It’s the floor of the keeper’s realm.
Zadkiel threw her into it, the same way I fell into it from the top of the staircase.
I hold my breath, my mind consumed by the pure black of the keeper’s realm, the cold, gleaming surfaces, only vaguely aware now of the battle that continues to rage around my present self—the flashes of light and dark, the beat of dragon’s wings, the cut of bright blades…
From within the pages in front of me comes the swishing of the keeper’s cloak dragging across the floor. No doubt he’s coming to take the dark magic from Sosia’s bones and tether it.
I never asked him about the moment he tookhermagic. Assuming she was a creature with little power, he probably wouldn’t even remember it amid all of the dark creatures whose magic he tethered over millennia.
He appears within the image as an inky silhouette, his figure tall, shoulders broad, his body obscured by his cape and his eyes covered by his crown where it used to sit low around his head.
Desperately, I wish I could shut off the images, because I don’t want to watch him take whatever’s left of her.
He bends to Sosia’s body, crouching beside her, his hands closing around her shoulders.
That’s when she opens her eyes.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Ascream passes my lips as Sosia gasps for breath within the image, dragging air into her chest as she stares upward, directly into me, as if she can see me outside the pages of this book and she’s trying to tear the heart out of me.
I wrench again at the ropes that hold me in place, sending fresh blood splattering through the image to the paper beneath it. As much as I struggle to free myself, it does me no good.
Sosia’s hand has flown to her chest, pressing so hard that it looks like she’s about to tear through her own skin and flesh. She could if she released the claws she was cursed to have.
“How…?” Her whisper reaches me a moment before her focus shifts to the keeper where he kneels beside her, still gripping her shoulders, his cloak spread out across the floor behind him.
I expect her to be afraid or confused, but her expression settles, a softness coming over it that freezes me to the spot.
“Oh.” She exhales as softly as a breeze before she reaches up with her free hand to brush her fingertips across his jaw. A touch that appears as gentle as the one she pressed to my younger self’s cheek. “It’s you.”
I’m certain he says something back to her, but he’s leaning over her and I can’t see his face or his mouth and suddenly, my ears are buzzing and the sounds from within the book are muffled.
Her mouth moves. She’s speaking again, and I wish I could read her lips because I can’t hear what she says—or if he replies to her.
For a full minute, the sounds are warped, muffled, buzzing, and I risk impaling my throat when I strain forward in an effort to hear them.
Then a look of resignation settles over Sosia’s features and suddenly, the buzzing clears, her voice cutting back in so clearly that it’s almost like a shout in my ears.
“Will you take my claws now?” she asks.
His response is cold and empty. “I will take everything.”
There’s a blur of movement.
His left hand darts down, plunging into her chest, ripping through flesh and bone before his fist tears upward again, covered in blood.
A scream of shock rests on my lips. My eyes are wide as I follow the dripping blood from his fist down to her broken body.
Her eyes are still open.
She’s still alive and focused on him, her lips parting softly, her final words spoken on a quiet exhale. “My daughter…”
Then her features smooth out.
The life leaves her eyes, she lies still on the black marble floor, and I know that this time, she won’t wake up.
I can’t breathe as the image continues to play out in front of me, the keeper drawing back, opening his fist to reveal the still-beating organ gripped within his fingers.
