Page 41 of All Hallows Fate

My face burned when I realised we had an audience. Not my other husbands, who I’d swiftly become used to watching me in intimate moments—the creatures who’d been lupine, feline, or stag-like but now stood, stark-naked, in the gorge, or knelt on the floor in equal states of undress. All watching us. No, watching me with a stunned awe like they’d just watched an angel descend from the heavens to issue a holy decree.

“Um, hi,” I said, pulling my back straight, lifting my head. “You’re free to go wherever you desire, but if you’d like to stay together and be somewhere safe, with a roof over your head and running water…” I checked with Pain, who nodded, the shadow that had never unwound itself from my body telling him of my attention. “We have a lodge where you can live.”

“It also comes with grounds,” he added, addressing the strangers—and my brother. “For anyone who’d rather be in animal form. Assuming you can shift back…?”

“They can,” I confirmed. “The magic sensed they had no choice in their nature, so it righted the wrong. You can now be whatever form you choose,” I told the impromptu nudist colony, trying to keep my eyes above shoulder level, especially when I met the pained amber eyes of my brother.

The people murmured, trusting each other more than us, which was fair.

“Madde,” I whispered. “Could you—”

“Give my best pants to your brother so you don’t have to see his dingaling? On it!”

A laugh snorted out of me, another catching me in the throat when I saw his best pants were pink velour with Sexy sequinned across the ass. Either way, Virgil gratefully pulled them on.1

“We,” a woman began, maybe a year older than me with a rat’s nest of dirty blonde hair and a pretty face made stark by horrors and gods knew how long being trapped as an animal. Halting and slow, she spoke, as if remembering how to speak again. “We will see the lodge before we decide whether to stay.”

I gave her a sympathetic smile, and wondered if I knew how it felt to be trapped as an animal against my will. “Lead the way,” I told Pain, and followed him out of the gorge.

27

Cat

“Ican help,” I insisted, standing firm when Miz turned the full force of his protective disapproval on me. “I’m fine, I’m not even that weakened from the scales’ magic.”

That was a lie. We’d travelled through the wilds into the forestlands deep in Death’s domain, where the paths were eerily empty, treehouses unoccupied even though there was clearly a community who lived out their afterlife here. And with every mile we crossed, the more my body strained, my head ached, and I wanted to curl up in a patch of moss and sleep for a few hours.

Part of it, Death explained with concern, was being a new god, my soul adjusting to a body formed of death magic instead of flesh and blood. The rest of it, I knew, was the blast of light that came from the scales—but also from within me. I was the judgement that allowed the scales to measure the balance of life and death. And it took a toll.

Plus, I was pretty sure mortal Cat would have been drained after a four hour walk.

Pain’s ‘lodge’ turned out to be a sprawling estate made of lumber and stained wood, not the quaint holiday home I’d been picturing. It was made up of three wings that hugged a central garden rife with flowers and fog, and the promised acres of grounds spread away behind the building.

The creatures had decided to stay. Virgil had decided to stay. I chewed my lip as I glanced across at where he and the dirty-blonde-haired woman were talking with a couple of the others. I wanted to talk to him, to at least ask if he was okay, but he was a stranger to me and I didn’t think he realised that yet. He’d been through enough without my amnesia making it worse.

“Of course you’re not weakened,” Miz drawled, turning me away from him with his hands on my shoulders and marching me across the garden to where a swinging bench sat beside a giant, angry fuchsia pompom.1 “You’re just going to keep this violently pink plant company. It needs babysitting, lest it conquer any more of the garden.”

“Funny,” I said flatly.

“Oh, I’m deadly serious, my universe,” he replied, using his grip on my shoulders to push me down onto the bench.

“Really,” I protested. “I can help—”

He kissed me to silence my words, which was a really dirty move. And a really good kiss, dammit. I tangled my fingers in his hair and stole a deeper taste, groaning when he pulled away.

“Be good,” he warned, and crossed the garden to where the others were erecting shields around Pain’s property, partly to reassure the creatures they were safe, partly to ensure Violence couldn’t get to them here.

I pulled the crumpled paper from my pocket, a feeling of accomplishment settling in my chest when I saw the third line struck through.

A set of scales for Judgement.

A coil of iron to fix the gates.

A home for lost creatures.

A stone to summon spirits home.

“Hey.”