“Fuck!” Alexei shouted.
I freed the rest of myself with an agonizing yank, tearing the skin from my biceps and calves. A cry ripped from my throat, for the pain and forhim. I barely twisted toward Ronen when Alexei crashed on top of me.
Lilith’s red cloud burst through Ronen’s shadows like a bomb.
“Ronen!” I cried as he folded forward, crumpling like his strings had been cut. My Infernus surged toward him, racing to intercept the acid-laced smoke barreling for his falling body.
Alexei’s wings snapped out, encasing me in a soft cocoon. Lilith’s power blasted into us. Alexei bellowed. We were torn from the slab, thrown like dolls. I slammed headfirst into the marble floor, hearing a sharp, wet pop.
Then blackness.
Mist curled around the giant,blue-veined trees of Damatha. I tilted my head up into the dark canopy and touched the rough bark. It hummed beneath my hand and glowed brighter, as if saying hello. I followed the curling mist, passing the vibrant mushrooms and moss that blanketed the ground and trees. Eventually, I came upon a path of Celestrus. Their white light and vanilla aroma guided me toward a hidden turquoise pond.
This looked like the scene from my nightmares. But this wasn’t a nightmare. It was a dream-walk.
Why was I here?
“Hello, sweetie,” a voice rasped somewhere near the pond.
I swallowed, stepping out of the trees. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Lucy.” My mom sat at the edge of the water, facing me. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears.
In my nightmare, she always had her back turned to me, and she never spoke. I almost wished for that back.
Her cheekbones jutted from her gaunt face, and her eyes were sunken, ringed by deep purple shadows. Her sweaterdress hung off her like a shroud—no longer hugging her chest or biceps.
Exhaustion dulled her jade eyes, and the silky black hair I remembered now lay completely gray and limp down her back.
“Mom?” I breathed.
She stood and hobbled over to me, wrapping me in her arms.
“What’s happening? Why am I here? I was just in a battle,” I whispered against her shoulder, feeling her ribs dig into my chest. Was this what happened before I died? Some twisted dream-walk illusion to say goodbye? Except I felt normal, and my mom looked like she was the one dying.
My mom took my face in her hands, and I flinched. They were frigid. “You need to listen to me.”
Listen to her? To those fragile, fraying words dragged out on an air of breath, like each one might be her last? She wanted me to listen tothat?
No. This was too convenient.
I stepped back. “This isn’t real.” This was Lilith. She had to be the ominous female voice inside my head. She had infiltrated my nightmares and my dream-walk again. “You’re not my mom.”
“Sweetie, we don’t have much time. I need you to listen to me.”
“Get out of my head, Lilith!”
My mom shuffled forward with watery eyes. “I’m dying, Lucy. My body can’t sustain this form for much longer, and neither can yours.”
“I don’t believe you.” But her face looked so honest.
“I used to call Thumper ‘Crispy’ because of the times you accidentally burned him with your Glory. Would Lilith know that?”
“No.” My knees gave out, slamming into the glowing Celestrus. “No! I’d know if you were dying,” I said in denial.
They would’ve told me.
She followed me down, resting her lifeless hand against my cheek. Pain pinched the lines of her face, but that wasn’t what gutted me. It was the fucking sad sympathy in her familiar eyes. Like she had already accepted her death, like she was just waiting for me to accept it too.
