Chapter 23 · Hollowborn - Chapter 23: The Price She Left Behind

The arrow punched through Cole's coat and pinned him to the stone wall.

He didn't make a sound. That scared me more than the blood spreading under his ribs.

"Ivy, don't move," Marcus said.

My hand tightened around the locket. The tiny piece of soul inside it was still beating. Light pulsed behind the glass, weak and fast, like a trapped heart.

My mother's heart.

Cole's eyes stayed on me. Not Marcus. Not the hunters with their crossbows aimed at his chest. Me.

"Put it down," he said.

His voice was rough. His voice.

Then the locket throbbed against my palm, and my mother's voice slipped through the room.

"Give it to me, sweetheart."

My knees almost gave out.

That was the voice I remembered from fever nights and bad dreams. The voice that used to sing when the power went out. The voice that had told me monsters were real, but they could still be beaten.

The voice that had gone silent the night she died.

"Mom?"

Marcus smiled like he'd been waiting for that one word.

"There she is," he said. "I knew the blood would answer."

Cole jerked against the arrow. The shaft creaked.