Then Alice’s expression was ripped away, all the color draining from her. Her eyes were stretched open, her mouth agape, like the skin of her face was hung. Instead of a scream, all that came out was a gurgling sound.
Not a second later, she collapsed to the floor.
In that moment, I could have sworn the Shadows turned back to look at me. In their transparent shades of blackness, I saw Circe. She was in all five, like a shattered mirror, her movements delayed.
And then the Shadows floated away.
Behind me, Julian and Phoenix helped Beck back to his feet.
I blinked, looking up at Stone. “The Shadows ... They didn’t want her to stop us. They wanted us to finish this.”
And Stone planted a foot on her chest and ripped the chain from her neck.
SLAUGHTERED HEARTS
Alec & Circe
Alec saton the shore that night, waiting for Circe and Hedera. He hadn’t expected her arrival, but he had hoped. And as he waited, pain slowly taunted him. At first, it was like an itch. Then it deepened until worry consumed him and his chest ached with a longing he couldn’t understand. But Circe cast a spell, and he shouldn’t be hurting like this, he thought.
Then lights from a small boat in the distance traveled his way.
He stood, squinting and peering into the night, his heart in his throat.
But then the boat stopped close enough to see, far enough to avoid the sandbar.
Circe’s husband stood inside it, staring back at Alec.
A shiver stole him, and he waited, his breath stuck in his lungs.
Circe’s husband approached the side of the boat and turned a bag upside down over the water, spilling its contents out into the ocean. Alec’s breath stalled. Next, Circe’s husband tossed the black pearls as far as he could. Alec’s heart punched through his chest. Then Circe’s husband slid a large trunk to the edge of the boat. And he pushed it over. The heavy thing splashed and sank instantly. “This is your fault,” her husband called out.
Alec’s mind became numb as he watched him slip behind the wheel and turn toward Weeping Hollow again.
This is your fault, this is your fault, this is your fault …
Fear ransacked Alec, and he sprinted into the water until he couldn’t touch the ocean floor. He then dove in, swimming as hard as he could, as deep as he could. The pressure of the descent pushed against his head, and his ears popped. Nevertheless, he fought, the saltwater burning his eyes, and swam lower just under where the boat had been, until he found the trunk.
He grabbed the handle and tried to lift it off the sand, but it was too heavy. He counted to three, and tried again, using everything he had, but it wasn’t enough.
Then there was a knocking.
A thump … thump … thump …
It was coming from within the trunk, echoing through the ocean.
Circe was inside. Alive.
Alec panicked, digging his heels into the sand and using everything he had for it to only move an inch. Clouds of stirred sand exploded around him when it dropped to the floor again. The ocean swallowed up his tears as he cried, clinging to the trunk, not wanting to leave her.
And he stayed by her side until the pounding stopped.
At the same time Circe took her last breath, two miles away, a moongirl cast a spell in the Norse Woods. Since the sapphire was broken into five pieces, Circe’s soul had nowhere left to go. As a result, her soul was swept up and trapped inside the monstrous faces of five men called the Hollow Heathens. There, her soul would remain until the Heathens were free of their curse.
The following morning, Alec awoke on the shore, washed up, the sun shining down, probing him to open his eyes. He rolled over, a heart-aching cry breaking through him, not wanting to be alive.
He spent the day getting his affairs in order, believing this was why the gods had given him one more day.
He made her a gravestone beside a tree, carved a dash.
