Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CAT

" Y ou're speaking to me again then," I said, the darkness making me bolder than I would have been before, blood pounding in my ears. Miz's dead body wasn't here, decayed and hundreds of years old, but the man himself stood in front of me. The two of us, alone for the first time since he'd held my hand and led me to Nightmare like an oblivious sacrifice.

"The tomb is just for show," he said, not acknowledging my comment, his golden eyes trailing around the small space. "I was dead long before I came here, so there was nothing to bury."

"Why do you have a tomb here in the first place?" I asked, conscious of the distance between us, the fact he hadn't come more than a single step into the building. "Who are you to Ford?"

He sighed, and I waited for him to avoid the question, waited for him to run away and pretend I didn't exist again. Watching him from the corner of my eye, nothing more than a smear of pale hair and dark clothes that were so unlike him, I walked around the tomb. The stone was rough against the pads of my fingers as I ran them alone the lid.

"The family who lived here before it was a university were—my family. Not by birth but by choice. They took me in, cared for me as one of their own despite differences in our social standing and appearance. At home, I was a god, revered and respected, but here I was nothing." His voice quietened, rasping. "That never mattered to the Fords. It should have, but it didn't."

I blinked, digesting that information. The family who lived here, who built the island and the buildings I walked every day, who built the room I slept in… he knew them, had lived with them, loved them.

"Who am I to Ford?" he repeated, his eyes on the floor and agony cut into the delicate lines of his face. "I'm one of its founders. That's why I have a tomb here. Why they all do. These are the tombs of the founders."

The darkness that roared so violently in my blood, my head, quietened at that, listening, watchful.

"Shit," I breathed, spinning my crown ring around my finger. "That's insane, Miz. You set up the school I'm attending. You're—how old are you?"

His laugh was dry and hoarse. "Old."

The violent urge to destroy the tomb receded until I could think clearly, until I winced at what I'd done. What the hell was I thinking, breaking into the groundskeeper's shed and raiding a tomb? I shuddered, becoming aware of how cold I was, all my clothes drenched by the rain.

"All the…" I began, watching him from across the tomb. "The dates are all the same year."

It was something I'd noticed thanks to spending so many days with Byron's grave. Every mausoleum had a date chiselled in the stone—1385.

"Yes," he agreed, his voice deeper, rougher. I jerked forward a step before I caught myself. Miz didn't want me close, or he'd close the distance himself.

"That was the first time, wasn't it?" I swallowed, remembering the throbbing heartbeat of Nightmare's magic killing people, remembering the fracturing sensation of the curse inside me, like I'd been cut apart and put back together wrong. "The first time she came here."

"Yes."

His voice broke on that single syllable. I couldn't take it anymore. I rushed across the small tomb so fast that he had no hope of running away and threw my arms around him.

"I can't stand your pain. It fucking kills me," I admitted, my voice tight, clogged with emotion. The scent of him wrapped around me, every one of my senses coming alive.

"You shouldn't hug me," he rasped, his chest jumping with a jagged breath.

I swallowed my initial hurt, hearing something I'd missed when he was in my room yesterday—self-loathing. Hatred. "Do you want me to let go?"

"No," he whispered.

My eyes stung. "Good, because I'm not."

His body seemed to cave in, his head dropping onto my shoulder as his breathing shuddered. I reached for his arms and pulled them around me, and he cinched them tighter until we aligned everywhere.

"I'm so—so sorry," he choked out. "If I had the power to go back and undo what I did—"

"I know," I assured him, my voice gentle. "I told you, that wasn't you. I know who took Byron from me, Miz, and it wasn't you."

He shook his head, spots of warmth soaking into my shoulder. It took me a moment to realise they were tears, and my heart stabbed deeper. "It was my hand—"

"But not your choice."

"Are you going to keep interrupting me?" he rasped, half a laugh in his voice.

"Yes," I agreed firmly. "Until you accept that I don't blame you."

He was quiet for a moment. "I killed them all, you know? Every mausoleum is because of me, every member of the Ford family—they're dead because of me."

"Because of her," I insisted. "I don't know everything that happened, but I can guess. It wasn't your choice, and it wasn't your fault."

His breathing jumped, his hands splaying against my back, the fabric of my shirt cold and soaked with rain, not that he seemed to care. "You should be disgusted by me."

I knew that. I knew I should look at him and want to stab him like he stabbed Byron, but—

"You're forgetting that I know how it feels." I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat, hugging him tighter. "If I should be disgusted by you, you should be disgusted by me. I've killed, too. I murdered Darya. I led her to Nightmare, and she commanded me to drive the dagger into her, and I did. And she died. It was my hand that killed her."

"I—didn't connect the two events," Misery admitted, his voice rasping. "But what I did was different—"

"It was exactly the same," I argued, the tomb blurring as tears veiled my eyes. The rain came down harder, drumming on the roof until the whole mausoleum was full of the sound.

"Darya wasn't my best friend."

"She was someone's best friend, and I murdered her. So yeah, if you deserve disgust and hatred, so do I. And if I don't, neither do you."

His sigh sent shivers down my neck to the rest of my body. "I forgot how clever and stubborn you are."

"How? That's most of my personality."

His laugh made me shudder this time, the warmth of his breath visceral against my skin. My darkness dissipated entirely, its weight gone, its violent whispers silenced. "I missed you," he confessed, a gravity to his voice.

"I missed you, too," I replied, my voice coming out small. Having him so close, his scent in my lungs, his warmth bleeding into my body just reminded me how badly it had hurt to be without him. "I needed you."

"Fuck," he whispered, hauling me closer until there wasn't a single millimetre between us. "I'm so sorry."

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. "I hurt you. I don't blame you for staying away. I didn't—" I tried to say I didn't mean what I said but pain flashed up my throat and I tasted blood on my tongue. Oh, god. It was like when Nightmare forbade me from speaking after I killed Darya. "I didn't want to hurt you," I managed to choke out, the words carefully selected.

She has my brother, I was desperate to blurt out. She's going to kill him unless I do exactly what she tells me, and she told me to say those things. They were her words, not mine.

But I couldn't say any of that. I swallowed the blood in my mouth and held Miz tighter, the tears burning my eyes slipping free.

Miz sighed heavily, his shoulders dropping. "It's not your fault you were cursed, Cat." He kissed my temple and I froze, my stomach swooping. I wanted him back, needed him back. "And—it doesn't matter what happened in the past. We can't change it. But we get to decide what happens in the future."

I got the sense he was repeating words he'd been told often and wondered if they were Tor's or Death's. The sentiment was comforting but they weren't true for Miz or I. We didn't get to decide what happened. Nightmare did.

I drew back until he looked at me, the ache in my chest intensifying when I saw the tears lining his gold eyes, the red splotchy colour across his cheeks. He looked as wrecked as I was, maybe worse.

"You're right," I said softly, curling my fingers into the soft cotton of his T-shirt. "Everything's going to be okay."

"Cat…" he breathed, his eyes full of so much emotion I couldn't decipher a single one.

My stomach flipped, but I ignored the nerves and reached for Miz's face, pulling him down to meet me. I meant to kiss him carefully, softly, but it had been too long and my heart hurt at how far apart we'd been. All that need and frantic desperation poured out of me in demanding presses.

The violets and snow scent of him replaced the old, dusty smell of this place, and I stopped hearing the rain hammering on the mausoleum roof, stopped feeling the cold of my clothes—all I felt was heat and longing and the relief of having his hands on my body again.

"Gods," he exhaled against my lips, touching me with a desperation that mirrored mine.

I ended up pressed up against the tomb and wasn't sure how I'd got there, or how my hands were under Miz's shirt. I took advantage of their position, pulling it over his head and discarding it without caring where it ended up, sending my own soaked shirt in a similar direction.

The haven of skin to skin was enough to make me groan and arch up into him, and Miz's hot breath caressed my lips as his breathing turned ragged.

"You are everything," he panted, his hands remembering my body with the same eagerness that mine covered his with frantic touches. "The stars, the sun, the moon, the entire universe. My universe."

A tear rolled down my cheek, covering my lips with salt as I kissed him again, harder, breathless. He deepened the kiss and his taste was like coming home, like sunshine after weeks of rain.

"I missed you so much," I said between kisses, holding him so tightly that my fingers dimpled his skin. "Don't leave again."

"Even if I leave," he whispered, "I'll always come back. And Cat, I—fuck, we can't do this."

My heart cracked down the middle, my bottom lip dangerously weak as he pulled back. His hands left my body, cold rushing into the places we'd touched as he stepped back, but he soothed the sting of rejection with the gentle stroke of his knuckle down my jaw.

"It's not safe," he said, the pain and loathing returning to his eyes, clouding the beautiful gold. "Nightmare can take over my mind at any time and I—I can't trust myself."

He whispered the last part, as if the admission cost him.

Unwilling to let go, I left a featherlight kiss on his cheek. I had no words of comfort, no reassurance. I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

"I could kill you," he said miserably, putting more space between us, walking backwards to the door I'd heaved open. Sound and smells and sensations returned, and I jumped at the furious hammering of the rain on the roof, the chill that now sank into my bones, the scent of lilacs and snow fading.

"Don't go," I whispered, pleading with my eyes. I knew his answer, saw the guilt and apology on his face.

"If I stay, I'll kill you." His mouth curved in a sad smile. "Remember what I said. If I have to go, I'll always come back. For as long as you want me, I'm yours."

I lurched forward when he slipped around the door, my stomach tight, chest aching. In the second it took me to rush through the opening, Miz was gone.