“No one. So I think there is only one way to find out if the scissors have been the solution to our problem all along.”
I held up the scissors.
The demon in the vortex made a sound that was so close to laughter, it almost broke my concentration. “Yes! Kill him!” the demon bellowed.
But it was Bathin’s voice that caught me. His one, gasped, “No,” so quiet I almost didn’t hear it.
He moved. Fast. His hands, massive, warm, strong, closing over mine. “Don’t do this, Myra. Don’t do this. The price—”
“Mine to pay. Say good-bye to my sister’s soul, Bathin.” I shifted my weight, not forward like he might expect, but backward, breaking his hold on my hands and the scissors.
I pivoted, faster than humanly possible, as quick as a thought, demon laughter pummeling the air around me.
“Love…” Bathin reached for me again, his hands on mine raised in an arc meant to bury the scissors square in his chest. His fingers tightened, inhumanly strong as he twisted the scissors out of my grip.
“No!” I yelled, battling for the weapon. Knowing it was the only chance to save Delaney. To close the vortex. To keep Ordinary safe.
“…you,” Bathin breathed. He plunged the scissors into his chest.
We were bound in some way. His mother had made sure of that. Right then. Right—
—there—
—I could feel it, the pain that lashed through him, the fire that spread out from the deep, brutal puncture, burning like a poison through his body.
Like a flame held against a spider’s web.
He was standing there, both hands around the scissors buried to the hilt in his chest.
Then he flew into a thousand thousand burning embers, specks of dust gone star-hot, a volcanic eruption that flashed into ashy-white snow and was carried away on the salted wind.
Something in me broke too. A soft, thump deep in my chest.
The world roared back. Colors, sound, movement clashed and crashed, rose in a huge wave bent on destruction, too big, too strong, to survive. I yelled, one hand over my eyes, the other over my heart.
Bathin was gone.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
The churning gears of time and reality collided, cogs smashing to rubble.
I was lost.
“Myra,” Jean’s voice, clear and strong. “You’re okay. You’re okay. What did you do? Myra, what did you do?”
I didn’t know. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.
A hand fell on my shoulder, heavy and so very cold. “Myra Reed.”
Than’s voice, his touch, settled the world, organized reality, and my place in it.
“Hey, there you are,” Jean smiled.
I was sitting on the sand. She was crouched in front of me, the ocean behind her.
I glanced around wildly.
