Panic floods me.
I look at Ahvi, now kneeling by the Book of Voyd, feather in hand, tipped with that sparkly substance he used to paint the runes surrounding the ancient tome. “Do it!”
“I can’t!” he blasts, wide eyes flicking from Raeve to me and back again. “She’s still got a ways to go.”
“But she’s almostdead.”
He winces.
Raeve groans.
I snarl. Realize she waited until thefinal fucking momentto drip her blood into Sereme’s vial. Probably just before she was about to draw her final breath.
“Youstubbornfemale.”
“Not the … right …time,” she wheezes, easing back so both legs are folded beneath her. The moment she finds balance, her head wobbles,eyes rolling. She blinks tight, then pops her lids wide open, battling to stay awake.
All the while, I battle not to unclench my fists, claw my hands into the ground, and rip the fucking world apart.
The runes sputter like a dying star, losing all their shine. I don’t wait for permission to lurch forward and pull her close, groaning at the feel of her. All bones and nothing else, her breaths plagued with a deathly gurgle.
A sadistic haunt. The perfect weapon shaped to slit my chest and flip me inside out.
A flick of Ahvi’s feather completes the ring of runes surrounding the book, causing them to take on the same luminosity as the others lost. When Avi looks up, I notice there’s no color left in his cheeks or lips or fuckinganywhere.
His blood. He said he wouldn’t miss it.
He lied.
“Ahviiii—”
“You have towillinglyput your blood on the book,” he says to Raeve, ignoring my heated growl—its residue still blazing my throat. “You have towantto live.”
The entire world seems to still as she looks at me, meeting my stare with startling precision. She draws a long, gurgled breath, lifts her bloody hand, and rasps, “I …do.”
Two small words have never held so much power. Have never felt so monumentally groundbreaking.
She slaps the book.
A force of glacial light explodes from the runes in a pulsing rage, blinding me. Sinks through my skin and bones, weaves through my marrow, and makes my lungs feel solid.
Until it stops.
With Raeve still held tight against me, I blink away the glare, trying to make out the shape of things.
Raeve’s head has lolled to the side … her eyes closed … mouth open …
My heart caves in on itself.
“No—”
Ahvi crumples sideways.
I punch my hand out in time to cradle his head before it strikes the stone, frantically feeling for both their pulses. Finding Ahvi’s.
Not Raeve’s.
“Moonbeam …” I shake her, smooth the hair from her face. “Wake up.”
