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A dark streak in my periphery. An ear-shattering shriek splits the air. The darklings recoil from us, but they don’t flee, instead crouching ten feet away, heads cocked . . . like dogs waiting for instruction.
“It can’t be,” Mack cries, and I follow her gaze to Evelyn. She’s standing between us and the darklings, making choppy hissing grunts that the darklings seem to understand.
“Evelyn?” I say, forgetting that she’s one of them.
Her head jerks in my direction, and I fight the urge to flinch.
Up close, there is absolutely no illusion that she’s anything close to human. Emaciated cheekbones protrude below enlarged black eyes, their depths wild and feral and brimming with an ancient hunger.
The potent stench of corrupted magic seeps from her graying flesh—rotting lilies and copper and old blood.
But unlike the other darklings, her eyes aren’t completely black. Rings of white light pulse around the edges of her irises.
“Evelyn,” I breathe, trying to sound soothing and not horrified, “why are you here?”
She laughs, a terrible inhuman sound that makes me wince. “No choice,” she insists. “No choice.”
The darklings mill patiently around us, waiting for their master to tell them what to do. But she just said she doesn’t have a choice, which means someone is calling the shots.
The same person who stole the soulstone.
I nod slowly. “Someone else is controlling you?”
Evelyn makes a low, whimpering noise that breaks my heart.
“Oh, God,” Mack murmurs. “There has to be a way to help her.”
“Who is your master?” I persist. “Can you give us a name?”
“Can’t talk,” she whines. “It hurts. Can’t talk.”
Jace shakes his head. “This is pointless. She’s been spelled into silence.”
But I refuse to give up. If we can figure out who’s using her, perhaps we can save her. “Anything, Evelyn. Anything you can think of that might help us so we can help you.”
“Did this to me,” she snarls. “Did this to me. Did this to me!” The darklings react to her anger, growling and baring their teeth.
“Easy,” I whisper as the others press against the wall. “Who did this to you? Who is controlling you?” “Flower. Flower. Star.” She grunts in frustration, beating and tearing at her skull with her crooked fingers. “Star. Star. Bloody star.”
“Evelyn, I . . . I’m trying to understand.”
Her head stops jerking and when she meets my stare, my heart breaks at the very human pain in her eyes. The brief flash of sentience. Evelyn is still in there. Trapped.
“Blood . . . star,” she moans. “Bloodstar!” As soon as she utters the word, she shrieks, leaping over the others as she flees. The darklings rush after her.
It takes less than two seconds for both Evelyn and the darklings to disappear from the chamber, leaving us shaking and in shock.
“How are we still alive?” Richard asks. He’s cradling his right arm. “We should be dead. So dead. Painfully dead and in pieces.”
“You don’t have to describe it for us,” Mack snaps, sagging against me.
Ruby hovers in front of my face. One of her wings doesn’t seem to be working properly.
Her eyes widen in alarm as she takes me in. “Kid, you’re hurt!”
“What?” I glance over at my shoulder, surprised to see my sleeve is covered in blood. Mack jerks from her stupor and drags down the hem of my onesie.
“This cut is really deep,” I hear Mack say, only from far away. When did she move? Her face, too, is vignetting around the edges.
