AYOOO NOT ME WORKING ON A CHAPTER FOR YOU GUYS ON ON MY BIRTHDAY!!!!

NOT ME REALIZING AS I POST THIS IT'S CHAPTER 27 WHICH HAPPENS TO BE MY AGE LOL!!!!! WEIRD.

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I didn't wander far through the hallways of the gloomy castle until I found a group of people hoarding around something curious. I assumed they had all been gathering out here for a while by the way some of them were deep in conversation.

"Heard she had foam at the mouth," whispered a woman with horns protruding from her forehead. "Poisoned, I'd bet. They even got the cook in there to interrogate him."

"Poisoned, only to be mutilated?" added another. "What a sick and twisted act, though I am not surprised around here."

"Excuse me," I said, tapping a man with a curled mustache that was speaking. "What's happened?"

"There's been a murder," said the man, and I remembered that was why Ace had been called away. "I saw a glimpse of her before the sheet was pulled over the body. Poor thing's face was mutilated beyond recognition. By the amount of blood on the floor, I doubt her face were where the wounds ended..."
"Who was she?"

"I believe her name was Cordelia."

My stomach felt like lead. Oh, no. I had to find Romeo.

"Good riddance, I say," muttered the lady who was loosely eavesdropping on our conversation, patting her intricate updo with a dainty hand. "Cordelia was a muddy harlot. She moved from bed to bed in the castle and probably got herself in trouble accordingly. If you ask me, she had it coming."
I stepped up to her, shocked someone would even say that. "Well, nobody asked you, lady, so maybe keep your mouth shut," I said, not even bothering to stick around to see the woman's reaction. It didn't matter what Cordelia did with her body, she was dead. Mutilated. And my heart hurt for Romeo.

I pushed through the crowd of people to find Leo in his black knight armor standing in front of a door.

"Wolf, is Romeo in there? You have to let me through, I­­––"

"I'm sorry, I've been instructed not to let anyone inside this room."

"Petruchio is my friend."

"He's mine, too."

"Then you should be in there consoling him," I argued, getting frustrated.

"Excuse me," said a familiar voice from behind me, as the crowd of persons groaned at another person shoving through. "Get out of my way. Out of my way, I'm the doctor." Ace emerged with a leather bag in his hand, looking frazzled. He saw me and I expected him to brighten at least a little, but he just looked at my dirty gown and groaned.

"She's with me," Ace said to Wolf, laying his hand on my shoulder. "I'll need her aid."

Wolf gave us a judgmental look that Ace seemed to miss as he already had his hand on the door. I felt a little flustered all of the sudden as I remembered how Leo and Wolf had found Ace and I in the herb room. They thought we were hooking up.

"For doctoral things," I felt the need to add.

Ace looked over his shoulder at me and just shook his head, before pushing into the room. Inside, my blood went instantly cold with mortification. Courts people crowding around the edge of the room and a body beneath a crimson-soaked sheet lay on the dining hall table like a sacrifice on an altar. The sight made me sick to my stomach.

"What happened to her?" I asked Ace.

"I don't remember who did it," Ace conceded. "I just know she was ganged up on and attacked. Some kind of disagreement, I suppose."

"I heard she was mauled beyond recognition. What kind of person would do that?"

"Psychopaths trapped in a castle in hell," Ace said. "I just know it was not Death. It could anyone else, so you should be careful who you trust. Everyone who has been invited here is a lost corrupt soul."

Of course, they were. I felt silly to even think otherwise.

"Kalace is still unconscious," Ace added, quieter. "I moved his him somewhere safer and injected enough tranquilizer to keep him sedated until the end of tonight. I'll have to take a look at this body, but before I do..." He turned me toward him. "What about you? I left you in that room with Death for a long time. Any slashes, bruises––?"

"Cat clawing," I muttered, holding out my bandaged hand.

Ace clasped my hand with a curse. "How bad is it?"

"Not terrible, although it's not healing like I expected it to be..."

Ace gave me a long look, like he knew I'd done something wrong. "You've drained your power, perhaps, and I can only wonder why. It is incredible you even survived being alone with him, I suppose. Come, there's a disposal room behind the kitchen, and we'll reconvene there for a moment." He took my good hand, and I followed through the room, feeling the courts people eyes on us the entire time. We went through an elaborate kitchen, where one of Death's cooks appeared to be getting interrogated be Leo. Leo had his back to us, dressed in his usual knightly armor. The cook, leaning a hand against a counter, caught my eye, and a chill slipped down my spine as I recognized him as Gunner, the Deadly Sin of Gluttony.

Another sin. The only two I'd yet to see in this castle were Pride and Sloth, aka Denim and Flash. All of them seemingly yet to be reapers. This seemed like an important thing to notice as Ace and I slipped into a back room that reeked of rotten vegetables. The room was dark and had a shoot at the end of it, where I expected all the trash would be dumped.

"Ugh,' I said, plugging my nose. "Seriously? I guess better a trash room than someone overhearing our insane multiple-dimension talk."

Ace put his bag down and small table that looked relatively clean and started to unwrap my bandage. "No magical healing?"

"You're not the only one who's draining his power to survive here. I've been stuck in this room for hours and I don't have time to remember all my methods to heal these people. This will hurt a little." He poured some liquid over my hand, and I hissed. "Every time I try to get to the body, someone comes up to me with some kind of ailment. I have gunk in my eye. I have this itch that won't go away, I have mole on my left butt cheek that I'd like you to slice off. I've been going so back and forth between the potion room and this room to cure these ailments and haven't even taken a good look at the corpse."

"Clearly there are more narcissistic people here than people in Los Angeles during golden hour," I muttered.

Ace took out a fresh bandage and pressed it to the wound. "Are you going to tell me how this even came to be?"

"Well, you see," I said, playing with my hands, "things have gotten a little more complicated."

Ace looked up at me like he didn't think that was at all possible.

"Shit hit the fan," I continued, not even bothering to soften the blow. "Victorian Death was all drugged up crazy when you left and started fighting me, but it was exactly like the training Death taught me. It was like our Death was surfacing or something. Then Death's corpse shows up, like the ghost of him, and he says again, right? The same thing he used to tell me repeatedly when we'd train. And then the ghost of him ends up kissing me and then I was in the in-between, and there were three Death's­­––"

"Hold on." Ace turned toward me, his hand on my shoulder. "What the fuck is this summary? Three Death's? You astral projected again? Can I ever leave you alone to a peaceful situation––"

"It's not like I meant to! Death's corpse is haunting the shit out of me, man! That's not even the worst part."
Ace put a firm hand on my shoulder, looking around us as though someone might be eavesdropping. "Merde. Just get to the worst part."

I flicked up three fingers. "Current Death, Victorian Death, and Alexandru. The Three Musketeers of mind fuckery were all there. VD and Alexandru started taunting Modern Death and then I realized they were Forsaken. I think the forsaken are tormenting Death's deeper level of conscious. They're trying to make him weak and bring them to his corpse before we do. You following?"

"Trying."

"Then I was back, and Death had forgotten that he tried to fight me when he was fevered. then he was getting old close and doing his death charm thing and I don't know I ended up touching him and then I went into this memory. Death was blonde, but he wasn't Alexandru now..."
Ace's white eyebrows pinched. "Okay, now you've lost me, chère."

I put both my hands up, desperate to get him on the same page. "Death looked like Alexandru. Except, I could tell it wasn't sweet innocent Alexandru. He was in this place, this...otherworldly golden palace with this starry ceiling..."
"Did it look like the library here?"
I touched his arm. "Yes, exactly! Except, it wasn't. This one was full of life and light, and it had this ambiance..."

"It felt heavenly," Ace supplied. "While the one here feels empty and cold, like a replica."

"Exactly," I said, a cold feeling washing down my spice at Ace's words. "He was in Heaven, wasn't he? He was an angel."

Ace shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as though debating how much to say. "When Alex turned into a death creature, he roamed the mortal realm for years using his power irrepressibly. He was recruited by Heaven to do good with his abilities and contain his curse."

"So, they dyed his hair blonde and gave him a second chance?"

"No, chère. You know, telling you any of this is always a risk, but it seems you have to know some. The ancient angels in Heaven's realm had the power to suppress Death's curse. Provisionally, and only if he would work for them, and use his gift of sight to see into the good and bad into mortals' souls. He'd help guard the gate entering into heaven and determine who could pass and who could not."

"How the hell did they trust him with that job?"

"Well, like I said, he was observed," Ace said. "For a while, from what I understand, it worked to keep him on the right track. Until, well, he fell, obviously, and I'm not sure how much more I can tell you about that."
"Great, so all the important things you can't tell me."

Ace sighed. "You know I would tell you everything I know, if I could."

"So, I saw angel Death in heaven's realm in the golden library. But why would he recreate that same exact library in Heaven?"

"This isn't Death's castle, per so," Ace explained. "It's Lucifer's. Perhaps the library held some importance to him?"

"Are you saying that because you know?"

"I'm saying that because I don't know, chère." He crossed the room enough to toss the discarded bandages into the shoot and came back to me.
"There was a woman," I continued, thinking back to what I had seen in the in-between. "She was with Death in this library. Around her neck, she had these stones of various colors. She told Death that she puts the devil to sleep. I keep hearing these words from Death's conscience. I think there's some importance to her that I'm supposed to figure out. Maybe it's the key to getting to his corpse, or maybe––"

Something large crawled out beside the garbage shoot with a groan. I screamed, halfway jumping onto Ace.

"Oy, would you keep it down?" Romeo stood with his eyes squeezed shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm tryin' to nap ove' here."

Ace and I shared a look and a concern that Petruchio had heard our every word.

"Petruchio." My eyes widened and I looked over at Ace. "Petruchio, what the hell are you doing in here?"

"Blue eyes?" He belched and bent over to put a fist over his mouth, nearly throwing up, and the thought that he'd heard our conversation and absorbed it in this state evaporated. The nausea seemed to pass for him, and he shrugged, taking a sip from a bottle in his hand. "Look away from me, luv. I'm a shameful sight of misery."

He tossed the bottle to the side, shattering it against the wall.

"Perhaps you should sit down," Ace said, taking a step forward.

Romeo jabbed a finger at Ace. "Don't tell me what to do, witch doctor." Romeo stumbled away from Ace as though he would make his exit. He tripped over himself, and I rushed to stop him from falling. He held onto my shoulder; his eyes frantic. I got a good whiff of him enough to know he'd been near the trash. "I know what doctors do to corpses," he continued to shout at Ace. "You won't touch a hair on her head, you hear me!"

"Petruchio," I said, gripping his shoulders until his glossed eyes slid to mine. "Petruchio, it's all right. Ace is not going to hurt anyone."

Romeo's mouth wavered, and he simply nodded. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you're right." He wiped his forearm over his sweaty forehead. "Back to me old ways, I'm afraid. I'm half in the rats."

Ace crossed his arms coolly and leaned against the wall. "Only half?"

I shot him a warning look. Clearly my gum was looking its dictation effect because I had no idea what that meant. I only assumed that it meant Romeo was drunk.

"You know, you are just the size person I would have needed, jam tart," Romeo said. "You could have crawled into the shoot for me. I'm too big to shimmy my way down there, but it doesn't matter anyhow. They moved all the soiled trash. Now I'll never have it again. That trinket of Cordelia's. It was just a small barrette from her hair that she parted with me. A small token of our love I cannot get out of my mind, and I tossed it. I tossed it into the abyss. Now she'll never have it back. She'll never know I kept it..."

My heart broke for him, watching him process his grief in such a broken way. "Petruchio, what's happened to Cordelia... I can't begin to understand. I'm so sorry."

His swallowed with dry lips and held back emotion. "I loved her, you know. Despite everything I said to her, I probably always will." His mouth turned up with bitter smile. "She was a cruel vixen, but she didn't deserve this. Not like that. No, I cannot wrap my head around the grisly scene."

Romeo turned his face into my neck and started to sob. Ace's violet eyes softened at the sight, and he pushed off the wall. He looped one of Romeo's arms over his shoulder. "Let's get him something to eat."

By the time we entered the kitchen, Leo and Gunner were gone. Ace broke off a piece of bread and handed it to Petruchio, who only nibbled at the end, crumbs tumbling from his mouth.

"How do we get him out of here without going through the dining hall?" I asked Ace. The last thing I wanted was Petruchio to see the body again.

"There is no other way than through the dining hall," Romeo answered for us, his face paling and his throat twitching as though he would hurl. "I'll just look the other way, I will. Look the other way..."

We went back into the dining hall, the crowd of courts people unimaginable, as the ones who had been standing outside had pushed their way in. Romeo inhaled a little gasp, blanching at the sight of one of the men peering beneath the sheet over Cordelia. The man made a cringing face and looked back as though he'd joked to one of his friends behind him. Ace and I both tried to grab Petruchio, but it was too late.

"YOU THERE!" Romeo shouted, the room snapping their gazes to him as he staggered toward Cordelia. He picked up a knife off the table as he moved. "Get away from her, or I swear, I'll carve into your fucking head!"

"With a butter knife, jester?" the man said, and the onlookers laughed. They laughed. "You can barely stand on two feet, and you expect to defend this whore?"

Romeo's visibly trembled. He raised his arm like a madman and lunged toward the perpetrator, when Blade slid out of the crowd cool as an assassin and gripped Romeo's wrist from behind, disposing him of the weapon.

"Fuck off, or you'll meet the jagged edge you deserve," Blade said to man. The perpetrator narrowed his eyes, deciding not to square up with Blade's dark gaze as he backed off.

"Don't let him go, he touched her!" Romeo hissed, writhing against Blade's hold. Death's knights finally joined in but did nothing to help the sad scene. "To the deepest pit of hell, to your empty hearts. All who laugh are in suspicion now. You will find no entertainment from me but vengeance now!"

Ace and I looked onto the scene in quiet dismay as his shouts only egged on the crowd to laugh harder. It was something from a nightmare, something that exposed these cruel souls Death had placed in this castle.

"Move."

I tuned everything out as I saw him striding into the room. He wore his crown of bones now, that royal cloak draped off of his broad shoulders. It flagged at the air as he strode in sharp determined strides. Blade stepped back and yanked Romeo with him, though Romeo could hardly contain his sickness and threw up onto the floor, parting some of the courts people as they jumped back in abhorrence.

People parted fast as Death cut through the chaos like a hurricane and strode to the center of everyone's dismay. Since he towered over all the courts people, I could see his head tilted down toward the body on the floor. Through court person's legs, I could see the sheet ripple across the floor, the glimpse of a mangled feminine body. He only glanced at the body before he'd evidently seen enough, his expression like hard stone as the sheet pulled fast back over her corpse.

"Who will take accountability for this?" Death demanded, his booming voice cutting through the room like a blade. "Mind the offender will only be punished worse if it he is uncovered involuntarily."

"There were more than one, Your Highness," Leo spoke up, making himself known as he'd been trying to corral one part of the room. His black armor reflected off the light of a torch.

"We chased three men down a corridor," Wolf added, standing closer to Ace and I, "but they all sifted through a wall, and since we cannot do the same...we lost them."

Death's eyebrow arched. "Ah, so a confirmation that these were not mortal souls, but creatures of the night that betrayed my rules?" He turned in a circle, his mismatched eyes flashing with a vicious glow as they laid upon face to face. My breath caught in my throat as his eyes met mine for a beat, before he turned back around and showed his back. "Anybody of close relation or friend to this female, shall speak up now."

Romeo wiped his mouth, his whole body shaking with emotion. "Her name is Cordelia." His voice quivered as he kept his head bowed to the ground. "Was Cordelia."

There were a few laughs from the crowd, and I was horrified to the same man who had peered under Cordelia's sheet whisper 'muddy whore' to which a group of men snorted with laughter. Death's head turned like a hawk toward the amusement. He raised his gloved hand with hardly any intention at all, and what proceeded next haunted my bones. The man choked out a sudden breath, the skin of throat wrinkling and coiling as though a fist twisted around it. His complexion greyed to that of a corpse. He gasped for air, his eyes widening and bulging as though they would burst from the sockets.

Death turned away with a bored expression as the man fell to his knees and dropped dead to the floor.

The room was awfully quiet now.

Romeo tilted his head down at the dead man at his feet. His mouth curved into the slice of a smirk.

"You and I are going to have a talk," Death said, making Romeo's head snap up, and his smile fell at once. As though given a command unsaid, Leo and Wolf each grabbed one of Romeo's shoulders and escorted him out of the room.

I didn't miss Death's sideways glance as he passed Ace and I, and the suggestion of something dark in his eyes as he winked in my direction. I could only imagine what that look entailed as the dining hall doors slammed shut.

***

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VERY SUPER MAJOR SERIOUSLY IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE:

YES. It is actually my birthday and I did work on my birthday to get this chapter done LOL. But don't worry, I celebrated last night with my boyfriend, last weekend with my friends, and I'm going to Comic Con tomorrow, so I have some fun things going on! I'm also celebrating with my family today and just had homemade fondue and I asked for CUPCAKES for dessert!!!! (YEEEEE)

So I know not a lot happens in this chapter. It's kind of a bridge that needed to happen in my brain and this chapter is why  it took so long for me to post it, but I promised myself I'd try to get SOMETHING up to keep the momentum going here! I've been working tirelessly on editing Death is My BFF the manuscript. I hope you guys understand that I am literally pouring my HEART AND SOUL into this published version of the book, and I'm honestly pretty drained by the time i'm done LOL. But I am of course trying to update on Wattpad for my cupcakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

BUT BROOOOOOOO this manuscript is something else. I've already added so many new things and I'm IOFJWEIOFIOWEIOJFWEIOFW so excited for you guys to read this thing!!! So many #FADE moments. ARE YOU READY THO??????????

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