“Get the fuck back,” Kane shouted.
My head shook because nothing else would move.
“No,” I gritted out through a clenched jaw. “I’m not backing off. I’m staying right here.” Adora was shaking in his arms, blood sliding down her chin from biting her lip raw. “I’m here,” I said again. To her this time. Adora looked at me frightened. We were both shaking now. “It’s not ending here, or ever.”
She took a steadier breath, and I looked up at the sky to find mine.
I’d been here once before, under an eclipse with my lungs feeling as though they were being ripped out of my chest. Last time, it was the dead of summer, and this time the freezing winds were fisting my bones. Before, the tribe had sliced me open and ripped off the sack—my heart, the organ I couldn’t survive without. This time, Kane was slicing her open just before he pulled the knife to her throat—my heart, the one I couldn’t survive without. And it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I looked back to see the Heathens surrounding me.
They were here, and I tried to take a deep breath.
“Look, Adora, the Heathens are here.” Kane laughed. “Out of anyone in this fucking town to come to your rescue, the Heathens did not make that list.” He looked around, as did I.
Cyrus was to my right, trying to talk Kane down.
I could hear the Heathens whispering behind me.
Augustine stood confused and was whispering in a woman’s ear.
“What the fuck are you even doing here?” Kane asked me. “This is Sacred Sea business.”
Then Zephyr stepped up behind me and leaned into my ear.
“Magic’s not working,” he whispered, and I looked back to Augustine, then up to the eclipse. “Time reversed a few seconds earlier today. We can’t use magic, brother. Not until time fixes itself.”
My hands curled into fists, and my eyes slammed closed.
Desperate, I reached for anything, called out to anything.
The gods. The ground. The earth.
There was nothing but silence.
My body was shaking, my teeth chattering from fear, worry, the cold.
I stepped closer. “Take a look at her,” I said. “She’s terrified. This is not what she deserves. If you’re eager to slit someone’s throat tonight, allow me to take her place. All I ask is that you please let her go.”
I felt eyes dart to me. The entire crowd. Cyrus, Phoenix, Augustine, even.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Phoenix hissed from my left.
From my right, Cyrus stood shocked. “You’d trade your life for hers?”
He bounced his gaze between Adora and me.
I chanced another step closer. “Let me come up there.”
Kane shook his head. “You’re crazy.”
“I prefer passionate.”
Something disturbing moved across his features. Something sinister filled the look in his eyes. His grip tightened around the dagger, and he broke the thin skin of her throat as a warning. Adora hissed, slamming her eyes shut as blood streamed down her neck.
“Hurting her will be your biggest regret,” I scraped out, my hands shaking.
