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Then Lily's corpse twitches.
“Dammit.” Shy looks at me. “Stay.”
When he shuts the door, Lily is on her feet again and the hounds have come into the ring of light.
“W-why won't she die?”
“Because she's already dead,” Natalie says. “Her soul’s just been resurrected which gives her the ability to fight, but none of her humanity.”
Lily’s murderer has struck again.
“Why does he keep fighting her? If he can't kill her?”
“Because all we can do is subdue her until the Order arrives.”
“But—” As much as I want this to end, I can’t be here when the Order arrives.
“Stay,” Natalie says and gets out of the cab. She joins Shy and Jacobi, creating a triangle around Lily. All that talk about why resurrection is illegal makes sense to me now. Surely Thane wouldn’t want his mother back like this? This isn’t even a shell of what Lily used to be, this is something different, a monster, more animalistic than my Hellhounds.
Lily bares her teeth and lashes out, all three Knights jump back and rise off the ground, their wings spread wide. That’s when my hounds descend upon Lily. The sounds filling the air are horrific—a mix of growls and howls and whining. Their teeth clash and snap, biting down on Lily’s limbs, tearing into her dead flesh, and yet she gives as much as she takes, clawing at my hounds and biting into their flesh.
Then Lily jumps, moving above the hounds’ heads, she grabs onto one of Jacobi’s wings and jerks him to the ground. He lands head first and is still. I’m out of the car in an instant, running toward Jacobi. He can’t end up like Jake. I won’t let that happen. I have to end this.
“Jacobi!”
I grab the shovel, discarded in the grass and run for them. Lily twists toward me and I hit her with the shovel. She doesn’t budge, but prepares to leap at me, so I call the only defense I have—the thread.
Shy calls after me. “Anora! No!”
The thread cuts through the air toward Lily. She dodges it, and I reel it back in as she charges for me. Her weight knocks the breath out of me, but my palm faces her chest as we go down, the thread breaks through her back. As it consumes, I expect her soul to transform into a coin and land on my chest.
But something different happens as I capture this soul. As the thread wraps in and out of her body, it begins to break apart and gold flecks fall into my eyes, mouth and hair. It’s pieces of the coin that are supposed to contain her soul.
When it’s over, Lily lays on top of me, dead weight and decay. I scream, pushing against her until I free myself of her bulk and scramble away. Then I sit, shaking, staring at her corpse. What have I done to her soul? Why did the thread refuse to create a coin? What does that mean for Lily?
My skin crawls, covered in bug bites and bits of coin dust. I brush at myself frantically, wanting to remove all traces of this night.
“If you don’t want the Order to find her, you had better get her out of here,” Natalie says. Shy hesitates, going for Jacobi, but Natalie shoos him away. “Don’t worry, I’ll check on Jacobi.”
“Come on,” Shy says, gathering me into his arms and launching into the air.
I can’t breathe right and I keep shivering and passing my hands over my face and arms, like I walked through a spider web and can still feel the phantom of their silk on my skin.
“Stop moving,” Shy warns and I freeze, mostly at the tone of his voice. There’s an edge to it. Part of it inspired by this night, part of it directed at me. Then he adds softly, “I don’t want to drop you.”
He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, and the only thing I see from this angle is his jaw and sharp cheekbones.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find you in time,” he says, and then looks over his shoulder.
He descends, landing in another field, setting me on my feet. What did he see that made him stop? I start to turn my head to the sky but he prevents me, placing his hands on either side of my face.
“Anora, this is important. You are going to be taken by the Order. I am sorry I can’t keep you from them, but I won’t be far away.”
He leans forward and kisses my forehead—the move is intimate and steals my breath.
Then he’s torn from me, pulled away by a very tall and very angry Shadow Knight that looks just like him—his father.
“No!” Shy struggles but is held back by the larger version of himself, and there’s a prick in my neck, and a gush of liquid that feels like fire rushing into my veins. I sway and am caught, held in the arms of an angel haloed in black wings.
