nice for that.”

She didn’t know me at all. There was nothing I wouldn’t do, no one I wouldn’t destroy or bleed or torture if it returned me to my husbands. Instead, I nodded and asked, “What happened to Moth?”

“Oh, that dreary little insect.” Cruelty clicked her tongue. “Back to her cage, back to her tower. But enough about her—did you find him yet? Your bonded one?” She spun in a circle, her arms thrown out and her light blue dress twirling around her thighs. “Which one is he, Kitty?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t let go of my chest, hadn’t stopped feeling that slice of pain as she cut Madde out of me. He’d been my darkness since my lowest, most depraved moment. He’d been with me every moment since then, comforting, encouraging, corrupting. My protector. My darkness. Mine.

Now he was gone.

I had to choke down a sob to speak. “None of my men are here. I don’t know any of these people.”

I’d spoken to every man in the room, looked into their eyes, drawn their scent into my lungs, soaked in their presence and aura. None of them were Miz, Tor, Madde, or Death. None of them.

Cruelty gave me a wicked little smile. “Are you su-ure?” she sang.

“It’s a trick,” I said, rough with emotion as I stared at the masked people, searching, searching. “Like when you tricked me by pretending to be Honey.” My voice cracked, but Cruelty ignored it and patted my arm.

“You’re wrong, Kitty.” She flung her arm across my shoulders and ignored the way my whole body shook with rage and fear. “One of your husbands was here. You were so close to finding him. Poor darling.”

No. I would have known. She had to be lying. But I didn’t think she was; I looked in her crystal blue eyes and saw only honesty.

Oh, god. Someone I loved was really here, and I missed them. I moved my hand from my chest to my stomach as it revolted, curdling.

“Not to worry. I have an even better masquerade planned for next week. I can’t spoil the theme, but it’s going to be bloody and decadent.”

“What happens if I don’t find him?” I asked, staring at the pooled velvet on the floor where a girl had sprawled, screaming. Cruelty said she’d returned to her cage, but what if Moth was dead? What if the next person she killed was my husband?

Cruelty turned me from the room and began leading me to the door, seeming pleased with herself. Pleased to keep me as hers and only hers for another week. “You know what happens. He dies, silly.”