DO IT.
But she didn’t. Wren didn’t move.
It was the slightest hesitation. A moment of weakness.
And it was exactly what Silas had been waiting for.
Wren sensed the moment he moved behind her, hand extended, prepared to strike. But luckily, Wren moved fast. Faster than Silas had anticipated. And when she turned to face him, she shot her own arm out, ravenous shadows bursting out of her.
She tried to beat him to it. To move faster than him.
But ultimately, neither of them beat the other.
They moved as one.
NO!!!!
Around her, the world exploded.
Wren glanced down at her hand plunged into Silas’s chest, athishand plunged into her own, the two of them connected, shadows and light twisting between them, and she knew, with bone-chilling certainty, that this was her end.
Someone was screaming behind her, but it didn’t matter.
They couldn’t stop what had already been done.
Wren Loughty met Headmaster Silas’s eyes.
“I wonder…” she whispered, her voice clear, soft, “when your soul shatters and oblivion finally takes you…will you scream?”
Silas smiled.
And then—suddenly—she saw it. Thatthinglurking behind his eyes. The thing she’d seen hidden in his face since the moment she first walked into the office. Engulfed by the shadows,she hadn’t been able to recognize it…unable to feel the emotion beyond the darkness and hate and anger.
But she saw it now. Clear as day.
Remorse.
“I could ask you the same thing, Wren Loughty.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. Eyes locked together. Wren understood him now—the tarnished, broken man withering beneath Silas’s façade. The fear. The terror. Silas had never been a god. He was just a man. And as with all men before him, his time had finally run out, his power expired.
Wren smiled back.
And then, together, they ripped each other from existence.
Darkness. Sweet, blissful darkness. The warm embrace of oblivion wrapped around Wren, pulling her deeper, inviting her home. But then…something else. A voice. That stubborn, unrelenting voice.
Open your eyes, Wren.
And then she was rising, thrown out of oblivion, thrust back into reality.
Pain.
She felt it all around her. Consuming her. Ripping her apart.
Wren woke up screaming. She was lying on the floor of the office. Above her, August was kneeling, eyes frantic as he spoke her name like a whispered invocation.
Wren, Wren, Wren.
