“Emma.” Jayla’s voice sharpens. “Get inside. Now. Tell everyone! I’ll guard the house.”
Before we can move, the ravens descend.
They pour from the shadows like a rising black tide, their glowing red eyes searing through the dim porch light. Their cries pierce the night, jagged and furious, slicing the air like broken glass. One slams into Jayla, its talons raking her shoulder. She stumbles, golden light bursting around the bird’s beak.
“Shift,” she mutters, her voice shaking. “Shift!” Her body trembles, her hands clawing at the air as if she can force her power to respond. Her skin glows softly, but no fur ripples across her arms, no claws emerge from her fingers. “Not now!” she cries, her voice breaking. “Why’d my power stop working now?!”
The ravens swarm her, claws and beaks tearing into her as the golden light around her falters. “Jayla!” I scream, trying to reach her.
A raven slashes across my arm, its talons cutting deep. Another dives at my face, its claws tangling in my hair. Pain explodes down my side as I swing wildly, stardust sparking dully at my fingertips.
“Leave her alone!” I scream, hurling a bomb of stardust toward theswarm. The light streaks forward, scattering the ravens for a heartbeat. Relief flares—but only for a second.
My power isn’t working right. It should have burned them. The birds? Are their glowing beaks somehow messing with my magic?
I hurl another ball of fire, desperation surging through me. But this one doesn’t streak forward. It spins back.
Straight at us.
It detonates.
The explosion rips through the porch, splintering wood and throwing me backward. My head slams against the railing, pain blooming at the base of my skull. Through the haze, I see Jayla crumple to the boards of the porch, her lavender dress soaked in blood. The ravens descend again, relentless, their feathers slick with red as they peck her.
No!my mind screams. My fingers twitch as I try to force myself to get up. But my body betrays me.
And then I see them: the red heels.
Bright and gleaming, they hit the stairs like bloody spikes. Their climb is slow and full of deliberate precision. Shadows around the figure’s feet twist like snakes. The air thickens with a metallic scent, and my chest aches like the oxygen has turned violent. Above the shadowy woman, a small gold circular clock floats, its serpentine hands spinning wildly backward.
The silhouette pauses, her voice low and ancient, echoing with a cruel, cold, familiar rhythm. “Little Star, you were a bad girl… and you will be punished.”
I see Jayla, her brown body twisted in a puddle of blood behind her, as the ravens scatter into the night.
The shadow woman hovers above me, but every part of her is coated in darkness, except those bloodred heels, as she says, “Well, they say stars burn brightest before they’re dead. Let’s see if you can survive the darkness ahead.”
Her voice fades into the growing roar of the ticking clock. My vision swims, but my thoughts anchor me to the people I love—the people I’ll leave behind.
Malcolm.
I can still see him in my mind, his crooked smile lighting up his face like it always does when he teases me. I think about our first kiss in that New York hotel room, the lights of the city twinkling outside the window. How his hands brushed my cheeks like I was something fragile, something worth holding. I still feel the warmth of his touch, the way my heart raced when his lips met mine.
He’s my first love. My only love.
And now I’m leaving him.
Losing me—and his twin—will destroy him. It will break him in ways he may never recover from.
A tear slips down my cheek, hot and fast, as the ticking grows louder. My body feels weightless now, like I’m falling backward into a pit with no end. The pain in my skull dulls, but my heart throbs.
Malcolm. I’m so sorry. Mom. Forgive me. To everyone I love who is about to lose me—I’m sorry.
The last thing I hear is the relentless ticking of clocks, louder and faster until it swallows me whole.
And then, everything goes black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREEMalcolm DavenportNEW ORLEANS, 1922
Five Minutes Earlier
