Page 54

Not disappears—unravels.

Her face smears, features sliding away. Skin thins. Color drains. The warmth goes out of her eyes first, like someone shut off the light behind them. Then the faintest hint of rot and incense brush against my nose.

The knife twists.

The shape collapses with a sound like meat tearing free of bone, and suddenly there’s no sister at all—just an Iron Gospel man crumpling to his knees, robes smeared with rot and blood, mouth locked open in a scream his body never finished.

The ground rushes up.

I hit my knees hard.

“Cass?” The name tears out of me anyway. “Cass⁠—”

The body twitches.

Not hers. Never hers.

My stomach heaves. My hands shake so violently I have to fist my shirt to keep from clawing my own chest. The fever roars now, angry, like it’s been caught lying.

This isn’t waking up.

This is falling through the truth.

Arms hook around my chest and haul me backward into the trees before my scream can finish ripping its way out. I thrash on instinct, sobbing into skin and cloth and the sharp, familiar scent of lavender and smoke.

“Stop.” The word is torn out of someone already halfway to breaking.

Malek.

“Don’t listen.”

His hand clamps over my mouth, hard enough to hurt. His breath hits my ear hot and uneven. “I’m going to move my hand.” The words come low and careful, but I feel the tremor in his chest against my back. “You make a sound, and they hear you. Do you understand?”

I nod. I think. Everything is slipping.

He peels his hand away inch by inch.

“She was right there,” I choke. “She was calling me.”

“That wasn’t your sister,” Malek snarls, forcing my head forward. “You’re fever-sick. You’re seeing what you want to see.”

“No,” I gasp. “I felt her.”

But even as I say it I know Cass never called me “little bird.”

“Look.”

The word cracks like a whip.

The fever hesitates—just long enough for the world to snap into focus.

Not Cass.

An Iron Gospel man lies twisted in the dirt, blood soaking into the hem of his robes, eyes staring at nothing.

My knees buckle. I fold into Malek’s chest, shaking so hard I can’t feel my fingers. His arms lock around me—desperate, not gentle—like he’s holding something that might vanish if he lets go.

“They used your fever,” he growls into my hair. “Your fever made the door. They walked through it. That’s how they used to lure us from our beds.”