Page 60

I could not stay away, so I followed my demon through the streets of Prague. The moment Cassia collapsed beside the drawer in that morgue, the moment her soul fractured in the silence of that room, I stepped through the doorway.

The air inside was frigid, heavy with the copper tang of preservation spells and the sweeter rot of death. The spectral attendant had vanished, leaving only the hum of fluorescent lights against the ceiling.

She was on her knees. Her hands had gripped the edge of the metal slab where Lysanthe lay, her knuckles white and her body trembling with a violence that shook the very floorboards beneath me.

I walked toward her, my loud footsteps echoing intrusively against the sterile tiles, but she did not flinch. Did not turn. She was entirely consumed by the horror before her.

I reached the slab and looked down, and I wished I hadn’t. Lysanthe was a ruin. The seraph’s work was etched into her flesh—burns, incisions, the hollowed-out look of a vessel drained dry.

It was not just murder. It was a harvest.

I reached out, my hand hovering over Cassia’s shoulder. “Cassia,” I whispered.

She stiffened. Then slowly rose. She didn’t turn with the weeping grace of a mourner. She turned with the regal movements of a queen. And when her face came into the light, I stopped breathing.

Her eyes were gone. Absolute black voids had swallowed the warm stormy brown I had spent centuries memorizing. There were no irises. Just an abyss. And though she was weeping, her tears were not clear. They were thick crimson tracks sliding down her pale cheeks.

Blood. She was weeping blood.

“Show me.” Her voice was not her own. It was deeper, layered with a harmonic distortion that grated against my bones.

I stared at her, the horror of her transformation warring with my grief for her pain. “Cassia…”

“SHOW ME!” The lights overhead flickered and sparked, and the shadows in the corners elongated, stretching toward her. “I know you can,” she hissed, the void of her eyes locking onto mine.

“I-it will break you,” I said, my voice cracking.

“There is nothing left to break.” The statement was flat. Dead. “Do it, Guardian. Or I will tear this city apart until I find someone who will.”

I looked at her, seeing the monster rising beneath her skin, her horns pressing against her brow. I could not save her from the pain. I could only give her the truth she demanded.

With a heavy exhale, I resigned and stepped onto the slab. Lysanthe’s body lay still, a tragic sculpture of agony. I reached out, my hand slightly trembling, and dipped my index finger into a jagged incision near her collarbone. The blood was cold and tacky, but the essence within still hummed. I rubbed the blood between my thumb and forefinger, and with another hand, I took hold of Cassia’s cold palm. The sensation was immediate—a rush of vertigo, a scream echoing in the back of my mind.

The world around us dissolved.

The smell of damp stones and ancient mold filled my nose. We were no longer Remiel and Cassia. We were Lysanthe.

I felt her panic—a frantic powerful vibration that hummed through her body. The cold of the stone floor seeped through the soles of her shoes. She was crouching in a narrow servant’s passage, peering through a crack in the heavy oak paneling and into the main hall of Houska Castle.

Valden stood by the fire, a goblet of blood in his hand. He looked bored. Elegant. Lethal. Across from him stood Serion. The seraph did not look like a holy being here. The castle’s shadows clung to his wings, dimming their light to a dirty gray.

“The mask is prepared,” Serion said, his voice clinical. “Weave is ready to accept the imprint.”

“And the ring?” Valden asked, swirling his wine.

“It requires a catalyst since it is no longer on Lilith’s finger. A specific frequency of despair to act as the binding agent. We need an essence compatible with the target. Someone close to her. Someone whose pain she will recognize.”

I felt my stomach drop. They were talking about Cassia.

“Those hybrids are resilient. They resist the darkness, so we need to break the angel first. To make her want the fall. The extraction will be painful.” He glanced at a row of empty vials on the table. “The donor must be alive during the process to ensure the emotional resonance is preserved.”

“Find a donor then,” Valden said, turning to the fire. “I don’t care who. Just get it done. They are growing impatient.”

I felt Lysanthe’s confusion, trying to decipher who they might be, but her resolve hardened, cold and sharp. She had to warn Cassia. Had to get back to Romania.

She turned, silently moving back down the passage. Her shoes were soft leather, designed for silence. She moved through the labyrinthine corridors, slipping past guards and wards that hummed with a low, nauseating frequency. She reached the wing’s heavy iron door, the exit that led to the cliff-side path. Freedom was ten feet away. She reached for the handle.

“Going somewhere, my dear?” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.