Chapter 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.”
I glanced up, my heart crashing into my throat when Virgil sat beside me, still wearing Madde’s pink velour sweatpants, his chest uncovered except for so many scars and injection marks I couldn’t count them.
“What happened to you?” I breathed, horror sinking like a stone into my gut.
He looked at me for a long moment, and I searched for parts of myself in his face.
I’d only had hazy reflections of myself, glimpsed from windows and a lake, but I thought we shared an eye shape, a nose.
And when he found whatever he’d been searching my expression for, I discovered we shared a frown.
“You really don’t remember anything,” he said with a sigh, sadness weighing his voice down.
“I’m starting to remember,” I said, offering it up as an apology. “Maybe I’ll get all my memories back. I—I remembered parts of what happened in that cottage.”
Virgil sucked a harsh breath through his teeth. “That seems unfair. The only good part of having amnesia would be forgetting that hell.”
I shrugged, looking across the garden, following the low, curved walls that plants hugged, climbed, and fought to escape. “If bad memories are the price I have to pay to get myself back, it’s worth it.”
It was a thought I hadn’t voiced to anyone else, but it rang with truth when the words left my mouth.
“Do you remember me?” he asked, his voice carefully even in a way that told me he hung on my answer.
“Some things,” I hedged.
He angled himself to face me, a furrow between heavy brows and his face… tired. Worn in a way that made my chest ache. “And Tannie? Do you remember him?”
“Tannie.” Knowledge struck like a spear to my brain and I blurted, “Zoltan! I have two brothers.” In a quiet, softer voice I repeated, “I have two brothers.”
“You do. And we’re both scared for you. I know Tannie booked flights to that cursed island around the time I did, but that magic wall went up before he could catch it.”
I had two brothers… who loved me. I rubbed a fist against my chest, the area suddenly painful. “I’m sorry I forgot you.”
Virgil laughed. It was low and raspy, but after what he’d been through, I had a feeling laughter was a victory. “God, Prickly. You’ve been tortured and controlled by goddesses and attacked by cursed creatures. And then you died. And you’re apologising? Hero complex, much?”
I scowled, shoving my shoulder into his before I could even contemplate the movement, let alone stop it. “Did you just call me, Prickly?”
“I absolutely did,” he confirmed, his voice brighter, more life in him. “You call me Poet, in case you were wondering.”
“Poet? How come you get a nice name, and I get Prickly?”
“It’s scathing, I assure you.”
“Oh.” I smiled. “So like, Poet.”
“Excellent execution. I feel suitably scathed.”
A laugh rasped up my throat, leaving a smile on my face for a moment. “Are you—okay?”
Virgil sighed, his face lifted to the sky where clouds rolled across the grey sky, blotting out some of the light over Pain’s garden and the curving forest path that led us here.
My husbands had moved, expanding the boundary of the protective shield, and now stood on the edge of the garden.
I watched them, giving Virgil time to talk, wondering if I was okay, too.
Every memory I got back brought pain with it—fear or torment or panic or plain, old fashioned physical pain. When I blinked, I saw the ropes restraining me to a chair in what I now knew was Cruelty’s Darkmore Manor, with Violence’s magic-wrapped fist slamming into my ribs until they fractured.
“I’m better now than when I was locked in that cell,” Virgil said finally, as if he couldn’t find anything more optimistic than that. “I think it’ll take me a long while to get back to myself, after… Well, you saw how I was. I nearly ate you.”
“I don’t think I’d be a sustaining meal,” I muttered. “How did you know I didn’t remember anything?”
“Madness told me,” Virgil replied, sliding a look at me. “How come I left you with four husbands and the next time I see you, you have five.”
“Don’t ask me,” I protested with a laugh. “Death God Cat knows nothing. Mortal Cat’s to blame. I think she’s a hoarder,” I added. “Like those people who have twenty cats, except with handsome men.”
Virgil snorted. “Maybe you should put them in collars with little bells.”
“Madde would wear that unironically,” I remarked, the visual making me smile. “Can you tell me about Tannie? All I remember is laughter and hugs and feathers.”
“Feathers?” He gave me a strange look.
“Yeah, pink ones.”
Virgil’s laugh was sudden and loud. “Of course the first thing you’d remember about him is feathers, sequins, and glitter.
He’s a flamboyant, unapologetic gay. Unlike me,” he muttered.
“I never even came out to anyone. Pretended to be straight, got a girlfriend, the whole fucking nine yards.” He kicked at the grass.
“Did I… know?” I probed carefully.
“No one knew. Do you know what’s ridiculous?
I thought it was this huge, scary thing that would derail my entire life, mess up every plan I’d ever had and every goal everyone else had for me.
And when I was locked in that mould-infested cell with a serum coursing through my veins, changing me at a cellular level, I realised it didn’t even matter.
Who cares if I marry a woman, or a man, or never marry at all?
Who cares if I graduate into a well-paid position, or fuck up all my coursework?
I’m a monster. None of that shit matters. ”
I balled my hand and drove it into his shoulder.
“Ow, Prickly, what the fuck?”
“You’re not a monster. That psycho scientist who experimented on all of you, she’s the monster.”
Virgil stared at me for a beat, and then a grin filled his face, making him look younger. No, making him look his age, I realised. He was only a few years older than me, not the decade I’d assumed when I first saw him in human form.
“Are you sure you don’t remember?” he asked. “That’s exactly what you said to me before.”
The words warmed my chest, soothed the spiky loss I’d felt since I woke up in that empty place with no memories of myself, only a name gifted to me by a friend I could no longer remember. It was nice to think I had something in common with the woman I’d been before.
I began to tell him that, but a searing pain raked across my chest and I gasped, clutching at the area.
“Cat?” Virgil grabbed my shoulder. “What is it?”
I stumbled to my feet, dizzy with distress, my gaze flying straight across the garden to Pain. When his knees buckled and he hit the ground, I took off running, dizziness be damned.