Chapter 9 · Mara Dies First

The midnight bell hadn't stopped ringing and Mara still had her knife out. Cass could feel the echo rattling his teeth, vibrating up through the stone floor of the tower basement. Seraphina stood on the other side of the seal, smiling like she'd just won something, and the black glass circle between them was starting to crack. Not the good kind of crack. The kind that leaked.

"Cass." Mara's voice was tight. "What did she mean, I die first?"

"She's lying." He said it fast. Too fast. Mara's eyes narrowed and the knife twitched in her hand. She hadn't put it away after he'd said the treatment number. Smart.

Seraphina laughed. It came through the seal thin and distorted, like sound traveling through water. "Oh, he knows, Flint. He's watched you die what, three times now? Four?" She tilted her head, blonde hair sliding over her shoulder. "You're always so surprised. It's sweet."

The seal pulsed. Cass felt it in his chest, a pressure that made his lungs tight. The cracks were spreading, spiderwebbing out from the center where Seraphina's palm rested on the other side. Black smoke seeped through, curling along the floor. It moved wrong.