CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WINTER
People laugh differently when they don’t have anything to be afraid of.
I don’t think I noticed that before today.
Maybe I did once, before all of this, but memories have become funny things.
They disappear when I reach for them, like snowflakes melting the moment they land in my hands, leaving me wondering whether they were ever really there to begin with.
So instead, I watch the people moving through the market, collecting little pieces of them the way other people collect flowers.
The old woman with the bright blue scarf laughs through her nose before covering her mouth as though laughter is something she ought to apologize for.
The baker’s little boy keeps trying to steal sugared almonds while his father pretends not to notice.
I smile, because people are strange. Beautiful, but strange.
“I think you would like it too,” I whisper, turning another apple in my hands before rubbing a tiny dull patch with the sleeve of my cloak. “They laugh with their whole faces here.”
I pause, studying the little boy as he darts around the corner of the stall before his father catches him by the back of his coat.
“I don’t think I’ve seen anybody laugh like that before.
” The words drift away with the winter wind before I remember there isn’t anybody standing beside me to hear them.
A tiny smile brushes my lips as I stand there for a moment, turning the apple over in my hands while the silence settles around me.
“Excuse me, dear?” I glance up so quickly I almost drop the apple, fumbling to catch it before it slips from my fingers.
An elderly woman smiles patiently at me from the other side of the stall, a woven basket hanging from the crook of her arm as snowflakes collect in the silver curls peeking out beneath her knitted hat.
“Oh,” I whisper, smoothing my apron with nervous hands. “H-hello.”
“How much for half a dozen?” I blink, momentarily forgetting how words work.
“You…want to buy them?”
The woman chuckles, the sound warm enough to chase away a little of the cold.
“Well, I certainly wasn’t planning on stealing them.”
I frown, trying to decide whether she’s serious before realizing she’s only talking for the sake of talking.
People do that.
Right.
I carefully choose the nicest apples I had displayed earlier.
Dash will be pleased I didn’t come home empty handed.
I had been warned that the condition of my release was to earn money.
Winter has lingered longer than anyone can remember, burning the fields beneath with too much snow and leaving the cellar emptier than it ought to be.
There isn’t enough to sell to their clients, which means there isn’t enough money to bring home.
And when there isn’t enough money… The cottage forgets how to be gentle and I like it better when it remembers.
I carefully fold the last sheet of paper over an empty crate before stacking it on top of the others.
“We did it,” I whisper.
Every apple is gone, and I clap my hands together once, the sound swallowed by the bustle of the market, before crouching to gather the loose scraps of paper that had escaped throughout the day.
It feels wrong to leave a mess behind. Places like this should be looked after, especially when everyone seems so happy to be here.
I dust the snow from the timber counter, smooth my palms over its worn surface, then begin loading the empty crates onto the little wooden cart one at a time, humming beneath my breath as the wheels creak softly beneath the weight.
A laugh bubbles quietly from my chest as I put on my cloak, a luxury I had been granted for being good, because the walk home will be much easier now that I’ve sold the apples.
Lugging a full cart across the fields of snow took me forever.
I curl my fingers around the worn timber handle and give it an experimental tug, smiling when the wheels roll forward with surprising ease.
All thoughts evaporate when I notice someone is standing on the opposite side of the stall.
I hadn’t heard him approach. He leans against the weathered post as though he’d been there all afternoon, one gloved hand tucked into the pocket of a black leather jacket while the other lazily tosses an apple into the air, catching it again with no effort at all.
He’s dressed entirely in black, the color swallowing him whole against the white snow, and dark ink disappears beneath the collar of his jacket before winding over the back of his hand, the only one exposed in intricate patterns I’ve never seen before.
My gaze slowly climbs from the apple, to his face.
Then, his dark eyes find mine. Warmth blooms beneath my ribs so suddenly it steals the winter from my lungs.
I know those eyes. For a long moment, neither of us moves.
The market continues around us as though the world hasn’t stopped turning, people weaving between stalls with their bags of produce, laughter drifting lazily through the afternoon air while snow settles softly across his broad shoulders.
Before me stands my dark angel, as invisible to the world as I am.
“I knew you’d come back,” I whisper, the words escaping my lips though they sound more like a plea and I hadn’t meant them to.
His expression doesn’t change, not even a little but I smile anyway.
“I wasn’t sure when.” I glance up at the pale winter sky before looking back at him.
“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me. ”
“I could say the same about you.”
I frown. I didn’t go anywhere.
“I’ve been right where you left me.”
My fingers absentmindedly straighten the edge of the folded paper still resting on the stall before I smooth a wrinkle from my apron, suddenly not knowing what to do with my hands.
A silence settles between us, but I say nothing.
Not knowing what it is I should do or say at this moment. His gaze never leaves me.
“Where have you been?”
The question drifts through my mind for a moment before quietly floating away again. I glance down at my empty crates.
“I should really get these back.”
“Tell me.”
His voice is firmer this time as I slip the last coil of rope over the stacked crates before giving it a tug to make sure everything is secure.
I can feel his eyes studying me as I work, waiting for an answer I don’t know how to give so I pretend not to notice.
There are still things to do. There always are.
I lean my weight against the little cart until the wheels surrender with a reluctant groan, cutting two narrow tracks through the snow as I leave the warmth of the market stall behind.
For a few steps, all I hear is the soft crunch beneath my feet.
Then, another pair of footsteps joins them.
I look sideways, noticing that Death has fallen into step beside me.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t spare me a glance as he walks with me.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
I consider that for a moment, watching in my periphery his much larger frame towering over mine. He is taller than I remember. Or perhaps I’d simply forgotten. It has been two years or so.
“You’re taller than the last time I saw you,” I say, tipping my head back to look at him properly as another snowflake catches in the dark stubble dusting his jaw.
“I was always taller.”
“No…” I study him thoughtfully, measuring him against a memory that suddenly feels much smaller than the man walking beside me. “You’ve grown.”
“Hm,” he says, glancing toward the road ahead as though the answer isn’t nearly as interesting as the fact that I remembered him at all. “Or maybe you just remember me differently.”
I look down at the tracks we’re leaving behind, his deep and certain, mine broken where my steps keep slipping into softer patches of white.
“I remember you exactly as you were.”
“That right?”
“Yes.” I glance at him again, because it feels important that he knows this. Whenever the walls of the cottage became too small and too much, he is who I’d picture. I would close my eyes and there he was, real enough to reach for. I think I’d know if something about him had changed.
And it has.
The boy I left behind has disappeared somewhere inside the man walking beside me.
His shoulders are broader now, stretching the black leather of his jacket in ways they never used to.
Every easy stride carries the quiet confidence of someone who has long since learned exactly how dangerous he is.
Dark ink winds over the backs of his hands before disappearing beneath his sleeves, swallowing skin I’d once remembered bare, while the faint shadow of stubble along his chiseled jaw softens nothing at all.
If anything, it makes him look older. Harder.
Like life had taken a knife to every gentle edge and left only the ones sharp enough to survive.
Once, I thought he looked frightening. Not that he ever frightened me, because Death has never scared me.
But now, he looks like the sort of darkness people run from.
The kind of darkness I had spent two years hoping would come for me, but didn’t.
“You’re staring,” he says, one dark brow arching as he keeps his eyes fixed ahead. “Stop it.”