Take heart.
Baz pocketed Clover’s journal and met Kai’s gaze. “I guess this is where our story begins.”
17EMORY
EMORY WAS STILL VIBRATING WITHthe force of her power—with the adrenaline that thrummed in her veins, no longer silver but red. She barely registered Bryony’s limp form as Mrs. Amberyl whirled on her.
“You did this,” the High Matriarch seethed. “You killed my daughter.”
Emory recoiled. All the residual power inside her subsided, leaving her hollow. “I…” She looked at Bryony, held in her sister’s arms. Oh Tides.Hadshe killed her? “I was trying to save her…”
“She’s still alive,” Aspen said, eyes wet with unshed tears. “Bryony’s still breathing.”
Still breathing, though her eyes remained vacant.
Emory’s own breathing became shallow. Everyone started talking around her. Not a single word registered as shadows pressed in, the ghosts drawn by her magic. A heavy feeling rested on her chest, and she imagined as soon as she looked at the darkness, acknowledged it was there, she would shatter beneath its weight.
She was barely holding herself together as they were ushered back to the house, Bryony’s unconscious body carried there by the strongest of the men. They took the young witch to her room. Healers were summoned. Sage was called for, in what Emory imagined was a way to prevent the demon from returning. Mrs. Amberyl had Emory and Romie sent back to their rooms, her normally stoic, sharp voice laced with a desperate note now. Like she, too, was struggling to keep herself together.
“What was that back there?” Romie asked as soon as they were alone. Her face was drawn and pale. “You looked like you were about to Collapse and wipe away the Wychwood altogether.”
Shame roiled in Emory’s stomach. She wondered if shewouldhave eventually Collapsed if Mrs. Amberyl hadn’t pulled her off the ley line when she did. But it hadn’t felt like it. The power coursing through her had only made her wantmore.
“The ley line,” Emory heard herself croak. “It’s like it expanded my limits so that I couldn’t Collapse.”
“That’s not the only thing it did.”
“What do you mean?”
Romie watched her with a guardedness that broke Emory’s heart. Like she expected Emory to Collapse here and now, hurting her like her father’s own Collapsing had hurt others.
“I only wanted to help,” Emory said in a small voice when Romie remained quiet.
But if she hadn’t tried pulling Bryony out of that trance, the young witch might not have fallen into the comalike state she found herself in now.
Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.
“We should get some rest,” Romie said, not daring to look at Emory as she headed to her room. “Who knows what the witches will do with us now.”
The brusque dismissal might have stung more if Emory didn’t suddenly crave the solitude. Alone in the parlor, she hugged herself to keep from falling apart as her ghosts clamored for her attention. All she could do was fight back tears.
Just like in her nightmare, her ghosts formed a tight circle around her. Accusations slipped from their lips in a cacophony of sound that called to mind the demon’s guttural tongue.
Emory shut her eyes. “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real,” she mumbled to herself, as though she could banish them by the sheer force of her desperation.
An icy breath caressed the side of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. She whirled on Keiran’s ghost, stumbling backward at how close he’d been.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” she asked in a broken whisper, tears falling in earnest now.
Every part of her screamed at her to move, to shove him back, to close her eyes and pray to the Tides that these ghosts would disappear, that she would wake and find that all of this had been some horrible nightmare.
But she didn’t think she deserved to be let off that easily, especially not after tonight. This was her fault—Bryony, and everything that came before it. All her fault, always her fault.
Just like in her nightmare, she thought that maybe the world would be better off without her.
But something else inside her revolted at the thought. These ghosts manifested when she used magic because she was ashamed of what she had done, what her power meant. The destruction it had left in her wake.
Everything you touch crumbles to dust.
