His head snaps back.
Ribbons of shadow and light pour out of him, the disembodied voices swirling from within.
An exorcism of souls.
He is releasing his victims.
They are flying free.
In the shadows, his hounds stir as one last voice whispers across the water.
“I’m cold, Simon. So cold.”
Lily’s final words.
Her soul rises. I can see it right there on his lips, on the cusp of freedom, but he doesn’t release it.
Lily, he keeps.
He pulls off his hood and his face is no longer a blur. His face is mostly human. Simon Vandenberg once again. His nostrils flare as he calls on the Overlay to take its fill.
The vines tighten in my chest.
Storm clouds gather over the water.
They roll over my mother in the boat, so thickshe disappears beneath them. All I can make out is the red glow of the amulet.
“Twelve souls for fuel,” Simon shouts, and a bolt of lightning shoots upward, from the clock at his feet into the sky. It strikes the abyss overhead and explodes into an expanse of white.
Just like Lily’s vision.
To my left, at one o’clock, Juniper’s body convulses.
Her head snaps back.
The bent, short line of stars on her wrist bursts into flame.
The orb in her chest is torn free.
I can feel a tug inside my own as her soul streaks upward and flares overheard, a patch of night set upon the blank canvas—Aries twinkling in the sky.
The vines release her.
She collapses dead on the ground.
I scream as Lainey Sikes begins to twitch.
Her head snaps back, too.
Taurus bursts into flame.
Her soul is torn away.
The constellation shoots into the sky.
She collapses alongside Juniper.
The clock at Simon’s feet trembles and the hand begins ticking backward.
