The ravens screech. They rake their claws over my scalp. They will disembowel me, devour my innards.
My fingers knot in the grass below me. “I think that’s why I don’t hear her. If her soul is in… in a place where she can’t reach me.” I rip at the grass, toss it at the menacing birds. “I’m terrible.”
“No,” Pax says loudly. He scans the sky, trying to see the evil that I see. “I don’t believe that. If Daisy was anything like you, Stella, there is no need to worry about her soul. You’regood, Stella. You’re a good person.”
Thump! Thud!
The ravens begin to fall from the sky, landing on the groundin gnarled twists of claw and wing. Hundreds of them, pelting the earth in feathery, bloody bursts. Nirav and I duck and wince, but the birds each disappear, moments after they die.
They weren’t real.
I choke out my relief. And I see, I see:“You’re a good person”coinciding with the birds’ disappearance.
William feels the blanket of anxiety lifting from me, and he clears his throat. “If we’re confessing, then perhaps you have something you’d like to add, Pax?”
Pax looks stunned. He starts to gnaw on his thumbnail but stops himself, straightens.
“It was me. I brought the gun. Ifiredthe gun. I’m the one who tried to murder Max Blanck.”
My heart plummets.
“You.” My voice is ice. I send a burst of ire at Spirit.You didn’t tell me.
Stella, we explained.
We cannot participate in vengeance.
My jaw tightens. My heart tightens. “Weagreed, Pax. No violence.”
Pax chews on his thumbnail and leans against a tall obelisk monument. His casualness incenses me. “No violence. That wasyouridea, Stella. Not mine.” His face fills with storm clouds, his aura spikes like lightning. William shifts uncomfortably in his chair.
“I’d still kill that sonofabitch.” Pax blinks at William. “How did you know about that? I didn’t tell anyone. And you weren’t there.”
William swallows. “You reek of viciousness.”
“That’s why Kiyoko has the stash, then,” I say, piecing this evening’s events together. I am sick with disgust. “You asked her to meet the connection because you thought you might be on the run. Or arrested. For the murder of Max Blanck.”
I continue, my voice strained through immense hurt. “It’s why you’ve been so cold. So distant. Youliedto me, Pax.
“You agreed to no violence. Iknowwhat happens to the souls that commit those kinds of acts. I wake up in the middle of the night, screaming in terror, hearing the agony of people who hurt others here on earth.”
The tears come now, hot and fast, dripping off my cheeks. I’ve never confessed that to anyone, the night terrors. Not even Daisy. Iamone of the people who has hurt someone. I’m terrified thatmysoul will forever dwell among the aching, the tormented.
Nirav takes my hand. He flinches as he does.
“They confess horrible things to me,” I whisper. “Those violent souls.”
Our poor girl.
I wish we could stop those spirits, Stella.
They truly are tortured.
“I couldn’t let that happen to you, Pax. The anguish of those trapped souls is indescribable.” A sob escapes me. “You’re the one who said no secrets, Pax. You said we’d tell each other the truth. I made a terrible mistake, trusting you.” I am heartsick. I knew not to leap, and I leapt anyway.
“Stella,” Pax says, voice strained. “I haven’t told you everything. You don’t know—”
Nirav alerts like a young deer, his head tilting toward the main pathway. He snaps his fingers twice,Hush! Listen!
