I don’t know what she’s trying to do, but something tells me it’s much worse.
All at once, the room drops in temperature, lower than ever. The tiles frost over. My blood slows. The air around Cassian fractures like a mirror, and the moment those tendrils graze his skin, he goes still.
“Cassian!” I try to yell, but my voice is threadbare. A ghost of sound.
His eyes are open. But he’s not here.
She’s doing something to him.
Something eerily familiar.
It takes a moment to register.
She’s searching him the same way I searched Nathaniel’s soul.
When I saw the storm of his emotions.
When I discovered who he really was.
The way I searched Laura Collins, to find out if she truly killed those children.
She’s doing that.
But worse.
Somehow, I know the difference.
She’s pulling his consciousness out of the present, dragging it into the darkest corners of his memory.
“Cassian!” I scream, trying to reach him through the sound of my voice. But it doesn’t work. His shoulders tense. His jaw goes slack. He stands like a man sleepwalking through his worst nightmares.
The boy beside me flinches.
“Skye,” he says. “Stop her. You have to stop her or she’ll—”
“Devour him.” The words leave my mouth before I even think them.
Every nerve ending feels shredded, fire sparking through me in jagged bursts instead of flowing. I try to fan it, push it higher like before, but then I see Cassian’s face, and freeze.
It’s not blank. It’s broken.
His eyes are open, but hollow, like he’s seeing something no one else could survive. A thousand-yard stare turned inward. His lips part, and he makes a sound. Not a word. A whimper. The kind of sound a man like Cassian should never make.
And I know.
He’s reliving whatever happened with his sister. I can see it in the terror etched into his face.
He said she died in front of him. He didn’t go to her funeral. He never returned home, even though his mother is still alive. Why?
Because this isn’t just grief on his face.
It’s guilt.
Raw. Consuming. Tearing him apart.
My breath quickens, coming in ragged bursts as I try to push myself upright. But my body won’t listen. My ribs scream. My spine feels like it’s on fire. My power flickers in and out. But I don’t care.
“Cassian,” I rasp, my voice dry and useless.
