Page 235 of May: Bloom & Bane

“There’s someone who’s been waiting to meet you.” She disappears through the doorway and returns with a small bundle against her chest. “Say hello to your niece, Eirlys.”

I look down at a face I’ve already seen. Dark curls escaping her knit cap, silver peach fuzz covering her body, and honey-brown eyes just like her mother’s.

“It’s her,” I breathe, stroking a finger over her cheek. “The little beastie from my painting.”

“You’ve seen her?” Lumi’s eyes widen.

“I haven’t just seen her—I’ve been painting her since I woke up. I didn’t know who she was.”

Lumi’s tears spill over. “The soul remembers what it loves.”

Eirlys blinks up at me and yawns.

“There was another figure in the painting with her, a knight.”

“Do you think it could be?” Lumi asks Andrik.

“Could be who?” I murmur.

“I think Caedryn is on his way,” is all he says.

Eirlys stirs against my chest, one tiny fist finding the fabric of my dress and holding on. I look down at this small, warm proof that I have always had a family, and my chest squeezes. I finally have everyone I love in the same life.

A horrid scream shakes the windows of the cabin. Ashán.

Lumi settles on the arm of my chair, her cheek resting against my hair, hand covering mine over my belly.

“Now we wait for your monsters, sweet girl,” she murmurs. “It’s sort of our whole thing.”

CHAPTER 68

cut them off!

—ASHÁN

An agonizing jolt of heat shoots down our spine. The room is sideways, and there is splintered wood under our cheek. The lamp is guttering low.

Eden.

A flare of panic floods our mind. But as we scramble to get up off the floor, the room tilts again.

Why can’t we get up? Sage shouts. We need to find her!

I’m trying! I yell back at him.

Our body doesn’t respond to Sage’s commands. It doesn’t even twitch. The green skin on his half slowly starts to peel away.

Are you shifting? He snaps.

No! I grit out. I’m not the one controlling this.

Our spine arches painfully off the oak. The fronds crowning Sage’s head begin drying out until they ossify into sharp horns made of bone.

What is happening? Sage chokes out, his soul trying and failing to reverse our transformation.

I don’t know, I wheeze.

The jaw that shapes those very words is hardening, the aristocratic lines of his face sharpening into a full skull. The spaces between our ribs and along our jawline hollow out and shadows pour into the gaps.