Page 53

A crow screams overhead, the sound splitting wrong, like the world has seams now and I can feel them pulling apart. Like something is trying to wear my memory and it doesn’t fit right.

Shadow darts in front of me, barking sharp toward the fence line.

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “It’s just Cass.”

He snarls at my sister.

I step off the porch. For a heartbeat the ground doesn’t meet my foot where it should. I stumble, catch myself, keep going. The fence line pulls at me. The trees breathe in and out like lungs.

Cass stands there.

Not flickering. Not wrong.

Sunlight halos her hair exactly the way it used to, and the relief hits so hard my vision whites out at the edges.

“Cass,” I breathe. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me.”

Shadow slams into my legs, whining like he’s terrified I’ll dissolve if I take one more step. I step anyway.

The silence hits first.

Not quiet—absence. Like sound has been ripped out of the world by the roots.

Cass’s smile stutters. Her face drags sideways, features slipping like wet paint pulled by careless hands. Her eyes don’t line up anymore.

I blink hard. Heat pounds behind my eyes.

No.

Cass wouldn’t⁠—

“Cass?” My voice sounds far away. “You’re hurt⁠—”

She reaches for me.

Her hand moves too slowly, fingers bending with a softness they shouldn’t have, like they’re underwater. For a heartbeat I think it’s just the fever lagging again.

“Cass,” I whisper, because some part of me still believes names can bring people back.

Something flashes.

Not metal—not at first.

Just pressure in the air. Cass’s body jolts, hard and wrong, and the smile freezes on her face.

Then the knife is there. Not sliding in. Not striking.

Just suddenly buried in her stomach to the hilt, dark with blood too thick and slow, like it hasn’t decided how to move yet.

Cass doesn’t scream.

Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out—just a wet hitch of breath fogging in front of her lips. Her eyes stay locked on mine, glassy and confused, like she’s asking me why I let this happen.

“No,” I breathe. “No⁠—”

Her body folds backward around the blade. Bones bend wrong. Her spine arches like it’s pulled by strings I can’t see.

And then she comes apart.