Edith removing the knife in her waistcoat and plunging it into their father’s back.
Their father screaming like a wild animal as he ripped the knifeout.
The look on Edith’s face when her own father brought the same knife down upon her.
In that moment, the memory came rushing back in with unwavering clarity. The knife had sliced clean through Edith’s abdomen. She fell to the floor, hands clutching her stomach, blood seeping through her fingers. August’s reaction was instinctual. Primal. He tackled his father, pushing him onto his desk, sending a candle tumbling to the floor.
The curtain closest to the desk caught fire. The flames ate away at the fabric, inch by inch. Beneath August, his father had hardened into stone. Mouth agape. Eyes wide.
August pushed himself away from his father, collapsing as the pain from his leg took hold. Next to him on the floor, Edith lay motionless, her vacant eyes staring up at the ceiling, the ghost of a smile on her lips. August dragged himself toward her, screaming out in agony as his broken leg arched unnaturally behind him. Around him, the fire grew. It devoured everything in its path—the bookcases, the piles of notebooks, the old wallpaper.
Black smoke rushed into August’s lungs. He coughed, sputtering, choking helplessly.
There were two options. Two conclusions to his story. He could attempt to pull himself out of the study, to somehow drag himself down the stairs and out of the house. Or…he could stay there. He could end their story, once and for all, and burn.
The decision, however, was never truly his to make.
It was in that moment that a dizziness came over him. Whether it was from shock or his wound, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he was unable to move. His head slammed against the floorboards, as though he had been knocked to the floor by an invisible weight.
Smoke clouded his vision. Through the haze, he swore he saw someone standing on the other side of the room…watching. But before he could properly understand what he was looking at, the flames swallowed him whole.
And then…darkness.
August opened his eyes and found he was lying in a cave. He blinked, attempting to make sense of where he was. Beneath him,streaks of blood glistened against the rocky floor. It wasn’t until he glanced down at his hands, the raw blisters scattered across his palms healing at a rapid speed, that he understood the blood must be his own. That he must have dragged himself into the cave, crawling on his hands and knees in the throes of delirium, until he found a place to rest his eyes. But now that he had clawed his way back to reality, the weight of his situation fell upon him like a guillotine.
“My humanity…” August croaked, his voice rough from days spent screaming, drowning under memories.
Now he remembered.
He had carved out his humanity. He had opened the locked door and invited the shadows inside, sealing his fate. The tidal wave of memories made sense now—he could remember hearing about this happening to others within the Order…a sort of purging. Days spent writhing in pain, subjected to horrifying hallucinations after removing their humanity. But just to be certain, August reached a trembling hand toward his chest, slowly unbuttoning his shirt until his bare torso was visible. Even shrouded in the darkness of the cave, there was no avoiding what now swam through his veins like venom.
Shadows.
August cursed and pressed his head back against the cave wall. His chest shuddered with every panicked breath, terror sinking into his bones. This was exactly what he had tried so hard to avoid…what he had been desperate to shield himself from. The shadows had poisoned his sister, turning her into something unrecognizable, into a monster.
And now he would meet the same fate.
With his humanity gone, August would never be able to cross over to the Other Side. And if he allowed himself to use theshadow magic he now had access to—if hetrulysuccumbed to the shadows—he’d lose himself. Just like Edith. The more shadow magic he used, the lesshimhe would be.
More shadow than human.
But he would do it again. He would do it ten times over if it meant saving Wren.
If it meant keeping his promise.
Find me. Wherever you are, wherever we end up, don’t stop looking for me.
August gathered himself onto his feet, bracing himself against the walls of the cave. Next to him, a shadow coiled around his wrist, its movement almost shy. Despite the nausea wrapping around his throat, August didn’t push it away. He welcomed it, letting it travel across his palm, slithering up and down his arm in delight. Instantly, a coldness swept through his body. An unnerving chill.
August knew the truth now, the inescapable verity sowed into his soul. He had thought he could run from it, that he could somehow trick the hand of fate into believing he was worth loving, into believing he was worthsomething. But August wasn’t the hero. He was broken and tarnished and wretched.
And Wren…Wren was the cosmos. She was the very stars themselves.
So—he would do anything to save her from the destruction he had caused. Even if it pained him. Even if it destroyed him.
He would save her…even if it cost him his soul.
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