The Hollow laughed.
Cassian hit the ground in real time, gasping. The wound across his chest burned, but it wasn’t blood he felt—it wastruth.The vision still sizzled behind his eyes.
He blinked.
Seraphine hovered over him, pale, shaking.
“Cassian—what the hell just happened?”
He grabbed her wrist, breath ragged. “We—we had a daughter.”
“What?”
“Isawher.” His voice cracked. “She was—perfect. Light. Yours.”
Seraphine stared. “Was?”
The pain in his chest twisted. “The Hollow tried to show me what it would take. What I’d lose.”
“And?”
“And I can’t let it win.”
She touched his face, desperate. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
“I don’t know if Icananymore.”
A new tear cracked through the ruin, but the magic snapped closed as fast as it opened. The Veil rippled once—then settled.
Whatever that had been?—
It had shown him a future. One hewanted.Which terrified him more than anything else.
He pulled her close and whispered, “We have to finish this. Now.”
THIRTY-THREE
SERAPHINE
Cassian’s voice still echoed in her ears.
“We had a daughter.”
Notwe could have. NotI imagined. He’d said it like heknew. Like some part of him had lived it. Felt it. Lost it.
Seraphine sat in silence, her knees pulled to her chest as the embers of the ruptured ground dimmed behind them. The Veil still pulsed wrong. The magic around the Wyrdlands felt jagged and too loud, like every breath cost too much.
She watched him from the corner of her eye—Cassian leaning against the ruined wall, his jaw tight, arms crossed over his chest like he was trying to hold himself in. The shadows behind him shifted, not like before. They didn’t slither or hunger.
Theywatched.
Cassian wasn’t the same. She wasn’t sure she was either.
“You saw her,” she whispered finally.
He didn’t look at her. Just nodded once.
“And what else?”
