That's when I saw her, stretched out on her bed and flat on her back, mouth parted in blissful sleep. Her red hair was almost back to its natural shade, fanned out on her pillow, the ends still giving off a faint fairy glow.
I blew out a breath, tears of relief stinging my eyes. Sophie was here. She was safe. Late for work, probably pissed that I’d blown off the coven meeting, but safe. I almost jumped onto her bed with joy.
“Gray?” Ronan clamped a hand over my shoulder, pulling me back.
“She’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s fine. She—”
“Don’t move.”
“But—”
The room shimmered before our eyes. There on Sophie’s chest, right on top of her sunflower-and-daisies comforter, a raven appeared—seemingly from thin air.
I stood at the end of the bed, hands gripping the edge of the footboard. It was the raven from outside. The same one, I realized now, that I’d seen in the alley.
In that terrible moment, I knew that my best friend was not sleeping at all.
Sophie was dead.
No...
Ronan tried to pull my back, but I was paralyzed, watching with numb detachment as the raven slid his beak into her mouth.
Silver-blue mist curled out from between her lips like a winter’s breath, glittering in the dim room.
No, not a breath. A soul.Hersoul.
The realization set fire to my limbs.
“Leave her alone!” I bolted onto the bed and swiped at the raven, but my fingers passed right through him, like trying to touch a shadow. He leapt away and perched on Sophie's dresser instead.
I lay across Sophie's body, my hands clenching her sheets. All around me the bedroom began to fade, replaced with wild trees under a jet-black sky. In the distance, indigo light glowed, and I knew it was like the alley again, my mind slipping into my magic place even as my body remained with Sophie.
I didn't want to leave her. I fought the change, focusing on the feel of her cool sheets in my hands, the strawberry scent of her shampoo.
It worked. The image of the forested path faded almost as quickly as it had arrived, leaving me right back in her bed.
Though I hadn’t spent any time in the black forest this time, my hands were once again engulfed in that strange blue flame. I tried to pull back, but instinct pushed me forward, closer to Sophie.
This time, though, the fire didn’t chase her soul back into her body—it turned a lighter blue, encircling her head like a halo. The silver mist of her soul entwined with my flames, and with my next breath, it entered me.
Warmth spread inside me.
Sophie’s essence, her scent, and every memory we ever shared together crashed through me, wave after wave after wave, until I could no longer tell where she ended and I began. It was as if our souls had merged.
The raven, who’d been watching from its perch on Sophie's dresser, launched itself into the air, exploding in a tempest of oil-black feathers that swirled and spun above the bed, then crashed violently back together, reforming into a terrifying figure in tattered black robes.
I couldn’t see his face, but beneath a black hood, ice blue eyes glowed bright, his presence sucking all the energy out of the room. He hovered above us for only seconds, then lunged for me, hauling me off the bed with inhuman strength.
I was dimly aware of Ronan banging on an invisible barrier—the same shimmery dome that had covered me in the alley. His lips were moving, but his voice was a distant echo.
The hooded stranger curled his pale fingers around my shoulders.
“Do not struggle.” His command was everywhere, outside me and within, reverberating through every cell in my body.
He pressed his mouth to mine, breath cool and sweet as he sucked the air from my lungs. Sophie's essence was leaving me as quickly as it had entered, one memory at a time.
He took the first time I met her, delivering cases of absinthe to Illuminae. He took the day we signed the lease on this house, and the one where we busted the door frame moving our couch into the living room because we were too amped up on girl power to ask Ronan for help. He took the last time I’d cooked us dinner—grilled cheese and tomato soup, not three days ago. I’d burned one side of the grilled cheeses, but she ate hers anyway, insisting that melted cheese made everything good. He took her strawberry shampoo and her laugh and her smile and her Tarot cards, took the painted stones from the basket in the kitchen.
