Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

Zinnia

Home: Week Two

Death called my name, his voice echoing through the trees. His roars and unhinged growls should terrify me, but they didn't. I needed to find him. "Mors!"

But the faster I ran toward him, the farther he got from me. I sobbed, tripping over tree roots and sliding in the mud. Blood dripped from my grazed palms, and each step grew more difficult than the last.

"Zinnia!" he roared.

I sat up with a gasp, my heart thundering in my chest. Hemlock was curled in close, sensing my distress even in sleep. "I'm okay, my sweet boy." It was a lie, and I wasn't fooling him or myself.

The dreams had been constant. Every night the last two weeks since I'd been home. I'd dreamed of Death calling for me, and every night I tried to find him in that forest, and I couldn't. It felt so real, but he was always out of reach. He needed me, but I couldn't get close to him. If Somnus was helping him, he'd be able to come to me, though. He'd be able to talk to me, like he had when I was fifteen.

But he hadn't done that. Maybe it was just a dream? It had to be because he'd talk to me if he was really there. He would.

There was a tap at my bedroom door before it opened. Jasmine walked in carrying a mug of coffee. "You sleep okay?"

"Yeah," I lied and took the mug, sitting up. "Any news?"

"She's still the same."

Else had deteriorated, but she was hanging on. I shoved back the covers. "Let me quickly get dressed, and we can head back."

We walked into Aunt Daisy's house a short time later. Wills was at the kitchen table, Rose beside her. They both looked exhausted.

"How is she?" Jaz asked.

"She's comfortable, but she's getting weaker," Rose said, her eyes filled with pain.

* * *

Home: Week Three

I was surrounded by stars. I was alone and so scared. The stars spun past, faster and faster, darkness flashing to light—

I hit the ground so hard, I cried out.

I blinked up at the sky, then looked down at myself. I was naked, lying on the grass.

A giggle fell from my lips as I wiggled my toes.

"Stella?" a rough voice called.

I woke with a jolt, my gaze slicing to Else. She was still asleep.

"You okay?" Jaz asked from her seat beside me.

Another week had passed of nightly dreams or visions—I still didn't know what. Every night, I felt Death close and was never able to reach him, and I saw those females, their lives and their deaths, feeling their fear and not understanding any of it… All while sitting with my cousins at Else's bedside watching her get weaker and frailer by the day.

Right now, though, it was just me and Jazzy in here with Else.

"Nightmare?" Jaz asked.

"I'm… I'm not sure."

She studied me. "You look exhausted."

I was. Every time I fell asleep, another vision or dream came to me, and now this, this weird vision of the night sky, of Death, but in the past, of him calling out her name, calling Stella. I felt as if I were losing my damn mind.

"I'll go get us a coffee," she said.

"Thanks."

She walked out, and I looked back at Else. She was watching me. "Hey," I said and took her hand.

"Spill," she rasped. "I've been watching you the last few weeks. I may be on my death bed, but I'm not blind."

My mouth went dry. "There's nothing to tell."

"Now you're gonna lie? Right to your dying aunt's face?"

Her body may be weak, but her mind was still just as sharp. "So much has happened, Else. I'm not sure where to start—"

"Then give me the highlights." And for a moment there, she sounded like her old bossy self.

"Right, the highlights." I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and gave her hand a light squeeze before I let it all go, everything I'd been holding inside. "I'm not the only consort Death's had. He's had… well, I'm not sure of the actual number, but all have died horribly. I've tried to contact them, but I can't, and he won't tell me anything. Apparently, I have to work it all out myself. His brother, Somnus, lives in the Dream Realm protecting their younger sister from their mother, Nox. Her name's Marigold, and she's in a temple Death created as a child in the Night Realm. She's been locked in stasis for some reason since she was three, but I have no idea how old she truly is. Up until last month, Death never touched me. Now… things have, ah… well, progressed. He says he loves me, Else, that he'll release me from our bargain, but he wants me to choose him, even if that means death… for me. Even if that means leaving everyone I love and only being with him for as long as I survive. And those females, the one's that came before me, I… I feel them, but I can't reach them. There's nothing, just… goddess, there's just an empty void. And I have these visions, or maybe they're just dreams, I don't know, but in them, Death comes to me, but I can't reach him. I also have visions of the past, of those females, of their lives, their deaths, but that's all they can give me, and I have no idea what any of it means."

Else blinked up at me. "Boy, you weren't kidding. And that was just the highlights?"

I chuckled and wiped away the stray tear that had fallen without me realizing it. "I had a full-on month in Limbo."

"You can say that again, Zinny girl." She squeezed my hand back. "Did you know the mother and Nox hate each other?"

"They do? Why?"

"Not sure, but they fell out over something a very long time ago. It's mentioned in a few history books."

"I had no idea."

She shrugged a narrow shoulder. "Gods are touchy, and they get bent out of shape easily." Her eyes cleared and locked on me. "As for Death… well, nothing is ever as it seems. Do you love him?"

"Things have been far from smooth sailing. I… I care about him, deeply. There's this connection, a magnetism pulling me toward him that's so strong, sometimes I feel like I'm being torn in two, but love…."

"Okay, let me put it this way, pumpkin. If you dropped that brick wall you've built around yourself, if you forget the other consorts and the visions and the brother and Nox and the kid in stasis and all the other things, if you shove that all aside, and it's just you and him, do you think you could love him?"

My heart thumped in my chest, and my palms grew sweaty. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. "I… I…"

She gave my hand another squeeze. "I'll take that as a yes."

Fuck.

"I just, I don't know what any of it means, what the visions are trying to tell me."

She studied my face, her eyes bright with life even though her body was failing her. "What if they're not just visions? What if they're something else?"

I stilled. "Like what? An alternate realm? Another timeline? Nox beaming a lie into my brain? I'm due to go back in less than a week, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do."

She shrugged a frail shoulder. "I wish I had the answers for you, but what I do know is it never hurts to look at something from a different angle. To wipe the slate clean when you're having no luck and try again."

* * *

Home: Week Four

Death stood behind me, his hands on my rounded belly. "Are you afraid?" he asked.

I shook my head. "How can I be afraid when I have you by my side? How can I be afraid when we're about to meet our child?"

"Aster," he rasped against my ear. "My star, my love, my light."

I woke with my hands on my flat stomach. I was in my room at Jasmine's house. No round belly. No baby. No Death. Loss washed through me with such force, I had to bite back a sob. I wanted the vision back; I wanted it all back.

Aster, the first of Death's consorts. She'd given him a child.

The visions were becoming more intense, more real. More brutal on my frail emotions. I was raw from my days with Else and my nights in the past—Death's past.

I shoved back the covers and quickly got dressed. My time was up. I was supposed to go back tomorrow, or not, a decision that, on paper, should be easy. Life or death? Who wouldn't choose life?

But either way, I wasn't going to leave my family, not yet, not while they still needed me.

Snatching my phone off the bedside table, I checked for missed calls or texts. Nothing, thank the goddess. Else was still here, still with us.

Shoving on my boots, I scooped up Hemlock, put him on my shoulder, and walked out. Jazzy and Ren were already gone. I didn't bother with breakfast; my stomach was too knotted and filled with nerves, and the sadness from that dream still hovered around me like a dark cloud. My hands fell to my stomach. For a moment, I'd felt what it would be like to be pregnant, something I would never experience for myself, and I wanted it back; I wanted to be back in that dream with Death.

Stop.

You're losing your damn mind.

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I walked through the field where Ren had built my sister her dream house and headed down the road to Daisy's house. Mags and Bram had been staying in Bram's tree house in the backyard every night instead of heading to the crow village like they did a few nights a week. Good thing since I needed to talk to her, like now.

It was still pretty early, so instead of heading inside the house, I walked around the side to the backyard. The light was on in the kitchen; Daisy and Art were in there with Rose. I needed to speak with Mags before anyone saw me. They'd known what date it was, even if no one had said anything to me, because this situation was already hard enough. Jazzy had been avoiding me the last few days, and I got it. She was already hurting enough. Knowing her sister was about to leave while Else was like this, it was too much for her, for everyone.

I climbed the ladder to the tree house and knocked on the door.

Bram opened it a few seconds later. "Zinny, hey." He frowned. "Everything okay?"

His black hair was tied back, the sides freshly shaven. He had a few new markers tattooed on the right side of his head since my last visit, and going by the massive knife strapped to his thigh and the frustration in his eyes, he was about to leave on a job. My cousin's mate was an assassin, and he and his brothers frequently had to vanish for days on end to do what needed to be done. "How long will you be gone?" I asked him.

"I'll be back by morning, all going to plan." He pushed the door wide, letting me in.

Mags was standing at the kitchen counter, sipping a coffee. "Hey, Zinny. Hey, Hemy."

Bram strode over to her, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her. When the kiss ended, he rested his forehead against hers and said something low for her ears only. Then he kissed her again, gave me a chin lift, and walked out. A moment later, he dove off the small balcony, his wings exploding from his back and catching the air, and then he was gone.

I turned back to Mags. "Okay?"

She leaned on the counter. "Yeah, I mean, I hate it when he goes, but I'm usually fine. It's just now, with Else…" She shook her head. "I just want everyone close, you know?" Her eyes lifted to me, and she bit her lip. "Sorry."

Yeah, no one had forgotten that I was supposed to leave tomorrow. "That's kind of why I'm here. I need your help, Mags."

She straightened. "What do you need?"

I wanted to hug her right then. She'd do anything for me; they all would.

"Do you think you could get a message to Death?" My baby cousin was one of Death's reapers due to a whole shitty situation that happened when she and Bram got together. I knew she went to Limbo frequently, but I never saw her, and she couldn't reach me. When she delivered a soul, she went straight to that soul's "individual Limbo," and she hadn't found a way to veer off the path and find me, but surely there was a way for her to reach Death. There had to be.

She studied me closely. "What kind of message?"

"I'm not leaving, not yet, not while I can still be with Else, and not when my family needs me. I don't know if it's possible, but do you think you can find a way to get a message to him for me and tell him that?"

She put down her mug and rounded the counter. "I have no direct line to Death. He doesn't communicate with me at all. I feel the call to collect a soul, and I deliver it—that's it."

"Can you try anyway?"

"I'm… I'm not sure how." She looked as frustrated as I felt.

My only other option was to go to the gateway and wait, hope he came, and try to explain, but that would take most of the day, and I didn't want to be away from Else that long. "Sorry to ask. I just… I didn't know what else to do."

She chewed her lip again. "Let me try, okay? I'll see what I can do." She walked to her shelf and pulled down an old book of spells and a wooden bowl. "I think I have an idea, but I'll need to really focus."

I needed this to work.

"Call me if there's any change with Else," she said and took a small vial from the shelf as well. "If this is going to work, I'll know pretty quickly. I'll come find you when it's done."

* * *

Else was sleeping more than she was awake now. This was agony.

Connor, her friend, sat beside her. He was holding her hand, talking to her softly, telling her how much he cared about her, how much he was going to miss her. Rose and Iris sat beside me, and we were all struggling to hold back our tears. One slipped down my cheek, and I quickly dashed it away.

Stan, as always, was her constant, even if she didn't know it, though I wondered if she felt him now. There was a peace in her eyes when she was awake that was impossible to miss, as if she knew he was waiting for her.

Mags opened the door and walked in. I'd left her place two hours ago. Her gaze went from Else to me before she made her way to my side and took the seat beside me. She looked exhausted, dark rings under her eyes and fresh bandages on one of her arms. Whatever she'd done had taken a lot of blood, and she'd drained her power.

"I found my way there," she said quietly. "Not to Death, but there was a demon, Lyle. He said he'd pass on your message."

I sagged in relief and grabbed her hand. "Thank you."

She gave it a squeeze. "Anytime."

A weird pressure built in my chest as I sat there, as if I felt the hours, the minutes and seconds ticking down.

I wasn't leaving in the morning, and I honestly didn't know if I'd ever walk through that gateway ever again.