*Cupcakes scream in happiness*

SHE BACK.

SHE FIESTY.

SHE CUPCAKE.

Please do me a huge favor and interact with this chapter in every way you can! Will help get my writing out there! ;)

Ace took my hand in front of the decaying willow tree and the world blurred around us. We I landed right in the middle of a hallway and stumbled, bracing ourselves on a wall.

"You couldn't have landed somewhere a little bit, I don't know, less conspicuous?" I asked.

Ace's gave a puzzled look down the hallway. "Something tried to grab me."

"What?"
"When I manifested us from out there to in here, I felt something...try to latch onto me. So, I immediately dropped, and we landed here."

We looked at each other for a moment, and I wondered if he was also thinking of those Forsaken. The terrifying mirrored creatures that Caito used to his command.

"I won't be manifesting like that in the Unknown again," Ace vowed.

"Agreed."

He turned toward me, raking back the white strands of his hair off his forehead. "Can you walk? We should get you cleaned up before someone notices your...condition."

I didn't have to check myself to know that my whole back and even some of my front was saturated in my own blood. It was still cold against my skin from being outside and making material of my upper gown constrict against my body in an uncomfortable manner. The faster I got out of this thing, the better.

"Let's go to my room," I said. "I think I should be able to find it."

Ace handed me a jacket to wrap around my upper body, and I thought about how Kalace had done the same thing in the dining hall after my gown had been torn down the bodice. Some things never change.

We hurried down the hallway.

"Do you think everyone I've met in this memory will remember me?" I asked. The logistics of this world were still something I had to wrap my head around.

"If the stream of conscious hasn't been disturbed, I would think so. Everything should line up almost exactly where you left it when you..."

Another beat of awkwardness hung between us, and I felt a cold feeling in my stomach remembering it all. It didn't feel possible that I'd died and come back to life.

"You're going to have to tell me how it happened eventually," Ace added. "I need to know the truth, or else I won't be much help here."

"I will, I just...need to figure out some things out for myself first," I said. "And you need to figure out how to disguise yourself. What if someone found us out right now?"

Noises came up the other end of the hallway. Startled, Ace and I both had the idea to hide and scrambled which direction to go. When I went to grab Ace's hand to pull him with me, it was the hand with the dirty hanky, and I freaked out and pushed him away. We ended up running in different directions, Ace hiding behind one pillar and me hiding behind another across his way with my snotty hand.

What a team we are.

"Petruchio, please, I made a huge mistake!" The feminine voice belonged to Cordelia, Romeo's ex-lover. I peered out from behind my pillar, to see her chasing after Romeo's quickened strides.

"Mistakes can be a blessing in disguise, my sweet," Romeo answered.

"I thought you would understand," Cordelia said. "Don't you see? You too are a creature of sensuality. Empath demons are not meant for monogamy. They're meant to––"

Petruchio turned toward her, grabbing her by the arms and shushing here. "I told you never to call me that. How many times must I remind you that you are mistaken?"

"I'm sorry." The fear in her dissipated, her hand reaching to stroke his face. "I'm sorry, please forgive me. For everything. I only miss you. I miss you sincerely..." She seemed to be holding back emotion and inhaled a little suddenly. Her nose twitched, and she smelled the air again, licking her lips. "Do you scent that? An odor of blood..."

I looked down at Ace's jacket over my bloody dress, and then across the hallway at Ace, horrified. He held up his hand out for me not to move.

Romeo glanced around them. "You scent blood? Perhaps it's the smell of our rotting relationship and the metaphorical hole you put in my chest."

Cordelia's lip wobbled. "Just kiss me again, my love. Kiss me, and remember the love we shared..." Her lips lightly touched his, and he leaned into her a little, before yanking himself back.

"Cordelia, you must stop. You cheated my heart and now you must let me go. I am worth far too much to be cast aside as a side dish. I'm sorry it took this long for both of us to realize it."

"How will I go on with you?"

"You will find another, and hopefully you will treat them better. Despite everything you've done to me, I do wish you the best." He started to pull away from her again, but she desperately grabbed onto the sleeve of his shirt.

"I know you cannot remember your entire past, Petruchio."

Romeo turned his head toward her, growing still.

"There are others here who share the same ailment," Cordelia continued, sauntering toward him. "Certain souls lose their memory when they travel into the realm of the Hell. They forget what lead them to such a harrowing place for sinners. I don't know why this is, but I do know that you show all the signs of memory lost. Perhaps all it would take would be a little reminder of what your kind is made of..." She lifted her hand, brushing his chest with it. "I believe empath demons are beautiful and powerful creatures, even if many do not share the same opinion. I could help you, my love––"

Romeo tore himself away from her, having no more of the conversation. "Goodnight, Cordelia."

He left Cordelia in the middle of the hallway, and I see the last strand of hope inside of her disintegrate. "I cannot go on without you!"

Romeo's face flinched, but he kept striding forward past mine and Ace's pillars.

Cordelia cupped her hand over her mouth, catching a sob. She turned and ran down the other end of the hallway.

"One of the Seven," Ace noted, once Romeo and Cordelia were out of ear's reach. "But he's yet to be turned." If I didn't know any better, Ace looked a little bit afraid. "What year is it, Faith?"

"Eighteen-twenty-one," answered a deep voice, startling me nearly back to the grave. Blade, the reaper of Wrath, made himself known from behind another pillar. Apparently, we hadn't been the only one spying on Romeo and Cordelia.

"One year after Carron iron workers like me were struck down in the Radical War," Blade continued, and I could tell he was a little bit drunk by the glossy look to his eyes. "Crimes of treason, they said. I thought I'd seen enough mortality in Scotland, until I came here."

I was curiously unraveling any bit of his memory I could get at this point. "Why are you here?"

"I can ask you the same thing, girl." He reached out and pushed Ace's jacket away from my corset, and I gasped as he saw the blood all over my stomach.

Ace grabbed Blade's forearm and shoved him back. "Keep your hands to yourself, friend."

Blade had a knife to Ace's throat before he could even blink. "I'm not your friend. Heard you talking about cleaning her up before. That your mess?" He jabbed a finger toward my dress, glaring at Ace. "You're one vile fuck indeed, hurting a lady like that.

Oh. He thought that Ace had done this to me and was defending me.

I started to laugh. "Yoooo, there's been a misunderstanding­­––"

"The only misunderstanding will be his identity," Blade snarled, pushing the knife harder against Ace's neck, "when nobody can recognize his face!"

"Alright, alright, let's keep it down to a dull roar, okay?" I pleaded with Blade, pulling on his sleeve. Getting closer to him, I could tell that he'd clearly enjoyed quite a few drinks recently. "Listen, um.... Mr. Juggler, sir."

"Roderick," Blade muttered, his gaze still steady on Ace's neck and that sharp, sharp blade.

"May I call you Rick?" I asked.

"No."

"How about Rod?"
Blade side-eyed me with a vicious look, and Ace cleared his throat loudly for me to cut it out.

I put my hand on my heart. "I'm an actress," I explained, keeping my voice sweet. "He's helping me with a scene." I pushed aside the fabric of my dress, showing him that my skin wasn't injured underneath. "See? It's all fake-a-roonie. I'm fine."

"I see I'm mistaken." Blade lowered his knife from Ace and took a small bottle out from the back pocket in his pants to take a swig of. "So, you doused yourself in fake blood for an actress scene, then? Are you going for that main role all those females are excited for?"

"What main role?" I asked, while Ace was still rubbing uneasily at his neck where Blade's knife had been.

"The main role in the play." Blade seemed exasperated as to why we didn't know what he was talking about and put his hands on his hips "The play at the masquerade? His highness is picking an actress to entertain his guests with him. Apparently, the last actress didn't have the right...chemistry. Rumor is, her performance 'fell flat.'"

My head snapped up at fell flat and my fists closed tight. There was no way....

That damn kitty bastard better not have been talking about me!

"When's the Masquerade?" Ace asked Blade, while I quietly seethed.

"Seven days' time." Blade narrowed his eyes at Ace. "Wait a minute. I know you. You're that sorcerer the prince brought to the castle!"

"Warlock," Ace corrected reluctantly.

"Yeah, I saw you talking to one of the servants earlier. But you had a different look to you." He twirled his finger by his own short hair. "Those locks. Those locks on your head were long enough to wipe your own damn ass and now they aren't."

Ace looked like he might turn Blade into a squirrel with his magic, so I made sure to pat his chest to let him know to shake it off. "Good ol' Kalace here had to cut his hair. And if you see him with long hair again, know it's a hex his former girlfriend put on him. Makes his hair grow like a weed and crawl up his butt hole. Speaking of wiping his own butt and all."

Blade's face scrunched up in disturbance. Ace expressed his complete embarrassment with an evil look at me. Lying might not have been my specialty, but I did love a good story.

"This conversation has been much longer than I intended it to be," Blade said at last. "Though I'm not surprised by that woman's spite, Kalace. Typical female."

I scoffed. "Kalace didn't like her as much she liked him. You and Cordelia would know a thing or two about that, wouldn't you?"

Blade scoffed and took another sip from that bottle. "I have nothing to do with whatever is going on between Cordelia and that joker. We had one night of fun; I didn't even know she was taken."

Ace jumped on the detective wagon. "Then why you were standing here in the shadows, eavesdropping on their conversation."

"Why were you?" Blade fired back.

"Because hello," I motioned to my bloody gown, "I didn't want anybody to see my costume. Now why were you stalking him?"

Blade quickly lost his temper. "I wasn't stalking him. I've been trying to warn the bastard!"

"About?" Ace pressed.

Blade released an aggravated sound and wiped the back of his neck with his hand. "Let's just say. Petruchio is not the only one Cordelia has played, and he is certainly not the most malicious partner she's had. Overheard one of the knights talking about a violent quarrel between two men fighting over Cordelia's affection. Quite a few men in the court have the idea she's is their partner, and I just wanted to give the bastard a heads up."

"How honorable of you," I said.

"Mmm, not so fast, miss. All this trouble to get five seconds alone with the quirky little shit has cost valuable practicing time for my next show." He put his hands on his hips. "This conversation with a white-haired magician and an echo chamber has also been an enormous waste of my time. Farewell."

He stalked away.

"Looks like we dodged a bullet there with future Mr. Wrath," I murmured to Ace. "Wait a minute. Did he just call me an airhead?"

"I believe so, ma chère."

Ace and I snuck through the castle, carefully avoiding any other interactions with people. I thought for sure we'd run into Leo or Wolf in my hallway, but the coast was clear. Ace did his thing with a little "trick" and unlocked my room, and we slipped inside.

"Do you have my pocket watch?" he asked. "I'll need it as a conduit if we need to change memories."

"Yeah, it's in my bag." I rushed to the bed and fall to my knees to check for my backpack underneath, a sigh of relief escaping me as I felt for it under the bed.

"Keep it for now, it's safer in there. I'm going to do some traveling around the castle, and I wouldn't want to get found out with that on me." He looked at himself in the mirror and wiped his jaw. "I'll need a potion to hold up a new identity. Otherwise, I'll just have to use a trick."

"What if there's something in my bag that could change your identity?"

"That backpack was intended for you, ma chère. I want you to keep anything in there for yourself. I know how make the potion, and like I said, I have a few temporary tricks up my sleeve."

Ace moved his fingers in a small gesture, transforming his face to Blade's. He wiped his hand down his face, and he was back to normal.

"Cool," I said.

"I can only hold it for a few minutes at a time, before I get fatigued," Ace said. "I haven't been sleeping much."

"I feel you." Not to mention whenever I went to sleep, I went elsewhere. Except for the last time. The last time I'd fallen asleep, I hadn't dreamt, and I hadn't crossed that bridge to Death's deeper conscious. That's about when shit hit the fan, too.

I thought about the witchy room in the castle, where I'd eavesdropped on Victorian Death and Kalace. Kalace had given him smokes that would curb his episodes and hunger. That whole room had been filled with jars of herbs and things that might have been helpful to Ace.

"For your potion," I began. "There's a room in the castle that I saw­­­—"

"Oh, I know exactly where to find what I need," Ace said, pacing the room like he couldn't sit still. "I remember this castle well enough. What's the last thing you remember happening with Kalace and Death?"

It felt so weird listening to Ace describe himself in the third person. My brain felt like it was still trying to catch up with everything that had happened, but I tried to focus on what I remembered. Kalace and Death were in the witchy room, and Kalace was giving him things to curb his episodes. Death had mentioned Kalace helping him break his Seven Deadly Sins curse, and then the two of them had fought.

"You said you would be leaving the castle," I finished summarizing.

Ace had listened to my summary intently, and I could see the gears in his head working behind his eyes. "I was hoping it wasn't that memory, but it seems it was wishful thinking. This certainly complicates things...."

As if things weren't complicated enough. "Do you remember what happens next?"

Ace rubbed his jaw. "I know we must leave this memory before the Night Masquerade. It's our best chance of survival."

"Of survival? Now hold on––"

Ace put a finger to my lips. "You have your secret about how you died, ma chère. For the sake of this journey going smoother, I must keep this to myself for now. Do you trust me?"

I looked into his puppy dog violet eyes and let out an aggravated sigh. "Yes, of course I do." And he was the only one I trusted fully right now.

"I'll be back as soon as possible." Ace turned and opened the giant wardrobe in the room. "Perfect, you have another gown in here." He strode to the bathroom, and I watched him perform a spell to draw hot water into the tub. "That water will keep refreshing itself every few minutes. It'll help run the water clear when you..."

We both looked down at my bloody gown, a sickly feeling rolling my stomach. "Thanks, Ace."

"I will leave and get the ingredients for the potion while you're getting cleaned up and dressed." He paused, violet eyes scanning my face. "Or if you would like, I can stay?"

The thought of being alone was an even more uncomfortable feeling. "No, I'm good. Really. The quicker we get things going the better. The best thing you could do for me as is help me get the hell out of this place."

Ace gave me a sort of sad smile and kissed my cheek. "When I get back, I'll destroy any trace of that damn dress. And you and I, we're going to bring him back. Together."

After Ace left, I turned and faced the bathtub. The steam coming off the water promising warmth and comfort, but I stood very still in the cold bathroom. My hands trembled as they lifted to my waist. I slowly ran my fingers over my corset and closed my eyes, feeling the tear where that blade had punctured through my corset. He'd made that bookcase filled with weapons explode so fast, and I could still almost feel that pressure of the blade twisting inside of my body.

"She bleeds red," Victorian Death had said to himself in that deranged state. "She doesn't remember the library. I was wrong..."

Behind my closed eyes, light haloed out from my hands. I grabbed the top of my dress and tore it from my body, every layer of fabric wrapped around my body like paper beneath my hands. The dress was in shambles at my feet, my breath heaving in and out. When I opened my eyes, the tears streaming down my face were like fire against my skin instead of ice.

You're right, you're not an angel. I could almost hear him purring it in my ear. Angels can fly.

I turned and threw out my hand like a weapon, firing a stream of my power at the gown. It lit up the entire room in a light so blinding even I had to turn away from it, and when my hand finally lowered, there was only ash and the tiniest flame as the last sliver of the death gown burned away to nothing.

My arm fell limp to my side and that numb coldness in my body. I dragged my feet to the tub and sunk deep into the boiling hot water, letting the water turn pink as it enveloped me and calmed my racing heart.

Once I was scrubbed clean, I meandered over the pile of ash into the bedroom and found some underthings and another gown to change into. I didn't know whether it was "day" or night here, but even though I sure as hell wasn't getting any sleep right now. This one was dark grey with black accents along the corset and lace sleeves that reached out past my hands.

I paced the room. Ace wasn't back yet. Although I had confidence in him that everything was alright, I hated just standing around doing nothing. My eyes moved to my backpack on my bed, and I stopped in my tracks. I unclasped the bag and took out the tarhelm helmet, recalling all the information I had gathered when I'd spied on Death and Kalace.

"No," I told myself, setting the helmet back down. "Wait for Ace."

I paced the room seventy more times, when I could no longer convince myself that something wasn't wrong. I put on the tarhelm helmet to make myself invisible, slung my backpack over my shoulders, and hurried out the room.

The hallways were eerily empty as I ran down the stone flooring, my slipper-like shoes, and the small heel beneath them scarcely making a sound as I went. Maybe it was the surrealness of being stuck in memories for so long, but there was something about being in the castle when nobody was awake that made it all feel a little more nightmarish. Wind whirled through the cracks in the boarded-up windows, carrying with it distant howls. I pictured those frightening creatures soaring all over the sky and picked up my pace to a spiral stone stairwell.

I was halfway down when I heard Leo's voice coming up and Wolf's too. With nowhere to go but back up the stairs, and very little space to hide, I considered racing back up the way that I came, but it was too much of a risk. 

I flattened myself against the wall as the two men climbed the stairs below me.

"Think he'll be stable again by the time the Fallen arrive?" Wolf was asking Leo.

"I'm not sure," Leo said. "I've never found His Highness unconscious like that before. He's certainly not well or getting any better."

"Do you think he'll be stable by the masquerade?" Wolf inquired.

The two men loomed closer in the stairwell. I held my breath and flattened as best as I could against the wall, but Leo's armor grazed my cheek as he strode by. He stopped and grabbed Wolf's arm, and I froze.

"This cannot be shared with anyone," Leo said, turning to Wolf. "Swear it."

"Of course," Wolf vowed.

"A few nights ago, Death said something to me. He'd had a few glasses of demon blood, and he was.... ranting. About Lucifer. About power. He said that there's a reason Lucifer is never around. He told me...Lucifer is afraid of him. Maybe he meant when he is not in control. All I know is, Death almost made it sound like this castle is his cage."
Wolf grinned. "Come on now, Leo. Don't be ridiculous. Death was drunk off blood. Lucifer is damn King of Hell, and Death could do anything he damn wishes as well."

"Fine, be in denial, but I'm telling you, I have a bad feeling where this is all leading." Leo lowered his voice again. "If Death has a point to prove to Lucifer, he'll do it at this grand masquerade."

Leo continued up the stairwell, and Wolf stood in place and seemed to consider that, before he eventually went up the stairs too. I reeled over what I had just absorbed and questioned what the hell this masquerade stuff was all about, too. Maybe it was at the heart of this memory after all.

Letting out the breath I'd been holding, I crept down the rest of the stairs and started down a corridor, when a cat slinked out into my path. Its fur was grey and black, it's tail slowly swishing side to side as it looked up at me. Movement made my head turn, and I saw there was another cat on a boarded-up windowsill. This one was tan with spots and bright amber eyes. It almost looked undomesticated. An eerie feeling crept over my skin as I strode past four more cats and their eyes followed me the entire way, but I knew I was still invisible.

In Death's secret area in the library, he'd insinuated he'd known that I'd spied on him before, and suddenly I had my answer why. These cats had a sixth sense to the invisible, and so did he.

"You know, I would have left tonight."

It was Ace's voice, coming from a nearby room. The witchy room.

I peered through a crack in a wooden door, I could see it was Kalace by his Victorian clothes. "I would have left without a word, and you would have figured out things for yourself. But you just keep finding ways to drag me back into your messes."

"If you're going to keep reminding me of that, then you should have just left me where I was."

Just hearing Death's voice was enough to trigger an onslaught of anxiety in me. I pressed my back against the stone wall and squeezed my eyes shut.

Did you really think you were in control, Faith?

"They found you cataleptic in the library," Kalace continued, as I decided to keep listening, "surrounded by an enormous amount of someone else's blood. Where that someone else is now is between you and the Gods that will judge you one day."

"I told you, I don't remember what happened." Death sounded distraught, which was unlike him. "I have a massive lapse in memory, much larger than I usually do with these damn episodes."

A lapse of memory? If he was telling the truth, then Victorian Death would have no memory of throwing me off that balcony. It put into question if Death's corpse was in fact completely responsible for trying to kill me and why. Why had he tried to get rid of me when I was trying to save him? It just didn't make any sense.

There were two choices here. Dig deeper into this memory or leave and go find Ace. I banked on Victorian Death being way too preoccupied to even consider someone was listening again and pushed my hand gently on the door to get a better view. 

***

FWEIJFEJFIOWEJIIOJ???????

Please do me a huge favor and interact with this chapter in every way you can! Will help get my writing out there! ;)

AUTHOR NOTE:

In all honesty I've been completely burnt out with college and working on all my projects. My thesis is literally me having to write ANOTHER book, and now I have another project on top of that I have to organize time for. If you don't know by now, organization and Kat's creativity do not always mesh well LOLLLLLL. But I'm working on it and I wanted to get something up to Wattpad keep you guys happy!!And don't worry, Death will be in the next chapter, and it will get CRAZY and SPICY again. 

SCREAM "CUPCAKE!!!!" IF YOU WANT THE NEXT CHAPTER SOONER! SCREAM IT FROM THE FREAKING MOUNTAINS!!!

;)

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