- This place means everything to me. My soul would rot without it.
- Please, Odette. I am begging you to put your life first.
- Cygnus is my life. If I leave before graduation, I won’t get my blessing. The gods will take my magic away. I’d rather die.
He sighed loudly.
- Think about it and give me your final decision tomorrow. If you refuse to leave, I will train you as best I can. We can only pray it will be enough.
I should’ve asked more questions. How could it be the same person if the killings started a century ago? How many killers have there been? And how do we even know they’re still here? All of this, I should have said, but I was too overwhelmed to think. By the time I wrapped my head around it all and took a breath, he said it was time for me to leave.
Deep breath. Again. Again. Claudia rereads it three more times before she lets herself believe it.
Good gods.
This is a diary entry from Odette Dufort, and someonewastrying to kill her. But who? How? Claudia’s mind races. “Bishop, where did you find this?”
He doesn’t answer because he’s a snake.
Useless. Adorable but useless.
She looks around the room and spies the dark rug beneath her feet. Maybe the other diary pages are stashed under there.
Claudia overturns it to reveal nothing but solid wood. Surveying her room, she’s surrounded by so much mess from when she was looking for Bishop. If the rest of the diary was in here, she would’ve found it already. As she paces, her foot catches on a swollen floorboard. It’s warped and wobbly from water damage or something. When she leans down, she sees where ribbons of the wood have rotted away, just enough for a sneaky snake to wiggle through. She tries to pry up the board to no avail, so she’s not sure what’s underneath, but she knows that this leads to the diary. Claudia desperately needs to read the rest.
She’s not safe. She’s a celestial witch, too.
That diary holds the answers to everything; if she can find out who the real killer was, not only will she clear her name from any accusations of killing Odette, but she’ll be able to protect herself from getting killed next.
Could it be Sidarphion? Maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he wants to rid the world of all that remains of his magic, and he’s killing anyone who still possesses it.
But why leave Lamour alive? Surely Sidarphion would know he’s a celestial witch, too. Why spare him?
This theory is unraveling as quickly as Claudia puts it together. Sidarphion isn’t here. He’s been gone the entire time the witches have been being killed. It has to be someone else—someone who needed Sidarphion gone in order to kill celestialwitches who were left unprotected. Who else has been around for so long? It couldn’t be Dorian; he’s been asleep in the Realm of Nightmares since before this began. He has to be the only celestial witch of that generation to have survived. Ironically, his cursed stars saved his life.
She needs to speak with Professor Lamour immediately. Why hasn’t he come to warn her like he did with Odette? It seems the professor sensed Odette’s magic and felt compelled to protect her. Why didn’t he feel the same for Claudia? She’s just as powerful, just as vulnerable. What’s she missing?
Standing, she picks up her snake and holds him at eye level.
“Bishop, I need you to bring me more of these pages from wherever you found them. Can you do that?”
Again, he doesn’t say anything, but when Claudia plops him on the floor, he heads straight for the crack and slithers down until he disappears.
“Good boy.”
The darkness creeps across the sky. Claudia strips off her robes, crawls into her bed, and waits for Bishop to return. Anxiety gnaws at her insides. She can feel her heartbeat in her teeth. The room is silent, but her mind is screaming.
Alistair was wrong—Odette’s death wasn’t natural at all. Odette was actually,trulykilled. And her killer is so damn good that only two people in the entire school suspect foul play. Even then, Cassius and Marcherie are looking in the wrong direction.
Claudia squeezes her eyes shut.
This killer is smart.
This killer has been killing for a century.
And this killer is coming for her next.
DESIRE
