Months later, Clarice was forced to give birth to her cursed Heathen in the woods all alone. It was always Clarice and the cursed baby, with eyes so black and hair so white. Bottomless and Demonic. She’d named him Stone. She promised him things, a life. A normal life.
Through her eyes, I’d watched Stone grow up in the woods outside of town. I’d watched with a stolen breath as it all played out. They’d met a witch from whom Clarice learned dark magic. Together, they cast a spell that would freeze Stone in time and use his earth element to buy Clarice more, keeping her young until she could cure him of his curse.
Fast forward, I’d watched as she sailed through the Atlantic with a frozen Stone in the casket at the orlop of a ship. Once the boat reached the outskirts of town, a man helped them to a smaller boat until they arrived onto the shore of Bone Island. It was there they stayed for many decades, Clarice and Stone. But Stone was frozen, and Clarice was all alone, her harboring rage only growing over the years.
She continued to practice dark magic, learning to control the shadow-blood to do her bidding. First with my grandfather, next my father, then when my father passed, with me! I’d watched as she compelled me, used me, tempted me. First with Tom Gordon. Then she’d hexed Jury Smith to test my loyalty. Beth Clayton, River Harrison … Clarice was always in the shadows. She was the Darkness. It was always her, each trial closer to her goal: to kill the girl with the mark of the moon. The girl who had the curse running in her veins. My girl.
But what she never expected were my feelings for the moon girl.
“Do you understand now?” Clarice Danvers asked in my arms. My head spun, reeling back to the now. She’d survived seeing my face just like she’d been surviving for over a century. “She has to die,” Clarice croaked in a whisper. “It’s the only way to fix him.”
Him. Stone.
My head shook her words away. The truth of what I’d witnessed only seconds before was suffocating me. There was this thing inside my chest. It was beating. Hard. Fast. My hands were shaking. “I won’t do it.”
“Why, Carrie?” Fallon cried out, clueless behind me, not witnessing Clarice’s fears the way I had. My muscles tensed. “Why did you send me the letter? Why would you control him? Why did you want Julian to kill me? It doesn’t make any sense!”
My jaw clenched, eyes widened. Fallon couldn’t know. Knowing was dangerous. A burden. I couldn’t let Fallon live with something like this. That without her dead, the Heathens would always live this way. I didn’t know how she would take it. I didn’t know what she would do! I didn’t know if she would ever trust me again. And worse, I couldn’t let anyone else know, either.
“TELL ME!” Fallon demanded, her voice piercing the night.
“Don’t,” I think I whispered, shaking my head and looking down at a smiling Clarice with blurry vision.
Fallon’s desperate pleas amplified in my ears.
Clarice laughed, but before she could say a word, I clutched her head with both hands andsnapped!her neck.
“NOOO!” Fallon screamed from behind me. Her voice was a lifetime away. Outside of this one. “Why did you do that?! We could have brought her to the Order! Her life for yours! She killed all of those people, not you! Why did you kill her? They need balance, and we needed her!” Fallon cried desperately, all her words weaving into the cold air and around me. “She was the answer to everything, Julian, and you killed her!Oh, god, you killed her! Why?”
Because I love you, my brain sputtered the string of deadly words, wanting to scream them into the air in a sudden burst. The thought came out unexpectedly and so foreign from my head. I’d never thought I would believe it. And Ishouldn’thave loved her but could no longer deny the truth—my truth, this monster’s greatest nightmare.
Because I loved her—the girl who had to die to break the curse—and I would take everything I now knew to the grave. Leave nothing behind. Not even a human.I killed her. I killed her. I killed her. Not by my cursed face or shadow-blood, but by my bare fucking hands. The hands that were shaking.
Leave nothing behind.
If Clarice knew how to break the curse, chances were, Stone, who was frozen and stranded on Bone Island, knew how to break the curse too. I couldn’t bring him here. And I had to make sure no one knew about his existence. I had no choice but to forget about him, unwilling to take the risk.
Then I heard voices in the distance.
Beck, Phoenix, and Zephyr were heading this way.
I had to get Fallon out of here.
The corpse fell limp to the forest ground with a hollowthump!My mind turned to fog. I shuffled out from under Clarice’s dead body. My fingers trembled as I reached for my face. My mask was gone.Gone!I hung my head, dropped onto all fours, swiped my arms across the ground for the mask.
I scurried frantically on my hands and knees.Where is it?My fists clutched leaves. I was made to see in the dark, but my eyes were tearing, blurring.
“Fallon!” I screamed, searching. The rest were coming, and soon, the other Heathens would ask questions as to why Fallon was with me. I had to get her away. I needed my mask to get her out of here. “Fallon, my mask!”
Then I felt her—my girl. The girl who had the birthmark of the crescent moon.
I froze and kept my head down. My muscles were convulsing under my skin. The heart punching through my chest was trying to leave me. I couldn’t move even though the rest of my body wanted to escape my soul. Why couldn’t I breathe?
She slipped the mask over my head. Air came out in uneven spurts when her arms covered me. I turned in them. Took her in mine.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” I rasped out, rising and pulling her face into my chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry …” Her peace hushed me, consumed me, made me breathe a little easier. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“I don’t understand,” she cried in a whisper, footfalls coming closer. We didn’t have much time.
