The beauty of it started an ache in her chest that pressed and pressed and pressed, searing her heart with white-hot pain.
Yet she never wanted to stop listening.
And that feeling, that deep, strange thing she had felt in the hallway when she’d awoken, that had been her secret companion since her first visions of death, bloomed darkly in this moonlit cathedral to the croon of this song.
With the final note, Remi screamed a sound closer to a sob.
The windows blasted out of the cathedral.
Bells wasn’t able to stagger any closer, only managed a step before she slumped to the cool stone. ‘I’m here,’ she managed, something hot trickling from her nose. ‘I’m here …’
Ahead of her, Remi dropped, her exhausted sigh ringing in the sudden silence.
Before Bells could crawl any closer, the world went dark.
Nicole
BIRÓG WOKE THEM IN THE DEAD OF NIGHTBECAUSE THEwards had been tripped.
Nicole’s heart was in her throat until she and Kyan – having been forced to split up to leave the townhouse – found Bells and Remi in the shattered cathedral, her father already kneeling over Bells as Lawna sprinted down the aisle to Remi.
The cloying scent of blood near cut off her ability to breathe, her terror so intense she couldn’t think.
The girls’ hands were reaching towards one another across a floorof ruined glass that, under the cool glow of the moon, glittered like thousands of fallen stars.
‘Are they okay?’ Nicole demanded, feeling unable to breathe.
‘They’re both all right. Sleeping,’ her father said.
Relief guttered through her like a tidal wave.
Nicole reached Bells first, who lay unconscious with a smear of blood at her nose.
‘Bells,’ she breathed, touching her face softly, her cheeks still warm, her breathing slightly fevered.
‘I’ll Influence any supernaturals away while you get them out,’ Kyan said from the entrance – he’d stationed himself there as a few supernaturals came to investigate.
Their father gently scooped up Bells so Nicole ran to pick up Remi, not caring how the shards crunched beneath her feet.
Lawna was with her when Nicole skidded to a stop and crouched down.
‘Remi,’ Lawna said, gently touching her daughter’s face, checking for her pulse.
Remi’s eyes fluttered open. ‘Bells,’ Remi rasped. ‘Is she—’
‘She’s okay,’ Nicole said. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘What happened?’ Lawna asked, checking her daughter’s body.
‘The Death String,’ her friend breathed, wrapping her fingers around Nicole’s forearm.
Nicole jolted at the look in her eyes – the wild echoes of epic power – and the dampness of her grip.
Slick with blood.
They got them back to the house via the false front, glad Lawna had done a surveillance check around both entrances and found nothing. Her father and Lawna had checked both girls over, coming to the same conclusion: they should be all right, but they’d only know when they both awoke.
‘It’s exhausted her,’ Lawna said, stroking her daughter’s brow. ‘But as she allowed herself to play the song, it seems to have kept her safe from its effects.’
