“Yeah, but he sent me flowers every day for a week and told me I looked like a goddess,” I say. Most customers couldn’t give a shit about my feelings. “I’d screw him until Kingdom Come for that alone.”

She swats me, stifling a grin.

“Oh, don’t act like you wouldn’t gobble up every cent that man was willing to throw at you,” I say.

“God rest his soul, I would.”

At the mention of God, I sober up. I crack my knuckles nervously.

It’s going to be alright. Famine doesn’t hate you. This might work.

This will work.

The rest of the walk is spent mostly in silence. We wind through the streets of Laguna, passing sagging homes and faded storefronts, the plaster chipped in most places.

Other residents are walking the same way we are, many of them carrying offerings.

I didn’t realize so many people knew where the horseman was staying …

Assuming, of course, that they’re headed his way. That’s where we’re going. And here I’d hoped that simply showing up at the Reaper’s doorstep would be enough to grab his attention.

Eventually, the worn, weathered homes and broken cement streets of Laguna end. There’s empty space, and then in the distance, a hill rises, and on it rests the mayor’s house, overlooking the glittering water.

We approach the old Oliveira mansion, with its red tile roof and blown glass windows. For as long as I can remember, the mayor and his family have lived here, amassing a fortune on the ships that move goods up and down the coast.

Up close, the home’s opulence is even more striking—there’s a cobblestone drive and a manicured yard and …

There’s already a line of people congregating near the door.

Motherfucker.

There goes my edge.

Just as we head up the front drive, the home’s double doors bang open. Two men drag Antonio out, his face bloody. He shouts obscenities over his shoulder as he struggles against the men.

I stop walking altogether, my lips parting in shock.

The men holding Antonio cart him around the building. Not even a minute later, Antonio’s wife and two daughters are hauled out after him. His wife wails, and it’s like nothing I’ve heard. Their children are sobbing and crying out for their mother.

No one does anything. Not the people in line, not even me and Elvita. I don’t think anyone knows what to do. That would require understanding what’s going on, and that’s anyone’s fucking guess at this point.

I meet Elvita’s startled gaze.

I’m not sure the madam’s plan is going to work after all. My eyes return to where I last saw Antonio and his family.

But if her plan doesn’t work …

 

I’m afraid what failure will look like.

Reluctantly Elvita and I step up to the back of the waiting line of visitors. A few of them have broken away from the line and are hustling off the property.

I stare after them, thinking they’re the most sensible ones out of the lot of us. But even as they flee back the way they came, more people are heading towards us from the city.

We might still have time to pack up and leave. I could forget about having my moment with Famine. Maybe it’s not too late for me and Elvita …

The sentiment only deepens when I hear several screams come from the back of the property. The hairs on my arms stand on end.

I turn to Elvita, opening my mouth.

She stares straight ahead. “It’ll be fine,” she says resolutely.

Years of listening to this woman have me shutting my mouth, even as a hard knot of dread grows within me.

The men who dragged the Oliveira family away a moment ago now return empty-handed, the Oliveiras nowhere in sight. Most of these men re-enter the house, but two of them move to stand in front of the doors, their faces grim. My eyes scour their dark clothing and the exposed skin I can see. There are wet patches that I swear are blood splatter …

A knock comes from the inside of the door. One of the guards opens it, stepping aside.

One of the people in line ahead of us is ushered inside. Then the door closes once more.

Over the next twenty minutes, the people ahead of us in line enter the house one by one. None of them leave out the front doors—if they leave at all.

What is going on in there? The damnable, curious part of me wants to know. The rational, spooked side of me wants to get the hell out of here. I still haven’t seen Antonio or the rest of his family, and I’m legitimately worried—not just for them, but for the rest of us as well.

Elvita must have realized I was a flight risk because she took my hand ten minutes ago, and she’s held it tight ever since.

Eventually, we’re the next in line.

My pulse races as I wait. I dart a glance at one of the guard’s forearms. What looked like a line of moles from far away now looks alarmingly like blood.

Oh God—

A knock comes from inside the house, and a moment later the door opens. Both guards step aside, allowing Elvita and me to enter.

I … just can’t get my feet to move.

My boss gives my hand a tug. “Let’s go inside, Ana.” She says it sweetly enough, but her eyes are sharp and her eyebrows are arched just so. I’ve received enough orders from her to know this is yet another one.

I wet my lips, then force myself to step over the threshold.

This is the reunion you’ve spent years imagining, I reassure myself.

It’ll be okay.

 

 

Chapter 3

I’ve never been inside the mayor’s house, which is a weird thought, considering he’s been inside me many, many times.

My eyes sweep over everything, taking in delicate porcelain vases full of withered blooms to the cut glass chandelier. There’s a huge painting of Antonio and his family hanging in the living room. It was clearly commissioned a few years ago because his children are younger versions of themselves.

Sitting right beneath that painting, his scythe draped across his lap, is the horseman.

My breath catches. Once again I’m overtaken by the sight of him, with his wavy hair and glittering green eyes. He looks cut from stone, distant and untouchable.

I try to resolve this hardened thing with the very first memory I have of him.

His neck is a mess of blood and sinew. His face and head are covered in mud and blood, his hair matted to his cheeks—

“And what have we here?” His voice is like honeyed-wine, and it snaps me back to the present.

I stare and stare and stare. My whip-sharp tongue fails me now.

When neither Elvita nor I speaks, Famine’s gaze rakes over me. He pauses a little when he gets to my eyes, but there’s no recognition there.

There’s no recognition there.

All that guilt and shame I pent up for years and Famine doesn’t even recognize me.

I hide the crushing disappointment I feel. Not once in the last five years that I worked for Elvita had I mentioned that I’d met the Reaper before. I only agreed to this stupid plan of hers because I had unfinished business with the horseman.

Unfortunately, that business hinged on the horseman remembering me.

Elvita steps forward. “I brought you a gift,” the madam says smoothly.

The horseman looks between the two of us, his expression bored. “And where is it? Your hands are empty.”

Elvita looks over at me, willing me to speak. Normally, I have a decent amount of confidence, and what I lack in confidence, I make up for in posturing. But right now, all I want to do is sink into the ground.