My gut tightened as I followed his mom down the hall. Something was wrong. It was too quiet. The bench at the end of the hall was empty, and Cyrus’s door was closed. There was an odd scent in the air as well. Pungent and familiar. What was it?
I sniffed once, twice, knowing Cyrus’s mother couldn’t smell it. She didn’t have the heightened senses gifted to those who’d passed the second trial. I sniffed again and froze.
“Wait—”
His mother had already reached his door and opened it. She didn’t even look at me before dropping to her knees with a bloodcurdling scream.
Cyrus laid upon the same bed they’d placed him in originally, eyes closed in what appeared to be a peaceful slumber as they always were, but there was a deep gash carved into his neck from one ear to the other and his life’s blood had spilled out over his chest, his arms, his lap.
His mother wailed something incomprehensible as I rushed forward. I placed a hand over his still bleeding neck and floodedhis body with all the energy I could spare. But unlike with Dante, it seemed to simply dissipate the moment it left me, rather than entering him. I tried again, but nothing happened. I peered down at the quilt over him, soaked through with blood, and realized it was too late. There was no thrumming, no heartbeat. He was already dead.
“No!” Cyrus’s father had joined his mother in the threshold. Both of them were beside themselves in unrestrained agony.
“She did this,” his mother screamed, halfway out of her mind. “She killed him!”
Dahlia.
“Find her,” Cyrus’s father hollered at a few hired guards who’d entered to investigate the screaming and at the servants standing nearby, staring in horror. “Find her now!”
“Wait, don’t—” I started, but the guards were already gone, rushing from the house in pursuit of their prime suspect.
I sprinted past Cyrus’s parents, who remained crumpled on the ground, crying and shaking. My entire world shrunk to one thought, one single course of action.
Find Dahlia. Warn her. And if I had time, figure out what the hell she’d been thinking.
I went to her house first, the one she’d shared with Darius. She wasn’t there. Dionne just stared at me when I asked about her until I pushed past her and darted up the stairs, screaming her daughter’s name. But Dahlia wasn’t there.
Next, I went to my house. Maybe she was with my mother or Warren.
I burst through the door without knocking. My mother, who’d been sewing something in the living room just inside the door, startled. My eyes darted to every corner of every room I paced through. My mother rose and followed me. I vaguely registered her asking what was going on, what was wrong, before I found Warren hunched over a project of some sort. Shutters from theoutside facade of the house that he’d brought in for repair. He looked up, just as concerned as our mother.
“Adrian?” he asked, brow knitted. “What’s wrong?”
“Dahlia,” I spat, and the change in his expression was instantaneous.
He set his tools down and fully turned to face me. Warren gripped my shoulders and peered into my eyes. “What happened?”
“She killed him,” I said. “Cyrus. She killed him.”
My mother gasped.
Warren’s jaw clenched, but he simply strode past me and headed for the door. “Let’s go.”
I nodded and led the way back onto the street.
I told him where I’d already checked, where I had been, as we rushed down the stairs to the Third Ring, pushing through the crowded streets. The door at the bottom of the apartment building was open. Warren and I exchanged a glance as we sprinted through it and up the stairs. My apartment was open as well. We skidded to a halt just inside the threshold.
Dahlia stood in the center of the room, eyes glazed over as they passed from one piece of furniture to the next, observing. Sorrow had invaded her expression as she took it all in again, as she remembered all the times she’d come to visit her brother.
Harrison stood in front of her, arms outstretched, placating.
“See? There she is,” he spoke calmly, though his eyes were wide. Blood covered Dahlia’s arms, hands, and torso. She still held the knife in her hands, dripping blood onto my carpet. “I told you she wasn’t here before, but she is now, okay, Dahlia? Can you put the knife down now? Can you—”
“Adrian,” Dahlia breathed, her gaze flicking from me to Warren and back. “I did it. Like I told you. He begged me too. He couldn’t live like that anymore. Adrian, please, they don’t understand.”
“Dahlia Reed!” A booming male voice shouted from the stairwell below. “We know you’re in there. By order of the Fellowship, we urge you to surrender.”
“Give me the knife, Dahlia.” My voice cracked.
