My eyes widen in horror, the reality of what I’ve done only now dawning on me.
Then, in a sudden burst of red feathers, Silvia’s wings explode out of her back, tearing through her blue silk gown. I just barely have time to register that her wings are a different color than mine, before she’s rushing past me, sprinting towardthe door of her workshop, trailing a river of blood up the stairs behind her.
I drop Fox’s heavy sword, and dash up the stairs after Silvia, my intuition no longer screaming at me not to and instead urging me forward. I slip on the bloody stairs and nearly topple over, but finally reach the top.
I hear the sound of a door banging in Silvia’s bedroom below, then voices and the pounding of feet on the stairs, but I barely register it as I turn in a circle, searching for my twin.
We’re in a round tower room. Half the room looks similar to my own workshop back in Vernallis, with shelves of books and different colored bottles, a long table covered in notes and ingredients, and an enormous cauldron hanging over an empty fireplace. The opposite side of the room opens onto an enormous balcony, where there’s nothing but a low railing separating us from the wide, open sky.
Clearly, the balcony is exactly where Silvia is headed. She sprints toward the railing, her crimson wings fanning out behind her.
I raise a hand to stop her, then hesitate. She’s running away, injured and bleeding. It’s not in my nature to attack someone from behind like this, and I don’t know what to do.
Before I can decide, the top of Fox’s blonde head appears on the stairs. Relief washes over me as he emerges, seemingly unhurt. His eyes find mine, the same relief and something else I can’t identify mirrored on his face.
Then, his gaze flicks toward the balcony just as Silvia reaches the railing and launches herself into the air, wings beating furiously, arms still bleeding freely. Fox’s face hardens with determination, and unlike me, he doesn’t hesitate for a second.
He raises the sword, which he must have grabbed seconds after I dropped it, and hurls it through the air. The blade spinsthrough the air and slices through Silvia’s right wing just as she leaps into open air.
She crumbles midair, and plummets downward out of sight, her screams carrying back to us as she falls. I scream too, though more from shock than fear, and race across the room.
The freezing cold wind whips at my hair and face, drawing tears from my eyes, and I hang over the edge of the balcony just in time to see her hit the snow in an explosion of red and white.
The very instant Silvia hits the ground, I feel something shift in the world around us—a current of energy rippling outward. A deafening boom echoes through the castle and the balcony shakes beneath my feet, nearly pitching me over the edge of the railing. I hear the smash of Silvia’s glass bottles hitting the floor, and the crunch of icicles shaking loose from the roof over the balcony.
Then, Fox is there beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist and hauling me down to the floor beside him. We lie there for a moment, waiting for the tremors in the earth to subside. When it stops, I meet Fox’s gaze head on.
There’s so many things I could say—that I should say—but nothing comes out.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls. Then a second one joins in, and a third, sounding as if they’re moving closer.
Fox and I both sit up straighter, and Fox struggles to his feet, dragging me with him. We look over the edge of the balcony.
Below, a massive gray wolf bounds across the courtyard toward Silvia’s broken form—a heap of torn blue silk and bloodied feathers half-buried in crimson snow.
More wolves emerge from the shadows, their howls echoing off the stone walls. Then, as one, they converge on the body and begin tearing into it with claws and teeth.
The moment that the curse on Thermia lifts feels as if spring is finally on its way.
Fox and I make our way back down from Silvia’s tower to find Jett and Connell waiting for us.
“Where are the wolves?” I ask, when I’ve finished hugging Jett.
Fox glances meaningfully toward the window, where we can still hear all the howling coming from the castle grounds below. “Oh, so those weren’t just any wolves then?”
Fox shakes his head, looking only slightly apologetic.
Jett explains that he and Runa arrived at the castle hours before we did, but they were immediately captured and thrown into Silvia’s tower. Connell was still half frozen, and they hadto wait for him to recover before they were able to work on escaping, by which point Fox and I had already been poisoned.
Fox had been held near the top of the tower, with Jett, Runa and Connell one floor below him. The other wolves were on the very bottom floor, and too far away to reach mind-to-mind. Once Connell got their cell open, he, Jett and Runa found Fox. Then, the four of them were able to find and release the others.
“The five of us, actually,” Fox mutters, as Jett finishes his explanation. “We freed someone else from the tower too.”
I frown in confusion, but then I remember what Silvia said about our mother. My eyes widen. “Is she here?”
Fox nods. “She was with us up until we came to find you. Did anyone see where she went?”
Jett shakes his head. “No. I’d offer to help find her, but I need to go straight back to Vernallis.”
