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But for how long? How long was Ambri going to suffer?
I cried his name, softly, then louder, then screamed it with the voice of my soul.
thirty
Right.
Then left.
Right.
Then left.
The right wing is torn out, then the left.
While my left wing lies in a heap of bloody bones and feathers, the golem takes its foot off my back and waits. It knows I’m not going anywhere. I’m immobilized by pain. Impaled by it, as if a spike has been driven between my shoulder blades and into the stony ground. A beetle pinned in a display.
I cannot move my arms. I tried once.
Once.
My naked, alabaster skin is covered in grime and black blood. My fingernails are ripped off, clawing the stone as they do, but they’ll grow back, just like my wings. I figure it takes about twenty-four hours of human time for them to regenerate, but it’s hard to know for sure. Constant, unrelenting agony makes one fuzzy on the details.
Right.
Then left.
When the last of the pain has faded and my huge, beautiful wings have regrown, the foot on my back returns, and the process begins anew. Because that’s what it is to be on the Other Side.
Behold, the glory of immortality.
I always try to bite back my screams and I always fail. Sometimes, I vomit. Not every time but sometimes. I like to keep things interesting.
Right wing.
Vomit, it is. My cheek is pressed to the ground, but the black blood spews out with impressive force. Better distance than last time.
Then the left.
The second wing is torn free and my scream right along with it.
I lie panting in a pool of my own inky bile, shuddering in grinding agony. Twenty-six times down, 3,624 more to go. Give or take.
That’s when I hear it.
A scream of anguish. An echo of my own.
Cole…
I close my eyes and listen. The cry doesn’t come again. Very slowly, each movement bringing a crushing shard of pain, I lift my head and look through the Veil, searching quickly for Cole’swhen.
He’s slumped against the door of our flat in Chelsea. He didn’t leave London like I told him to. He’s still there, in danger, sobbing for me.
Because he loves me.
I don’t know how or why, but he does. Cole’s love for me has breached centuries of my own self-doubt, shame, and even my demonic fate.
I let it in.
