"Take whatever you want. I’ll give it, I’ll do whatever is necessary. But get me out of here," she murmured as the rope tightened around her neck.
And in her final seconds, in the executioner’s last movement, Death answered her.
Arcano was the first to open his eyes. The cat they had hanged rose to his paws. And then the bodies hanging around him began to move together, standing one by one. Panic spread through the square. In the chaos, Evangeline managed to evade the clerics and flee, grabbing the cat and disappearing into the woods.
In the forest, she heard a voice inside her head guiding her where to go. And she discovered the voice belonged to him. Arcano. She knew, in that instant, that part of Death’s essence now lived within the cat; and that he would never be an ordinary animal.
