Malachy’s features crumbled amidst the starlight. With an anguished groan, he dragged his hands over his face. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Cora, but delaying the pain has only hurt you more. I’m so sorry.”
Anger and hopeless despair burned through the mist in her mind. He had known the nuances of the Profane curse all this time and purposefully not told her. Teddy’s fate had always been death. Inescapable, permanent death. Releasing his spirit from its cage would only damn it into another. She’d made a deal with a demon for a forsaken spirit. His death had been forged by a curse and carved into implacable stone.
Teddy was never coming back.
It had all been for nothing.
The scream clawed out of her throat. She jerked back when Malachy reached for her, knocking into the other dreamers swirling into the growing vortex.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she sobbed, swimming outside the current of dreamers, Malachy in her wake. “There has to be another way! This can’t be it.”
“It is. I know it, for it’s the same fate awaiting me. Once they free Teddy’s spirit from the Oracle Ruby, he will die. Once they take mine from the Egg, I will die. It’s too late for me. But not for you.Survive, Cora.”
His gaze shot to the demons now a hundred feet away. Ikelas and Ghose were in the center of a massive vortex, their backs bent as they laid down a glittering pentagram.
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Don’t let Ikelas use Koschei’s Egg. It will give her powers unimaginable. She could drop London into a Dreamverse no one will wake from.”
“But… How can I stop her? I might be able to slip out through the Death Realm, but—”
“There’s no time. Destroy Koschei’s Egg, however you can. If you destroy it, from our Binding Agreement, killing me will kill yourself. But—” He held up her wrist, the scar a white vine thick with thorns. “Killing me will resurrect you.”
“What?” she gasped. “That’s impossible! Resurrection is a myth. I-I can barely reanimate.”
“Twin mages born of death.” He traced the thorny corona of scar tissue around her navel. “Youcanresurrect. You’ve resurrected yourself twice. Why not thrice? A life for a life. Your mother’s life, Felix’s life, and now my life for your own.”
She stared in stupefied silence. “You can’t be serious—”
He seized her by the shoulders, his eyes boring into her. “The death must be committed by your hands for you to resurrect yourself. You said your death empowerment only lasts a few minutes, the time a spirit is in transit to the Death Realm. You’ve a short time to balance death’s scales.”
“But…” She looked around in desperation. “What if I can’t?”
“We’ll still be dead.”
She released a shaky breath. “Fair enough.”
The rippling sea thickened around them. Turning her head seemed to take minutes. A bubble was forming around the demons, like oil suspended in water. They moved much faster inside than the dreamers outside.
“Time freeeze,” Malachy said in a drawn-out groan.
Infinitely slow, they swam through the viscous night sky, and slower still, he shoved her through the bubble before it closed. She went from being suspended in sap to a whiplash of normalcy.
Behind her, Malachy was frozen in horror. Time had stopped everywhere except within the bubble.
The demons turned as Cora broke through. Ikelas was sprawled in a bloodred pentagram while Ghose was poised to carve out her heart. Images shifted on her body—a coiling snake, a belly swelling with child.
Cora burst past the stunned time demon and leapt onto Ikelas. Channeling her death magic, she rotted off the clawed hand clutching Koschei’s Egg.
Ghose wrenched Cora off a moment later, but the damage had been done. Ikelas grasped the unspooling canvas of hermutilated arm. From the slack grip of her severed hand rolled the Egg.
The time bubble burst.
Cora and Ghose dove after Koschei’s Egg. She was overflowing with awful energy, but he could manipulate time. Her fingers grazed the pulsing metal. Close.So close. Surging forward, she grasped it. Right before time stopped.
Seconds or lifetimes later, Cora unstuck from the demon’s sap-like net. In time to see Ghose crush Koschei’s Egg between his hands. The needles cracked in half. Within the broken metal cage, Malachy’s heart beat its last.
Cora screamed.
“What have you done?” Ikelas’s fearsome screech echoed across the waves. “Only Koschei’s Egg keeps both body and spirit ageless! No other spirit vessel will work! We had a deal, Alastair. I won’t release you from my Dreamverse.”
