I hear the strain of oiled wood, and when I look up, Pestilence has another arrow already notched, the point of it trained on Nick. “I let your poisonous words pass the first time,” the horseman says, “but I won’t a second.”

Nick heaves in a breath, the sound wet. “You and I … both know … it’s true. How many times … did she have … to suck your … cock before—”

The arrow hits him in the shoulder with a solid thump. He lets out a garbled shriek.

“Test me again, human.”

“Do it,” Nick goads. “It would be … a faster … death than … what you’ve … given my family.”

“Don’t,” I say to the horseman. He stopped Nick from shooting me. He’s no longer any sort of threat.

Pestilence walks over to the man and stares down at him, arrow still pointed. “If I know any mercy,” he says, “it’s Sara’s doing.”

If I know any mercy, it’s Sara’s doing.

Only days ago I’d told Amelia that the horseman was incapable of it.

You’re changing him just as he’s changing you.

Nick must want death because he says, “Fuck you and this cunt—”

The final arrow rips through Nick’s throat, and now he’s choking on his words, drowning in them.

“Vile human,” Pestilence says, looming over the dying man. “You could’ve spent your final breaths pleading for your family, but I see only hate in your heart.”

I can’t hear what Nick says, but I doubt whatever he mouthed at the horseman was particularly kind. It takes less than a minute for Nick to bleed out, and he leaves the world with a glare in his eyes.

My shoulders slump with exhaustion.

Pestilence slings his bow over his shoulder and kneels next to me, his hands skimming over my body. “Are you hurt?” he asks, concerned.

I shake my head, pushing myself to my feet. “I’m fine.”

The horseman takes me by the arm. “I was wrong, Sara, this cursed home is no place for even my wrath. Come.” He leads me to Trixie.

I eye the horse, then glance down at my icy feet. “Um, I need shoes … and my coat—and a bra. And everything else.”

Pestilence looks me over, from my borrowed pajamas down to my toes. I swear I can see him putting together what happened—how I was pulled from bed and led into the woods for a midnight execution.

Does he realize Nick wanted to kill me to hurt him? Does he understand human motives well enough to piece that together? And if Nick had been successful, would the horseman have even cared that I died?

Without another word Pestilence scoops me up.

I yelp as I swing into his arms. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you,” he says, carrying me back into the house. He sets me down on the floor of the living room, where the fire is nothing more than a few dying embers. Kneeling in front of me, he takes my feet and, one by one, rubs heat back into them.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, watching him carefully.

He shakes his head, but doesn’t answer me.

Once I’m warm again, I grab my clothes and slip them on. All the while, the rest of the house is utterly still.

We leave shortly after that. And even though it’s the middle of the night and the snow is coming down harder, I’m so freaking relieved—to be alive, to be leaving that house, to feel Pestilence at my back, his arm gripping me tightly.

We’ve barely made it to the highway when Pestilence jerks on the reins, bringing Trixie up short.

I look around in confusion. “What are we … ?”

Pestilence tilts my jaw and then his mouth slams down on me, his other arm crushing me to him. It’s the kiss of a desperate man. Like he’s trying to inhale me into himself. Whatever initial clumsiness he had with the act is gone, replaced by this ferocity.

He eventually breaks away, his lips swollen.

Pestilence’s blue eyes are luminous. “You came … too close to death for my liking.”

It’s like he’s only now really processing it. And right here is the answer to my earlier question—my death would have affected the horseman.

Discreetly, I press a hand to my hammering heart. I mean something to him. What a shock.

He casts his gaze to the dark horizon and clicks his tongue, and we resume our punishing pace once more.

“How long do you plan on keeping me captive?” It’s an almost hilarious question, considering how muddled our roles have become.

Pestilence is quiet.

I glance up, only to see him staring down at me, his eyes deep.

“Until my task is complete, you and I shall ride together,” he says.

Until his task is complete. That’s such a simple statement, but it encompasses a vast, nearly unimaginable task ahead of us. To travel the entire world on horseback, watching millions fall to plague. How many months would it take? How many people would I have to watch die before my mind broke? How many more brushes with death would I have to face?

It would be unendurable.

“So I’m going to travel the entire globe?”

“Yes.” He sounds pleased.

I’m going to die.

Not by Pestilence’s hand, perhaps, but there will be someone in some city who will do what Nick could not.

That was always the plan, Sara. From the moment you pulled that blackened matchstick, you knew you were a dead woman walking. Don’t get remorseful now.

Of course, my continued existence bothers me nearly as much as my impending death.

I search his face in the darkness. “Of all the people whose paths you crossed, why did you pick me?”

He’s quiet for a long time. So long, in fact, that assume he’s not going to answer. It’s only as I’m about to face forward that he does.

“I felt God’s hand move me to spare you,” he says.

Surprise washes through me. I imagined that he might feed me his story about making an example of me. But this …

God told him to spare me. I have no idea how to feel about that.

He frowns. “I thought … I came to this world to mete out His wrath, but that night, and every one since then, I have wondered …”

I wait for him to finish the sentence, but this time the silence stretches on until I realize that’s all I’m getting. It’s a whole lot more than he’s given me in the past, so I’ll take it.

“What’s God like?” I ask.

“That is not a subject I can discuss with mortals.”

Of course it isn’t.

“Well, then can you at least tell me what it’s like?” I ask.

“What what’s like?” Pestilence’s grip has moved so that he’s now cupping my arm, his thumb rubbing circles into my flesh.

“I don’t know—death. The Great Beyond.” I hold out my hand to catch a flake of snow

“It would be easier to explain sight to the blind,” Pestilence says. “It can’t be understood by description alone; it must be experienced.”

What is the use of having a horseman around if he won’t answer any of the fun questions?

I drop my hand back into my lap. “Can you at least tell me whether humans have souls or not?”

“Of course humans have souls, Sara.” I can hear the amusement in his voice. “I wouldn’t be here if they didn’t.”