In all the books I’d read, thirteen was the number of witches in a coven.
Heathens, while witches, didn’t take part in the total number of Norse Woods. The Heathens personified Norse Woods, soul, heart, mind, and magic. Without the Heathens, Norse Woods would not exist.
The number taking up space in Zephyr’s home was not thirteen.
There were dozens of bodies on floors, in front of the fire, on couches. Coven members and their families, and their family’s family. The elderly, who were too frail and weak to defend themselves, and children, who were too small and scared, and the sick, who struggled, their breaths coming in rugged and out coarse. And, finally, the Heathens, who opened their arms to let them all in, so they didn’t have to be alone and unprotected. Some flatlanders, even, who’d cast scornful eyes and scathing brows for years at them.
Inside, chandeliers were dimmed low, curtains drawn closed, and a full, eclipsing moon crept through the cracks with everything it had.
Husbands gathered before the fire, unable to sleep, drinking brandy in hopes to stow away their fears, making room for bravery so wives could lean on them. Mothers whispered to their children. Things like, “Shh ... quiet ... settle down.”
Beck stood beside Phoenix, who was sipping brandy with the husbands and keeping the fire tamed and full, bringing heat to pump into the large room.
Clarence spoke to curious young men about Norse Woods’ history.
Kioni, Winta’s daughter, tended to Mr. Barlow, a ninety-three-year-old artifact with a mouthful of stories to tell, pages and spines tucked between his teeth. Kioni didn’t mind. Anything to distract her from her grief because this was what her mother would have wanted her to do.
Zephyr sat in front of the piano, his fingers floating effortlessly along the keys, a soothing yet despairing cadence drifting and swelling into the large room.
Just on the other side of the wall behind Zephyr, Julian stood in the foyer with Jonah St. Christopher. The two spoke low, just under the seams of the melody, facing the window and peering out into a barren stretch of trees, waiting for Fallon’s return. It was almost the witching hour, and she refused to leave Ocean at the morgue until she found answers.
And I was sitting alone, a Heathen without his keeper.
A man without his woman.
Ocean’s death served as a reminder that I did care for these people in Weeping Hollow. Having been sidetracked, destroying the Shadows had become my sole goal since I was struck with the realization that Adora could be the next victim. The thought trailed a braid of worry and anxiety across my flesh.
She was a part of me. If not half my soul, then in my blood.
A tangible thing you could see, feel, taste, hold.
Something concrete. Something to believe in.
I wondered if she felt it as well, if Adora was the name for all the times I felt something was missing. Not Heathen.
I looked up from my sketchpad as Beck walked across the grand room, stepping over Jolie and Josephine, who happened to be his next keeper after her mother died. Turns out his keeper was the Shadows’ first victim, and now the responsibilities fell on a fifteen-year-old girl in mourning. Beck approached Jonah and Julian in the entryway.
“She’ll make it,” Julian insisted, more for himself.
Not seconds later, Julian was at the door, unlocking it and standing in the doorway, cold winds barging inside.
Fallon, who was bundled up in a winter jacket and a scarf, entered the room with a white cat in tow, her cheeks pinched from the cold.
“It’s so cold out there,” she murmured, then, once Julian closed the door behind her, they greeted each other with a chaste kiss. A quick one that ended as soon as it started as the couple never gave way to a public display of affection for long. The two kept their love behind closed doors, discreet, only theirs and theirs alone, with no desire to share it with anyone else.
Adora and I never had this level of control. There was a thirst between us that one would abandon themselves to. It didn’t matter whether we wanted to strangle, please, or hold each other, as long as we were touching each other. A desperate hunger indifferent to our numbered days, borrowed hours, and stolen seconds. Our passion never had time on its side, but we didn’t need it. We had punctual lips, mindless hearts, and an island without clocks.
As Fallon pulled back from Julian, she found me in the foyer.
I quickly looked away, returning to my sketchpad and stared into the same feline eyes that I’d felt slip over me whenever she was near. With each passing second, I longed to see her, but I knew I would give in and could not resist the urge to take her into my arms. My actions would only harm her.
Then an envelope was slipped across my drawing and over Adora’s lips.
Fallon was standing over me. “I was told to give this to you.”
There was no name on the envelope but as soon as my fingers touched it, the memory imprinted into the paper let me know it was from Adora.
Julian, Beck, and Zephyr glared at me.
I ignored them and broke the flap enclosure’s seal.
To my beloved black sea,
It was full dark when I snuck out of the castle to meet you.
You wore those ripped black jeans and your new friend’s boots, with the sleet from the forest still in the grooves. You moved awkwardly in your new clothes because you were still creating yourself, like one of your drawings.
We drank vanilla cola from glass bottles and listened to a song about how fast the night changes, over and over. Two adults frolicking as youths, French kissing in secret to hide from winter and distract ourselves from the town crumbling around us. The way we touched each other was equally punishing and artful, painting a world where we could be together on each other’s skin.
For a while, we pretended.
For a while, I was the kind of woman you could give your heart to, and you weren’t the lost, forbidden Heathen. I suppose it never really mattered, anyway.
Still, slowly, and suddenly, I fell in love with you.
I didn’t realize how far I had fallen until I came up for air, and you weren’t there. But you made it so easy to love you, Stone Danvers.
You were right, though. I’m the writer of my own tragedy.
I wrote the story of how the siren fell in love with the heathen, but love was never enough for them to have their three-word fairytale. Consequences would always stand in our way, and in the end, love would always spill blood.
Now, it’s been days since I’ve seen you. I decided long ago, and this is my last letter. Everything I’ve worked so hard for—before you came along—will carry on as if our time together never happened.
Don’t bother stopping me.
As I once said, the tremor between us will only lead to carnage.
But as I plunge a knife into the chest of the man I once desired to marry, I’ll think of all those foolish nights when we pretended, our time on Bone Island, the vanilla colas, our stupid song, and you.
Yes, my beloved black sea.
I’ll think of you.
xx a
My heart felt as though it was being punched by a hammer.
Staring at the words, I could not move.
My mind was spinning, trying to decode her message, putting the pieces together because I refused for those six underlined words to sink in. How dare she write this to me, knowing we could never be together.
Then a black spider moved across my hand and froze on top of the letter.
My sight narrowed, tunneling, hypnotized by eight reflective black eyes. Inside them, a gloomy and wintry picture of Town Square arose. Night was bleak and dreary. Snow, steel gray and lifeless.
I sprang to my feet. The sketchpad and all crashed to the floor, and I rushed to the window.
Outside, a blood eclipse would soon weep in the night sky.
It had been over 150 years since a full blue blood moon eclipsed. The flood of memories of that hot summer night benumbed me as they returned. If Adora hadn’t killed him yet, she may when the eclipse reached its peak.
My pulse was in my ears. Julian appeared next to me. “What’s wrong?”
My shoulder slammed into his when I sprinted for the door. I threw it open and bolted down the stairs and across the fields. Snow came up to my calf with every sprint toward the woods, soaking my pants. There had been no time to bother with a coat, but the cold seemed to bother me none. I was numbed by worry and fear. So, I ran harder, leaping over trunks and weaving between trees.
Despite my pulse and breath muting my surroundings, I knew the Heathens were running after me. I could feel their presence, an invisible force of nature, closing in with every step.
My speed increased once I reached the pavement. The feeling in my legs was gone. My mind was not working to tell me to stop, as the mind often did. You can’t, you won’t, you shouldn’t, you couldn’t, it would say, but not on this night. My heart carried me to the place it wanted to go.
A crowd circled the gazebo. They were shouting and crying, and everything seemed to be covered in fog, as if their heads were being held underwater.
My sprint slowed to a walk as I approached the crowd. I pushed between bodies until people stepped aside, opening up for me just as a soul-wrenching cry pierced the night, chilling me to the bone.
Adora’s eyes were clenched tight, her teeth bared. Her face was wet as she held on to the wooden pole of the gazebo at the top of the stairs. Her cheek was smashed against it as Kane dragged a knife into her back. Another traumatic cry shattered like shards of glass, piercing the air and cutting me open.
I raced to Adora, but Kane snatched her off the pole and held her close to his chest, bringing the dagger to her throat.
I froze, feeling all the color drain from my face as I looked into her terrified green eyes. Tears flew down her cheeks and her lips trembled.
“Get back,” Kane growled, pressing the sharp edge against her skin.
Everything broke inside me, but anger rushed in, holding me together.
My muscles were jumping under my skin and the crowd had gone silent.
All I heard were her cries. All I saw were her eyes staring back at me.
“Get the fuck back,” Kane shouted.
My head shook because nothing else would move.
“No,” I gritted out through a clenched jaw. “I’m not backing off. I’m staying right here.” Adora was shaking in his arms, blood sliding down her chin from biting her lip raw. “I’m here,” I said again. To her this time. Adora looked at me frightened. We were both shaking now. “It’s not ending here, or ever.”
She took a steadier breath, and I looked up at the sky to find mine.
I’d been here once before, under an eclipse with my lungs feeling as though they were being ripped out of my chest. Last time, it was the dead of summer, and this time the freezing winds were fisting my bones. Before, the tribe had sliced me open and ripped off the sack—my heart, the organ I couldn’t survive without. This time, Kane was slicing her open just before he pulled the knife to her throat—my heart, the one I couldn’t survive without. And it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I looked back to see the Heathens surrounding me.
They were here, and I tried to take a deep breath.
“Look, Adora, the Heathens are here.” Kane laughed. “Out of anyone in this fucking town to come to your rescue, the Heathens did not make that list.” He looked around, as did I.
Cyrus was to my right, trying to talk Kane down.
I could hear the Heathens whispering behind me.
Augustine stood confused and was whispering in a woman’s ear.
“What the fuck are you even doing here?” Kane asked me. “This is Sacred Sea business.”
Then Zephyr stepped up behind me and leaned into my ear.
“Magic’s not working,” he whispered, and I looked back to Augustine, then up to the eclipse. “Time reversed a few seconds earlier today. We can’t use magic, brother. Not until time fixes itself.”
My hands curled into fists, and my eyes slammed closed.
Desperate, I reached for anything, called out to anything.
The gods. The ground. The earth.
There was nothing but silence.
My body was shaking, my teeth chattering from fear, worry, the cold.
I stepped closer. “Take a look at her,” I said. “She’s terrified. This is not what she deserves. If you’re eager to slit someone’s throat tonight, allow me to take her place. All I ask is that you please let her go.”
I felt eyes dart to me. The entire crowd. Cyrus, Phoenix, Augustine, even.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Phoenix hissed from my left.
From my right, Cyrus stood shocked. “You’d trade your life for hers?”
He bounced his gaze between Adora and me.
I chanced another step closer. “Let me come up there.”
Kane shook his head. “You’re crazy.”
Something disturbing moved across his features. Something sinister filled the look in his eyes. His grip tightened around the dagger, and he broke the thin skin of her throat as a warning. Adora hissed, slamming her eyes shut as blood streamed down her neck.
“Hurting her will be your biggest regret,” I scraped out, my hands shaking.
Kane’s gaze moved across the crowd, gazing at his father, Cyrus, Adora, and back at me. “Do you know what she did?”
“I don’t care. Whatever it is will not be resolved by harming her.”
A crafty grin stretched across his face. “I’d like to hold my own town meeting.”
Kane tightened his hold, pinning her to his chest. He dug the tip of the dagger into her temple. “You should all know that Adora Sullivan is a whore,” he shouted, eyes red and cheeks shaking. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be used? For nine years, she pretended to be family.” His eyes filled with tears. “For nine years, she pretended to care about me. For nine fucking years, this bitch fucked me!” He was screaming now, his hand shaking. “All this time, she admitted she got close just to kill me. For something I didn’t even do.”
“You know Adora,” Cyrus countered. “You know about her mom and what her mom tried to do. Adora didn’t mean to, man. She can’t help herself, just like you and I can’t help who our parents are. She needs us to be there for her.”
“Be there for her?” Kane wiped his nose. “She tried to kill me tonight.”
“Darling, I told you not to do that,” I said, keeping my eyes on the dagger, preparing to fly up the stairs. And, “I couldn’t—” she started to say, but my palm bolted out in front of me. “Don’t say a word.”
“No, no, no.” He tightened his grip around the dagger. “Let the cunt have her last words.”
At that, my gaze snapped back to Kane, another wave of rage spewing from my pores. “Kill her, and I will be there before you finish, reach down your throat, and pull out your intestines.” The anger clenched my teeth, not the cold any longer. “Are you willing to die for a girl who would take pleasure in scraping your guts from the bottom of her shoe?”
“If you had one day in my shoes, you’d slit your own throat.” Kane pressed his mouth to her ear. “She was supposed to be the one who gave a damn about me. She was the one who accepted me. I guess I have no one.”
Adora’s face contorted and her body shrunk in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. It was the first time I’d heard her say anything, and her terrified voice slashed my heart.
Kane adjusted her, bringing the knife back to her throat. “You think I’m willing to spend the rest of my life watching my back because I let you live?”
The scene of how I found Phoenix flashed before my eyes. Kane was capable of not only killing her, but he was capable of shredding her into pieces in front of an audience. This fear inside me only increased with each passing second.
A sudden movement caught my attention.
Cyrus was bolting toward Kane.
Time moved slow as I watched Kane’s eyes snap to the side, seeing Cyrus coming. Kane then drove the point of the blade into Adora’s collarbone, a wail escaping her. Before Cyrus could reach the stairs, I grabbed the back of his coat and threw him into the pavement.
“Nobody moves!” I shouted, seeing Kane stop. I put my palms in the air. “You have a death wish? Fine, but you have two options, and you’ll be happy to know you’re dying either way. The question is, would you rather die as the witch who killed a woman, or as the witch who killed a Heathen?” I spread out my arms. “Let her go, and I will not fight you. You can drive that dagger right through my heart.”
“Whoa-ha-ho,” Kane sang. “Now, why would I want to do that? You see, I have a feeling, and correct me if I’m wrong—”
I lifted my chin. “What?”
“A slit of her throat would kill you both.”
My jaw snapped shut. I scanned the crowd.
They were all staring at me with torches in their eyes under the crimson eclipse. Augustine furrowed his brows, wearing an angry scowl. Cyrus looked defeated as though he already knew.
My gaze fell upon Adora. And there went my heart.
It beat so violently every time she looked at me.
She was my only and all.
She was the very last breath at the bottom of my lungs.
I held her here, with my gaze, under a myriad of stars, as though we were alone. “Kill me?” I shook my head, my teeth chattering. “Losing you would sever my soul.”
A tear slipped from her eye, and a relieved exhale left me.
As though all the weight was lifted from my shoulders.
I turned to Cyrus, Augustine, and the Order, raising my arms up at my sides. “You’d have to kill me because I’m not leaving here tonight without her.” Everyone looked at me dumbfounded. “Now,” I said, facing Kane again, pointing at him. “I’m going to allow you five seconds to let her go before I rip out that sharp tongue of yours, use it to gut you like a fish, and wage a war against this entire town.”
“Sharp tongue? Like how sharp?” Kane asked, bringing the knife to the back of her shoulder. “This sharp?”—and Adora clenched her fists, blood pooling around her feet, with a scream that cracked me open again.
There was a heaviness in my chest, my muscles spasming under my flesh, ready to rip her from him at any moment.
Kane pointed the dagger at me, her blood dripping from the edge. “I’ll allow you five seconds to get on your fucking knees, Heathen, or I’ll cut this pretty little thing’s neck in half.”
Tears were draining out of Adora while the cold stole her cries.
She couldn’t face the crowd anymore, hanging her head.
Hot tears welled in my eyes as I was completely powerless.
“Three seconds!” Kane screamed.
I clenched my jaw. Staring at her with a tight throat, like I was struggling to swallow a still-beating heart. A tear slid down my cheek. And then another. The strangers surrounding me were watching me, cursing me with their eyes as if I were the one harming her.
The blood eclipse spilled above, a dark, crimson glow.
Fear paralyzed me as visions from that night replayed in my mind.
Summer heat, pain, and profound weakness.
Their thirst for power, and my defenseless body kneeling before it.
“Two seconds!”
Upon catching Adora’s gaze, tears splashed the rims of her green eyes.
Then he began to cut into her, and her eyes slammed shut.
“Stop! Okay,” I shouted.
A blur filled my sights. I couldn’t catch my breath.
I felt everyone’s eyes on me. My heart was pounding.
And I fell to my knees.
“Now let her go.” Defeat filled my words and all the spaces between them. “Please just give her to me.”
Kane’s brows raised, and a chuckle fell out of him. “Now the rest of you.”
But all the sounds were muffled. All these voices were in a fog because my breath was in my ears, and I couldn’t take my eyes off Adora, who stood with blood spilling from everywhere. Her palms, chest, collarbone, neck, lips. I was certain her back, even. Behind me, the Heathens were cursing Kane, and Kane’s face turned red as he screamed back.
“Julian,” I pleaded, knowing if he did this, the rest would follow.
Then everything had gone silent.
Around me, the crowd froze in shock. Not a soul moved a muscle.
Only nighttime swirled, a cold winter howl circling us.
I glanced back to my left and right.
The rest of them had surrendered.
All five Heathens were on their knees for Adora.
Then the earth trembled. It was subtle, but I felt it.
The crowd gasped, and the wooden beams vibrated.
Snow that had piled atop the gazebo floated and drifted to the ground.
Then people moved out of the way, revealing Fallon, who was walking up, eyes wide and milky white, irises rolled to the back of her head.
A series of vowels and consonants rolled off her tongue, whispering a chain of words that didn’t make sense. She raised her arms, her palms setting off an iridescent white light in front of her.
With the dagger still pressed to Adora’s throat, Kane narrowed his eyes at Fallon, unsure what was happening. And when Fallon twisted her wrists, the blade’s sharp steel froze, turning to ice, from silver to white, cracking then shattering to pieces.
Kane dropped the bladeless handle.
I sprang to my feet and rushed up the stairs.
Although I was unable to feel my limbs, I knew that she was in my arms. She was shaking and clinging to me and pressing her face against my chest as though to bury herself and never come back out.
“It’s over,” I said and instantly checked her injuries. When I peeled her shirt from her skin to look where Kane had cut into her back, another wave of rage overcame me. My gaze lifted, and Kane was stepping back toward the bench. He sat in surrender, dropping his head into his hands.
I tore myself from Adora, not stopping until I had his throat in my fist and my fist in his face. Repeatedly, I punched, my knuckles connecting to Kane’s face, splitting the skin over his cheekbone whilst blood sprayed my cheek. I was outside myself, unable to pull away.
“Stop! He’s going to kill him!” someone screamed, but I didn’t.
I was then wrenched off him. It took all four Heathens.
Angry tears fell from my eyes as I pointed at Kane, whose face was busted open. “I want to rip your throat apart,” I roared through a clenched jaw. “But death gives you more peace than you deserve.”
I shoved Julian off me and turned to Adora.
She was sitting on the step.
I pushed a palm down my face and swiped up her bag, her jacket.
Adora looked up at me, teeth chattering.
Then she slowly rose to her feet, wincing in pain as she stood.
I lowered my head, pushing my mouth into her ear. “I refuse to carry you. You will walk away from this.” I snaked my arm around her waist to whisper the rest. “You’re going to walk away on your own two feet with dignity and your spine still intact.” She nodded, and I kissed the side of her head.
The crowd parted as we passed.
I glanced back at Cyrus.
He didn’t move a muscle.
He didn’t say a word.
He only stood there.
He only stood there.
I would never have just stood there.
I faced forward again, looking down Main Street and tucking her close to my side.
“You got on your knees,” she whispered.
“I did. No need to make a spectacle of it.”
Adora’s small laugh was light and broken.
I kissed her temple. “It felt like my lungs were being ripped from my chest.” I tried to stop the chattering of my teeth by clenching my jaw. “I would give you my final breath, Adora Danvers.”
“Sullivan.”
“For now.”
I looked back. The Heathens and Fallon weren’t far behind.
“Stone.” She shivered. “What’s wrong with my back?”
“I’ll fix it,” I told her. “All that matters is that you’re alive.”
“Stone,” she said again, sterner this time. “What’s wrong with my back?”
In the distance, Norse Woods stretched under a fading eclipse.
I fixed my gaze on it, tightening my hold on her bag.
“He carved his name.”