With a scream, Seraphina tries to escape.
But she can’t break the tether.
Rafe shouts and lunges forward only to be lashed back. He hits the ground hard and rolls into shadow.
Jude draws me close and brings his mouth to mine.
The curse ignites.
It surges inside me like ice-fire.
Ready to feed.
Ready to consume.
But not me.
As his fingers tangle in my hair, the icy cold begins to drain, as though being drawn out. Siphoned from me into him. There’s a spark of icy blue where the tether meets Jude’s chest, and like frost racing across glass, it moves down the length of the lasso. Until the entire thing pulses with an eerie, electric cold.
The curse is moving.
Passing through Jude.
Coming straight for her.
With an ear-splitting cry, Seraphina tries to flee. But there’s no escape. She is trapped, entwined, her fate written in the stars—not with mine, but Jude’s.
Light fractures through her skin like broken glass. She is fissuring from the inside out, pressure building like steam in a kettle. And then, with asonic boom, she bursts into pieces. Completely obliterated as the curse that has plagued generation upon generation, at last, turns upon its maker.
The world around me buckles.
Light and shadow ripple and split, then tear completely. With a thunderous snap, the veil between dimensions disintegrates.
The tether fades to nothing.
The air is cold.
The sky, full of stars.
For a moment, there is silence. So deep, it feels like the earth itself is holding its breath. I turn to where Rafe lay, and watch him disappear in fading pixels. Like a dream. Like my mother. Until he’s gone. And it’s just me and Jude.
For one whole, impossible second, he stares at me—triumphant, glorious. “Ezra never said it had to be you,” he whispers, his voice weak.
So very weak.
Then his gaze softens.
“Jude?”
He sways.
Then he falls.
I drop to my knees beside him and cradle his head in my arms. “Please, Jude. Please stay with me.”
But the light leaves his eyes and he’s with me no more.
The price has been paid.
