She’s staring at me now, but she’s not angry. She’s gone totally still.
She gasps once, then coughs, pointing frantically at her throat.
I grab her shoulders, panic shooting down my spine. “Stevie? What’s wrong?”
Her body begins to convulse, and she claws at her throat, eyes wide with fear. Suddenly, water gushes from her open mouth.
“Stevie!” I grab her shoulders and try to steady her, but the water keeps coming. Her face pales, her lips turning as blue as the night sky.
“This isn’t happening!” I shout. “This isn’t fucking happening!”
I lay her on the ground and try everything in my power to save her—CPR, magick, bargaining with any gods or goddesses within earshot, screaming at her to finally wake us up from this twisted, horrible nightmare.
But nothing works.
Nothingfucking works.
Her body finally stops convulsing. Her eyes go glassy and wide. And in the cold and bitter silence, all I can do for the woman I love is hold her hand and watch her drown.
Eleven
STEVIE
The force of the water hits me like a car crash.
Kirin vanishes, and suddenly I’m being sucked down a deep canyon, battered by rocks and debris as the water tries to swallow me whole.
Desperately I try to suck in air, but it’s no use; the water surrounds me, tossing me around as if I’m no more substantial than plankton.
Panic sets in. Colder than the water itself, it reaches deep into my chest, freezing everything it touches.
It doesn’t matter that Lala believes I’m fated to die by my own hand. That’s no comfort when I can’t fucking breathe.
Frantically I paddle, kick, claw my way to the surface. I buy myself about two seconds and take a big gulp of air, only to be sucked back down again.
Memories flicker behind my eyes—a lifetime of happiness with my parents, here and gone in a flash. All of our time together at Kettle Black, our tea café. All the laughs we shared, the Scrabble nights, the tea-themed birthday parties, even the stupid arguments.
Right up until the last one. The one where I stormed off during our hike, pissed off that they wouldn’t let me attend the Academy. They gave me space to cool off, but then I wandered off the trail. By the time we reunited, exhausted and more than ready to go home, the weather had turned.
The flash flood came out of nowhere.
And my parents—the people I loved most in the entire world—died saving me from it.
“We wouldn’t be here if you’d only listened,” my father says. “It’s your fault.”
My heart seizes at his words. He’s no longer speaking them in my memory, but right in front of me.
My father is here with me.
Not the boisterous, tea-loving man I remember, but the man who died because of me. Angry. Bitter. Betrayed.
His skin is bloated and blue, his head smashed in on one side, his lips black. He’s wearing one of our best-selling shirts from Kettle Black—Make Like a Tea and Leaf!—but that’s damn near the only thing recognizable about the man I adored more than life itself.
Oh, Dad... I’m so sorry…
He grabs my arms, cruel fingers biting into my flesh. Blood leaks from his massive head wound. Through the red haze between us, he looks at me and frowns.
“You’re not worth it, Starla Milan,” he says, his voice dark and hollow in my mind. “I should’ve let you drown.”
