Kai detached himself from the dark. Their gazes locked.
The hand around her neck relinquished its hold. Her ghosts, both dead and alive, disappeared, drifting away like dust on an imaginary breeze.
It was just her and Kai now, alone in the Belly of the Beast. They blinked at each other in the quiet.
“Areyoureal?” Emory asked.
Kai frowned. Before he could answer, the darkness shifted between them. Out of it emerged the stuff of actual nightmares, all sightless eyes and clawed hands and skeletal figures. The umbrae.
They shifted and swirled, immaterial and restless, as something else formed among them, something darker and stronger and older than the umbrae. Fear settled in Emory’s bones, even as something kept her rooted in place, staring wide-eyed at the giant umbra that was taking shape, a terrifying sort of recognition singing inside her.
Kai swore, snapping her out of it. His eyes locked with hers again. “Wake up.NOW.”
And so she woke.
Emory lit the candle beside her bed, desperate to chase away the shadows. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there trying to get her heart to slow as she puzzled over the nightmare. Kai must have been real. But how could that be when they were worlds apart?
And that dark presence…
It was still night out, but she couldn’t sleep anymore. Grabbing the candleholder, she ventured out into the hallway. The house was quiet, the ascension celebrations over from what she could tell. Her feet led her unbidden to the lilac-painted room on the second floor, where Bryony stood in a robe and nightgown before the marble altar. Tendrils of smoke wafted from an incense burner hanging at the back of the room, making the air smell woodsy.
Emory watched quietly from the doorway as Bryony held a fisted hand over the altar. She opened it, letting pieces of bone fall atop the bowl-like clump of amethyst that sat on the altar.
“I can feel you there, you know,” Bryony said without turning.
Emory stepped into the room, which was as unnaturally cold as ever. She tightened her own robe around her. “Sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt. Were you scrying?” She had yet to see a witch scry.
“Trying to.” Bryony grimaced as she looked at the bones atop the amethyst. “I don’t think I’ve found my scrying method yet. Bones are decidedly not it.”
“How do you find what scrying method works?”
“Trial and error, mostly. My sister tried everything before she realized what works for her is getting lost in the rhythms of the elements. My mother, on the other hand, knew from the very first breath she took after ascending that her sixth sense unlocks withsculpting.” Bryony sighed. “I wish I knew mine. But then… I’m also scared to find out.”
“How come?”
“At my ascension, I was… Something happened that wasn’t normal.” Her eyes flitted to Emory. “But you saw it, didn’t you? You were hiding in the woods, looking in on my ascension.”
An excuse was already on Emory’s lips, but Bryony merely smiled, saying, “It’s all right, I won’t say anything.”
“We were just curious, really.”
“I understand. I’m like that too. My mother always sayscuriosity kills the cat, but she forgets that cats have nine lives.”
Emory laughed at that, an image of Dusk, Romie’s stray tabby, coming to mind. “Well, thank you for keeping it a secret.” She studied the younger girl. “Is that why you’re afraid to scry? You think what happened at the ascension will happen again?”
Bryony nodded. “Some of the witches believe what happened means I’m a—a hellwraith. That a demon took hold of my essence while I was buried, and now it’s fighting back against the Sculptress’s claim on me.”
A shiver ran up Emory’s spine. So this is what a hellwraith was. “Is that… possible?”
Bryony lost herself in the pile of bones atop the amethyst, a crease forming between her brows. “I felt it when I was underground. This demon in my mind, desperate for a way out of the netherworld. The Sculptress won, but I’m afraid if I tap into my scrying ability, it’ll find me in the astral plane and seize my essence for good.”
She gave Emory a furtive glance. “I’m not supposed to say any of this to you.”
“Why not?”
“My mother thinks you coming here, in this world you don’t belong, is what attracted this demon in the first place.” Her eyesfell to Emory’s wrist. “That spiral—it’s a sign of our Sculptress.”
“Where I’m from, this mark relates toourdivinity,” Emory said. “The Tides. They’re at the origin of our lunar magic, much like your Sculptress is at the origin of yours.”
