She holds up the moonstone pendant she found.
“What is it?” Ezra asks.
Devi turns it over in her hand. “No idea.”
Elio and Lori stagger out of the castle, and I can't tell who's supporting whom. Lori is curled against Elio’s side, one arm hooked around his waist, but his arm is locked around her shoulders just as tightly, holding her upright. He put on some clothes in the interlude, dressed in one of those white cotton servant uniforms.
As if on cue, a blue light rises from Ethan's headless corpse.
Willow's fingers tighten around the hilt of her sword, then recognition dawns, and her shoulders relax as everyone falls silent.
Elio releases Lori to kneel beside Ethan’s body, and the light drifts toward him as though it recognizes its master.
Frost ripples across his skin the moment his fingers close around the soul. Ice races up his arm in delicate patterns, and the blue light flickers once before disappearing into his palm.
The dark circles under Elio's eyes vanish, color returning to his face. His shoulders straighten, and he looks whole again. Healthy.
Beside him, Lori crumples, her knees hitting the marble before the rest of her follows.
Elio's voice breaks. "Lori?"
He catches her before she can strike the ground and gathers her into his lap. "Lori!”
No response.
Panic flashes across his face.
"Little spider." His hand shakes as he brushes a dark strand of hair away from her cheek. "Little spider, can you hear me?"
For a terrible second, I think she's gone.
Then her lashes flutter.
"Elio?" she croaks.
His eyelids squeeze shut, and he presses his forehead to hers. "I'm here," he whispers.
“Step aside, Elio,” Willow says. “I think Iris is trying to kill Lori from the inside. There’s no time to dawdle. We have to take her out now.”
Ezra’s warmth leaves my side as both brothers stagger to their feet.
“Let me,” he says. “I’m the only one who should live with Iris’s death on his conscience.”
Elio catches his brother by the shoulder. “Can you do it? Truly? Can you free Lori from the dark soul?”
“I can.”
Ezra kneels in front of Lori, a pure white light blossoming in his palm. “I’m sorry, Iris. For everything,” he says in atonement, then he presses his hand over her heart.
Lori’s body arches violently, and her fingers clamp around Ezra’s wrist.
Her gray eyes flash open.
For one terrible second, relief floods Elio’s face.
Then Lori’s other hand snaps up from behind her back. A green-tinted blade flashes in the sunlight as Lori—or rather Iris—drives it deep into Ezra’s side.
My mouth opens on a horrified shriek. “No!”
