Page 89 of An Invocation of Monsters

He bowed his head to me.

“You’re one of them… from the Doors Beyond.”

28

Elle

I wanted to bray with disbelieving laughter, but I was simply too exhausted to do much more than stand there.

Was he implying that I was… a monster?

Absurd. Ridiculous.

Utterly nonsensical and preposterous.

But there was no hint of a joke in Kase’s eyes.

“You’re kidding, right?” I finally asked, sounding as tired as I felt.

Kase opened his mouth, and then Mary reached us. Her sharp gaze took in the blood in Willow’s hair, on her dress, on my hands.

“What happened?” she asked, her sharp voice cutting the air.

I wanted to downplay it, but of course I was too slow.

“Willow fell out of the old cherry tree,” Kase said, even as I was shaking my head to negate anything he said. “She was completely broken up. Elle laid her hands on her, and… and brought her back.”

This was followed by that look again.

The one I was itching to smack off his face.

I restrained my anger, taking a few deep breaths. The second I’d taken off my gloves, I’d known this would happen.

There was no turning back time, and even if I could, I wouldn’t have changed anything.

It wasn’t worth letting Willow die just to keep my secret.

But I would have given a lot to have kept it from Kase and Willow. It was bad enough that Mary now knew the extent of it, and even now I could see the calculation in her eyes as her gaze ping-ponged between Willow and me.

“Bring her inside,” she finally said. “I’ll get her bed ready for her.”

Kase obeyed, rising to his feet with Willow clutched to his chest… but he didn’t follow until he’d sketched out another bow to me.

God, I could live without this.

“Thank you,” he said, the waterworks flowing again.

“It was no problem,” I mumbled, and I followed him inside, eagerly breaking away to go to my own quarters.

Her blood was caked under my nails.

I turned the faucet in my bathroom sink as hot as it would go, scrubbing my hands over and over again. I wanted to get the feel of her broken, shifting body off my hands and out of my memories.

I looked up at myself, expecting to see shocked violet flesh under my eyes, to be as pale as Kase.

Instead, I looked… vibrant. My skin was the most perfect it had ever been in my life. The crimson of my hair glowed like embers.

I frowned at myself, my hands burning as I held them under the water. What was happening to me?

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