She didn’t step a toe over the invisible line onto sanctified ground, for which I was grateful.
Of all the things I could have asked, that I wanted to say, I had to know. “Who did this to you?”
A pinprick of red marked her pupils and grew until her eyes had been devoured by crimson.
“He wants your father.” Strain thinned her voice. “Don’t let him win. Not again. Not this time.”
“The director,” I pressed for confirmation, but her focus blurred as she fought against herself.
No blame passed her lips, proving whoever summoned her had made sure she couldn’t out them.
“Please, baby, end this.” She hugged herself, trapping her wand under her arm. “My bones…”
“How?” I stepped forward, lulled by her moment of lucidity. “How do I give you peace?”
“Burn my bones and salt the earth where you find them.”
“I…” I shored up my courage. “I will.” But I had to locate them first. “Do you know where they are?”
“He buried pieces of me everywhere,” she confessed. “I can’t find myself, only my target.”
Me.
“Why would the director do this?” I couldn’t imagine his endgame. “Why the charade?”
“The director?” A deep line carved across her brow. “He—”
A shadow passed over the moon, and the wargs packed in close around me, all of them gazing skyward. I didn’t have to look. I could feel in my bones who had come, and I began to fear he might struggle harder choosing the living over the dead than I did if his heartbroken awe was any indication.
“Howl.” He landed before her, his wings quivering as if he couldn’t believe it. “You’re here.”
“I was sent for our baby.” She flung herself against his chest. “Please, help me.”
“Come with me.” He scooped her in his arms. “You always did love to fly.”
A watery laugh escaped her that turned into an anguished cry of pain.
“I can’t fight it much longer.” She cupped his cheek in her palm. “End this.”
“I would sooner the sun burn out than give you up again,” he said, and I could tell we both believed him.
“I can’t live like this.” She bit her bottom lip. “Exist like this.” She pleaded with him. “I’m not real.”
“You’re real enough for me.” He held her tighter, like he would never let go. “I’ll fix this, Howl, I swear it.”
“My Saint.” She tipped her chin for a kiss that forced me to turn my head. “You can’t fix everything.”
“I can try.”
Without a backward glance, he launched into the sky, taking the immediate threat with him.
If it hurt, that they had been so lost in each other neither of their gazes had found me, I couldn’t show it.
And it worried me, that flaring the grimoire alerted Dad in record time.
“This won’t end well.” I watched them until they were a speck on the horizon. “Not well at all.”
“Your father has one of her finger bones.” Asa must have shifted while I was busy tucking away my pain. “Perhaps he can bury it in land they owned and award her some control over her actions.”