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Squirming, Lilith caught the blow on her shoulder and managed to pinch the long nerve in Sylvie’s arm. The rock in her grip trembled, but Sylvie refused to let go.
A sudden pulse, like a giant heartbeat, rocked the roof. A roll of grey fog passed over them, through them, and circled the roof, corralling all the drifting bits of Bran.
A small distant part of Sylvie wondered what that effort had cost Du
Sylvie’s hot blood cooled as if a glacier had breathed on her. Magdala met her eyes, licked away a bloody streak on her cheek with a long, inhuman tongue, and sat back, watching. Any excuse, her posture said. Yeah, Lilith wasn’t her mother, but hadn’t A
The rock in Sylvie’s hand trembled and fell. The dark voice wailed as they fell out of concert with each other, but Sylvie shuddered. So close to a crime the Furies considered unforgivable. The dark voice snarled, You’re damned anyway. Dead anyway. Make her pay for it.
Tentative hope sprang up in Sylvie’s chest. Would Erinya bother to warn her if her life were already forfeit?
Lilith laughed, a sound hoarse and sore. “Cain’s child, too. A rock in your fist. But you should never show mercy.” A flick of her fingers, and a tiny stick dropped into her hand, a thin matchstick, brittle, breaking, a tiny ghost flare promising balefire. . . .
Sylvie scrabbled for something, anything, found a weapon, plunged it into Lilith’s chest. Lilith’s shriek broke off into a familiar whine. Sylvie glanced down, at the blood on her hands, at the spindle embedded in Lilith’s rib cage. Glowing, spi
Mistake, she thought. Bad mistake.
As if Bran had just been waiting for blood, the motes that made his soul poured toward Lilith, as if she were the black hole. Sylvie heard a protesting gasp from Bran, but it wasn’t repeated. Instead, the gold began to shift and struggle. If Bran had been sleepwalking through the transformation before, now he was awake, aware, and very afraid. The more concentrated streamers of his power coiled tightly around Du
Lilith vanished from beneath Sylvie, reappeared closer to Du
Sylvie pushed herself to her feet. She didn’t know what she could do, but she had to do something. Du
She shook her head. Careless thinking. He wasn’t at the end of his strength; he was at the limits of his ability to control that strength. In the storm-cloud core of him, Sylvie saw a sight as bleak as a nuclear winter. He could stop all this. Smite Lilith, force Bran into shape, but he couldn’t do that and keep his strength confined. Working against himself was burning him to nothing. The raveling of his body was considerable. His torn arm was gone, and a large divot was eating out his rib cage.
“Erinya. Magdala.” Du
Magdala leaped forward. Du
“Eri—”
“I only kill things; sometimes you save them,” Erinya said. She turned and burrowed into Du
Lilith glowed brightly against the grey shielding Du
She took a step forward, and Du
29
Picking Up the Pieces
HELP BRAN. PROTECT BRAN. SO MUCH EASIER SAID THAN DONE, Sylvie thought, when she was overwhelmed by the idea. So much simpler to fight an enemy than aid an ally who had given up. Lilith wanted to be a god so desperately, and Bran—he had wanted to be human. And Sylvie had taken that away from him.
Sylvie had failed before, pulled defeat from victory. She had no intention of doing so again, not when Demalion had died to make this victory possible.
Across the roof, Lilith scrabbled at the shielding Du
Lilith doesn’t need to, Sylvie thought. Not if she could absorb more of Bran. The power still flowed toward her, into her, like water ru
“Bran,” Sylvie said. It was a whisper, drowned in the sounds of Lilith cursing Du
Of course, if Sylvie could get Bran back together, Lilith could do nothing, either. Bran’s mind was still around, somewhere—his occasional words reassured her that her task was at least theoretically possible.
A subtle vibration of rage, so low-pitched that Sylvie felt it in her bones before she heard it, came from Du
Do something, the little dark voice warned. If you fail here, Du
“—is if Bran’s whole,” she said. Behind Du
Sylvie spun, looking, hunting for some hint that Bran’s consciousness was near and able to hear her. The gold spill of his power seemed massed in three places; one, the mindless juncture of Lilith and working spindle, two, the needy coils winding about Du
Sylvie realized it was hovering over Alekta’s corpse. Definite consciousness, she thought. Grief—an inevitable part of love.
“Bran,” she said. She put a tentative hand out, stirring the nebulous cloud to shifting, sending a cold chill through her skin, as if a ghost had turned in its path to touch her in return.
She loved bad jokes, Bran whispered. But she didn’t know that until she came to be Kevin’s. Until she followed him to the mortal world. This is my fault. But I thought—
Hurry, hurry, the dark voice shrieked, but Sylvie tried a gentler approach.