Chapter 48

Ispun, breathless enough that a sudden flare of dizziness made the island whirl. "Go," I panted to Miz. His gaze was so wild with panic that it hurt me. "Run, get out of here. Go get help, I'll be fine."

He flinched every time I said her name, and he'd been terrified for weeks, and I didn't want him anywhere near the goddess.

"Go,"I pleaded, my heart breaking when he stayed by my side. He wouldn't leave me alone, even though he was terrified.

"He won't leave until I command him to," Nightmare said, her low, sultry voice carrying across the distance like a song in a smoky room. "Did you think Darya was the one leading you to me?" She laughed softly. "Darya was just the distraction."

A frown pinched my brow, tightened my mouth. Cold began to spread through me.

"You want to deny it," Nightmare said, tilting her head as she watched me through mismatched eyes, the white iris in her eye bleeding fresh blood down her golden cheek. "But all the little inconsistencies are starting to add up, aren't they, my terror?"

"Shut the fuck up," I snapped, too breathy, too afraid. But in snapping I showed her my hand. Stupid. I began to shake.

I wouldn't believe what she was insinuating. No fucking way. He won't leave until I command him to. That was bullshit. She couldn't command Miz. He was a death god.

But I couldn't look at him. I didn't dare to.

"Now," Nightmare said lightly, glancing from me to Miz, "I have a few minor things to address, a couple items to check off my to-do list. You know how it is, Cat, always busy busy."

My name in her mouth made my blood run cold. I twitched my fingers to test if I was frozen, but I could still move. She hadn't compelled me yet. Miz was so close I could feel the heat pouring off him, sense the fear and rage even if I didn't dare look at him. I linked my little finger with his, the only movement I allowed. He showed no reaction.

I wish I'd brought the knife Tor gave me. I felt so stupid for leaving it behind because it wouldn't fit in my clutch. I had no weapon, no magic, nothing to stop Nightmare doing whatever she planned to.

The only thing I could do was run, but Miz was frozen beside me and it didn't seem like fear paralysing him. He won't leave until I command him to. She had him under her thumb. I wouldn't leave Miz to her non-existent mercy, no matter—no matter what he'd done. It was painful to think, to even consider that he was under her control.

What had he done while she compelled him? I didn't want to know.

"First of all, Cat say hello to my followers." Nightmare waved an elegant hand from Darya to the robed figure I prayed was a total stranger. "Neither are the disciple who restored me to power, you understand. I wouldn't be so foolish as to reveal them so soon in our little game, but these are both my valued followers. I believe you call them cult members."

"Is that how she's alive?" I breathed, a chill spreading through my blood. I glanced at Darya and found her watching me with deep amusement that made my heart jolt. A second later, rage poured through me.

How dare she smirk at you that way? You don't need a knife to claw the smile off her smug face; fingernails will prove just as effective.

My breath caught, but I shut out the dark impulse. If I hadn't had the voice for years, I might think this was Nightmare fucking with me. I wished I could blame it on her, but this was all me.

"Don't be ridiculous," Nightmare laughed, her eyes creased at me like I was both stupid and adorable. "She's not alive; you killed her. Darya Henderson is as dead as a doornail, and I have you to thank for that." Her mouth widened into a smile and I stumbled back an instinctive step when she focused all her attention on me. My head pounded, pain thumping against my skull. I was forced to look away. "What made you think I needed my followers to be alive?"

What? Goosebumps rippled all down my arms. Darya was really dead. I really killed her. I didn't realise until that moment how much I was hoping she was alive so I could absolve myself of the guilt of murdering her.

"Oh, poor thing," Nightmare crooned, her eyes hooded with sadness when I flicked a rapid glance at her. "So much suffering, so much misery. This must be exciting for you, Cai," she said, looking at Miz.

Cai. I couldn't help it; this time I looked at him, forcing myself to be brave and stop sneaking cowardly glances at him. His expression was smooth and even, as calm as he was in sleep, but his golden eyes roared with fury and dread. The same emotions tangled in my chest, twisted my gut until I felt sick. White hair danced in the wind, the tails of his translucent shirt fluttering around his stomach.

Earlier, I'd wanted nothing more than to see Miz's true face, but now it hurt to look at him.

"She's controlling you," I rasped, forcing the truth out.

"I am," Nightmare confirmed mildly. "He won't speak unless I give him permission, which I won't. It'll ruin all this delicious tension, don't you think."

I spun to face her, my eyebrows slamming down over my eyes. "Let him go."

Nightmare laughed, a tinkling sound of beauty that filled the night. It cut off as suddenly as it began, and she looked at me with bright, delighted eyes. "Not yet, my terror, not yet. Besides." Her smile deepened. "You haven't met my second follower yet. This one's alive," she whispered with a wink.

God, Darya was dead. A ghost. I really killed her.

Nightmare smiled indulgently at the robed, hooded figure to her left. "Of course, I wouldn't have this follower in my grasp without my darling Misery."

"He's not your anything," I hissed, my pulse hammering against my throat. I held onto Miz's pinky finger harder. He was his own person, and if he belonged to anyone, he was mine.

Nightmare gave me a pitying look and turned to the robed follower.

"Where are the other four?" I blurted, stalling, terrified. A tremor started in my legs, threatening my knees. "At the party, there were five robed people."

"Now, those were ghosts," Nightmare said with relish at my flinch. I'd been in the room with ghosts. I'd spoken to one, had felt its stare on me.1

"I must say, it's been entertaining to watch you all turn on each other, playing your violent guessing games about who's my disciple. I didn't even plan that part," she added with the air of someone confessing gossip. "The paranoia and bloodthirst of mortals never fails to impress me."

I hooked my finger tighter around Miz's, holding on for dear life. "You set us up to attack each other, and sat back and watched."

"I did, didn't I?" She looked immensely pleased, her eyes trailing over the hooded figure. "I'm sure you have your own theories about my dear follower. Or as I hear my terrors calling him, the Assassin."

Calling him. So it was a male. My stomach sank. Byron, what have you done?

"Of course, none of you could know that some of the hooded figures you saw since Halloween were my new followers—not dead, but living. Like this gentleman. I believe you're acquainted."

I shook my head hard. "No."

"Forgive my flair for the dramatic," Nightmare said, savouring my panic as I cringed away. I don't want to know, I don't want to know—

She ripped the hood off his head and there was Byron, his dark, shaggy hair falling over his forehead, tears clinging to his long lashes. His eyes begged me to understand, to forgive him, but I glanced away, staring at the dark, empty moors. Why was there never anyone around when I needed them? Please, someone, anyone.

Nightmare had two men I loved under her control, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to save them.

"There, that's better," Nightmare murmured, stroking Byron's cheekbone. "Now everyone can see each other. But I see you're not falling to your knees in shock, Cat."

I swallowed, scraped my teeth over my bottom lip. "He lied about having a boyfriend."

"The boyfriend," Nightmare sighed, shaking her head. "I should have taken him, too."

Taken. I shivered at the word. "Are you going to take me, too?"

She laughed, a sharp burst of sound that rippled across the moor. "Heavens, no. That would hurt Death far less than what I have planned."

"Hurt Death," I echoed, barely above a whisper. I trembled harder as the wind picked up, fog whispering around my ankles. "Why would you care about hurting Death?"

I knew he'd vanquished her once before, but I realised now I knew very little about how or why he'd done it. And for some reason, that felt deliberate. They'd all kept me in the dark.

"This whole enterprise has been about making Death pay, you understand," Nightmare said, a laugh lingering in her voice. She gave me a half pitying, half judgemental look. "Why else would I care about making you his bride? Everything has been to weaken him so when I get the chance, when every domino has fallen and the right cards are in my hand, I can kill him."

"Why are you telling me this?" I demanded, pain spreading through my chest. My husbands had lied. Miz was under her control. Byron was one of her robed followers. And she'd led me here, to the moors where she could torture me with these truths, and had yet to reveal why.

"Because it amuses me," she replied, patting Byron's cheek. "And it furthers my agenda. Did you know Byron failed his entrance exams?"

The question was so abrupt that I didn't understand at first, and then frowned. "No, he didn't." Now she was just bullshitting me, trying to turn me against my best friend, and it wasn't fucking happening. I needed to be as clever and cunning as her, needed to get him away from her, needed to take him and Miz and run to Death's domain.

He said, all those weeks ago when we first met, his domain would answer to me. Surely, I could call up the castle. He told me death was everywhere, that it could be accessed from any place. All I needed to do was find a way to summon the domain and then—

"He bribed his way in," Nightmare said with a grin, her eyes gleaming. "Isn't that delightful? He couldn't get to Ford on merit, so he used his parents" money to buy a place." She laughed, the sound grating my ears, scraping my soul.

"Byron would never." I shook my head hard. "You're lying."

"I never lie, my terror. Why do you think he ran out of the party before the ritual was enacted? I gave my first disciple explicit instructions to send him a message and then call, ordering Byron to leave unless he wanted the truth leaked to both the governing body of Ford and the press. Can you imagine the scandal?" She gasped. "Son of the CEO and CFO of Everett Corp buying his way into university. It would have ruined him. And ruined his family, by extension. Of course he ran out and followed my every command. Of his own free will," she added with emphasis.

I shook my head. This was bullshit. There was no fucking way—

"His sister isn't even pregnant," Nightmare laughed. "Tell her, Byron. She thinks you're frozen and under compulsion but we both know the truth, don't we?"

I forced myself to look at Byron for longer than a second, a sharp pain cracking through my heart at the devastation in his sapphire eyes.

"It's okay," I whispered. "Whatever she made you do—"

"Made?" Nightmare smiled wider, really enjoying herself. "Oh no, my terror. He chose to do everything. Didn't you?"

Byron jerked, a sharp flinch that told me he could move, like I could move, like Miz clearly couldn't. What would Misery have done if Nightmare released her grip on him? Killed her? I believed he would. He wouldn't stop until she was dead, and maybe he knew that.

"I'm so sorry," Byron said suddenly, his eyes darting to me. Full of shame. I didn't want to believe it; I clung to the possibility he was compelled. "She would have ruined my family." A tear tracked down his cheek. "I didn't want to do what she told me, but I didn't have a choice."

"You did," Nightmare chided. "You chose yourself, and preserving your reputation, your family's wealth."

"I would have been kicked out of Ford, Cat," Byron said, his voice breaking, pleading. "I'd have had no future in medicine, no future at all. Do you know what my parents would do if they found out I bribed my way in?"

I sucked in a pained breath. Oh god, he really did bribe his way in. My ears began to ring. I remembered how my voice sounded when Nightmare commanded me, remembered speaking to Darya, my voice not quite right. But this was Byron's voice, the voice I'd known for years. My bottom lip wobbled. He wasn't compelled at all.

"My dad beat the shit out of me the night before we came here because I told him and Mum I'm gay." Byron was pleading, willing me to understand. I remembered him holding his middle the first few days we got here, and my chest ached fiercely.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, unable to hide the hurt in my voice. "Honey and I would have had your back, By. You know we would."

A shadow moved across his eyes. "I didn't want you to hate my parents, and I knew the second I told you Dad was a fucking homophobe, all you'd talk about was him being a piece of shit."

"Because he is a piece of shit!" I exploded, all my stress, anger, and betrayal blasting out. "We would have taken care of you, and we"d have figured out the bribery shit, too—you didn't have to… what have you done?" I asked, realising all they'd done was hint at it.

Byron dropped his gaze, pain tightening his features.

"What did you do, Byron?" I asked, my voice hardening. I held Miz's pinky tighter.

"Not volunteering the information?" Nightmare asked, visibly gleeful. "Alright, then I will. From the moment Misery called him the night of the party Byron was my willing follower." I snapped my head around to stare at Miz. He called Byron? Fuck. Fuck. "And from then on, he's done all manner of little jobs for me, haven't you, Byron?"

"Fuck you," Byron said weakly.

"All those text messages you received? Byron. The threatening notes left for you? Byron. The kitten you thought you found outside Lawrence House? A scrap of my magic left there by Byron."

Every word made my chest tighter. Made it impossible to breathe.

"I killed Darya because of that kitten."

Byron flinched.

"Youdid that?"

"I'm sorry," he said miserably.

I couldn't look at him. Couldn't stand the sight of him. I was a murderer because of him.

Nightmare gloated. "The events that led to Dean Fairchild's murder were placed, meticulously, by Byron. I couldn't have done it without your help, dear." He recoiled from her reaching hand, his face twisted into hatred. "That nuisance kept me out of Ford's grounds for as long as he could, but ultimately he fell. Thanks to your precious Byron."

Dean Fairchild… protected us? Kept Nightmare away?

"You killed him?" I whispered, staring at my friend.

"In spectacular fashion," Nightmare confirmed, making me sick. "Oh, and that sweet girl in the year above you, the one you found tragically murdered in her room?" Nightmare's smile widened. "Byron."

"I didn't want to," Byron choked out, tears falling freely down his cheeks.

Erika. He killed Erika. Byron. My Byron. My best friend. I couldn't process it.

"No," Nightmare agreed softly, her expression changing to one of sympathy, so convincing I almost fell for it. "You didn't want to. But the difference between you and Cat is you had a choice, and you chose to kill to protect yourself. Cat did not choose. That makes you the greater monster, don't you think?"

All the things I thought were Alastor Carmichael—the threats, the texts. It was Byron. I covered my mouth with a numb hand, cold and sweaty all over.

"Now, for the pièce de résistance," Nightmare said with a flourish, her eyes flashing with delight. "Darya, my dear, go retrieve that object from the grass over there."

I watched as Darya moved freely, not robotically. Not even floating like a ghost should. The smirk on her face and the knowing glint in her eyes made me sick. The second I saw what she'd retrieved was a knife, I dropped my hand and lunged into a run towards her.

I'd heard enough. Now it was time to grab my husband, my traitorous best friend, and get the hell out of here.

I'd wonder how a ghost could hold a knife later. Now, I ripped the handle out of her cold fingers, shuddering at how solid she felt, and before I could question myself, before anxiety could stay my hand, I drove the blade into her stomach.

Darya just laughed. "I'm a ghost, Cat. Do you really think you can kill me?"

I faltered back, trying to keep her and Nightmare both in my line of sight, not releasing my grip on the knife. "What happened to you? You were nice, kind, but now that you're dead you follow Nightmare?"

"I always followed Nightmare," she said, her smirk transforming her into a whole other person. "It's not my fault you're so desperate for affection you fell for the friendship routine."

But—there were no signs. Darya had been friendly and accepting and kind.

"You can't even accept it now, can you?" Darya shook her head, making a lunge for the knife.

I twisted aside, only adrenaline and panic keeping me out of her range. She was a ghost; couldn't she just float and grab it back?

"My mother and my mother's mother were followers of Nightmare," she informed me. "Proud followers. I willingly gave myself to her so that Nightmare could receive power from my death."

Wait. I faltered, confused. "You chose to die? What the fuck?"

Darya decided that was enough talking because she came at me again, grabbing my wrist in a grip so tight I cried out. A ghost's touch shouldn't have hurt.

"Enough, Cat stay where you are, let Darya take the knife."

Nightmare's voice hit me like a whip's crack and I went deadly still. Paralysed. From this angle I could see Byron turn to Nightmare, heard him plead with her to stop this. The truth hit me like a bullet. Darya was going to kill me, like I killed her. My death would give Nightmare even more power.

"Please," Byron begged. "Leave Cat out of this."

"Don't worry," Nightmare replied gently, "I will. Cai, take the knife and kill Byron."

Her words hung in the cold air for a moment, until meaning struck.

My heart hurtled at my ribs in a violent thump. No. I tried to shake my head, tried to throw myself at Miz, to catch him, stop him. Cai—that's what she called him earlier. And now she ordered him to kill my best friend?

"You may speak, Cat," Nightmare said with unhidden pleasure, wind ruffling her long hair.

"Don't," I blurted, my voice choked. "Miz, please. Don't hurt him."

Misery strode past me, his face unchanging, but those eyes reached through skin, muscle, and bone and pierced my heart.

"You're a death god," I cried, trying to move my arms, to pick up my feet so I could reach him. "You can fight her. Please. Please don't do this."

But he took the knife from Darya's spectral hand, and tears fell from my eyes as he brushed past me again.

"You might want to run, Byron," Nightmare suggested.

"No," he replied, his throat bobbing. He looked past Miz and locked eyes with me. "I'm so sorry, Cat. You're right about all of it. I should have told you and Honey. Deep down, I just wanted to stay your friend, the guy you knew and loved. I didn't want you to know what I was really like. Don't remember me like this, yeah? Remember the guy I was before we ever came to Ford."

I wanted to shake my head, wanted to run to him, wanted to body slam Miz to the ground so he couldn't do this. A horrible roaring noise started inside my head.

"Miz, please," I screamed when he strode within a few paces of Byron, the knife gripped between white-knuckled fingers. Oh god, oh god. "Byron, run!"

Byron smiled, a tiny, defiant thing. "I'm sick and tired of doing what Nightmare commands, so no, I won't run. I love you, Cat. You and Honey are the best friends I could ever ask—"

Miz drove the knife under his ribs and into his heart before the last word could leave Byron's lips, and part of me died right there with him.

My scream was deafening and raw.