Page 57 of Inextricably Tied

“You watched her die?”

NINETEEN

Harbinger

Fear hits Harbinger first.

Of course this spirit is scared, fury splitting the atoms of her despair. But then there’s guilt. A heart-wrenching ache that leaves Harbinger clutching her own chest. Only then does she realize these emotions aren’t coming from the spirit at all.

They’re coming from Flint.

He stands so tall above them on the floor, but the look on his face is distant, pulled so taut that Harbinger could almost see straight through him.

Candles scatter under his feet, light spilling across the ritual when he bursts out the nearest exit. The spectral dome over the group shatters. Bodie swipes at her face, returned from between the Veil as Omen smooths a delicate hand over her hair.

“I’m sorry —” Bodie bursts into tears. Every inhale is a shudder. “It never gets easier.”

Harbinger’s legs won’t stay beneath her. Emotions flood from all the corners of the room as she tilts, trying to stand. The floor rises up to meet her —

Shadowed arms loop over her head and catch around her waist. Her head spins. “Sorry.” Agony shushes her. Poe’s face appears before them, a reassuring grip on Harbinger’s hands.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Poe assures them. “It was an accident, but it wasn’t a mistake.”

She urges them toward the open door, out to a balcony that wraps around the rock face. Stairs lead down each level toward the ground, but a flap of wings descends beneath them.

Harbinger squints against the sunlight. “He shouldn’t fly like this.”

“Come on.” Agony’s voice cuts through the daze. “I’ve got you.”

Breaking the Veil’s connection so abruptly leaves her reeling against the emotions pouring into her. Agony loops her arm around his neck, guiding her down the stairs as she tilts to catch sight of Flint over the ledge. Agony’s grip tightens around her waist. “Will you please let me lead?” She leans her weight against him until there’s solid ground beneath their feet.

There’s one rock big enough to hold Flint. His elbows press to his knees, head resting in his hands as he swallows a deep breath and holds it. The sight breaks open a part of Harbinger’s chest. Flint looks up when they approach, rising to his feet, but it lacks the brusque certainty he always carries.

“Shit. I shouldn’t have left you with him…”

“It’s fine.” Agony perches Harbinger on the rock before he draws his bound hands back over her head. “I didn’t even try…”

But he trails off. It’s too close to home, too raw. Flint’s stony presence is fragile, a hairline fracture waiting to shatter.

“The girl Bodie spoke for…” Harbinger presses her gloved hand down against the boulder. “You know her.”

A dust storm kicks up in the distance. Questions batter at Harbinger’s lips, but she keeps them at bay until Flint’s voice finally comes. It creaks before he clears his throat, rusty with disuse.

“It was my sister.”

His emotions claw at her chest as if they were her own. Loss and remorse like the dry ground beneath them, desperate for a drop of water.

“Sidi. She was a kid. Old enough to think she knew everything.”

His eyes slip closed. Everything in Harbinger is amplified.

“A man started stopping by work to see her. I told her from the start. ‘There’s a reason a grown man’s paying attention to a child. It’s nothing good.’” Flint shakes his head. “She said she would stay away from him. That there was nothing going on.”

His mouth twitches, the barest flicker of a smile blooming like flowers in Harbinger’s chest when he touches his cheek. A memory faded from his skin.

“She told me I worried too much.”

Then his face falls. The petals drown in a deluge of pain.