“No,” I sigh, standing to approach Silas. “Your fae is just fucking delusional right now. Silas. Give it.”
I reach for his jacket pocket, but he grabs my hand to stop me, scowling. “What the hell are you?—”
“Just take it out,” I snap.
He clearly thinksI’mthe one who’s lost my mind. Crypt is openly laughing as he enjoys watching all of this, while Everett looks like he’s questioning how his life brought him to this exact moment.
Using my shifter speed to move quicker than Silas, I snatch the necromancer’s hand out of his pocket before he can stop me again. I hold it up triumphantly. Maven’s eyes widen.
And then, just like I was aching for, a dark grin slips over her pretty face.
“That’s…” she begins.
“Dagon’s hand,” Silas remembers abruptly examining the morbid souvenir as he gently sets the glass jar holding Maven’s heart on the bed beside her to take the hand from me.
Oh, sure,nowhe remembers. Fucking insane blood fae.
“I wanted to bring you his charred bones, but not as much as I wanted to get back to you fast,” I admit.
“How violent of you. I love it anyway.”
We all watch, holding our breaths as Silas cautiously places the necromancer’s hand on top of the jar resting on the bed. He clamps the lifeless, blackened fingers around the lid, whispers words I don’t understand, and squeezes, twisting.
The jar opens.
We all remain quiet, so the only sound in this room is the quiet beating of her preserved heart that I’m not even sure the others can hear. No one seems to know what to say until Maven takes an unsteady breath, lifting her chin as she reaches into the jar.
“This is probably going to hurt like a motherfucker, so it’s better to get it over with.”
My mate is trying to put on a brave front, but I’ve never seen her look so shaken as her fingers close around the shadow-cloaked heart, pulling it from its glass cage. For a moment, she stares at it in her hand, her face unreadable. Meanwhile, we all stare at her, gathered around the bed. The tension in the room is thick enough to almost taste.
Our keeper looks at Everett. “Mind holding it for a second?”
“N—no, I can’t. You shouldn’t let me. I might hurt it if I?—”
“You won’t. Here,” she says, placing it in the elemental’s hand.
He gets even paler as he gawks at the beating heart in his frosted, bare hands—but I’m immediately distracted when Maven strips off her dark jacket, oversized black T-shirt, and black bra. When she pulls her etherium knife out of nowhere and places the tip against her chest with a determined expression on her face, my vision almost blacks out.
“No!” I snap, wrapping my hand over hers on the handle to stop her. “Fuck, no.”
“Baelfire. I have to put it inside my chest,” she says, trying to reason with me.
I knew she’d have to do something with the heart, but I didn’t think about the logistics of it. When I glance at the others for help with this impossible situation, they look as torn and frustrated by the idea of her having to hurt herself as I am.
Finally, Silas moves to Maven’s side on the bed. He carefully takes the etherium blade from her hands, looking like the weight of the world is on his shoulders as he does what’s necessary.
“I already have your blood on my hands. At least this time, it will help you.”
“You can’t tell what’s real from your own shadow right now,” Everett points out, still holding Maven’s heart like it’s the most precious thing in the world—because it is. “Are you seriously about to perform godsdamned surgery on her?”
Silas takes a deep breath, looking into her eyes. “I know this is real.Tha galeath.”
“Tha galeath,”she whispers back, bracing herself.
The scent of my mate’s blood slams into me as he carefully makes an incision with the knife her mother gifted her. I don’t realize I’m snarling until Crypt grips my shoulder to stop me from rushing forward. Blood drips steadily from Maven’s chest until Silas finally drops the knife, his hands shaking, but our keeper is already taking her heart back from Everett.
“Maven,” he chokes as snowflakes begin to fall inside this room.
