Page 128 of Amber Gambler

“No legs, but yeah.” I sensed Dis Pater shrug. “Hey, look at you. You’re already halfway there.”

The liquid boiled in my eyes as I forced them open to glare down the god who was killing me without the grace to evenaward me his full attention. Aside from a brighter glob in the center of the blinding light, it was impossible to tell where he stood. Floated. Illuminated. Whatever.

“I have never asked you for anything,” Kierce’s voice rolled like thunder, “but I beg you to spare her.”

“Huh. I didn’t see that coming.” He ignored Kierce and his plea in favor of me. “Hey, mouthy girl, can you see me?”

“Do you feel my hands around your throat, squeezing the life out of you?”

“Ha!” He sounded delighted. “She’s not an initiate or an acolyte, you boob.”

Somewhere wood splintered with crackling intensity.Shit. Not wood. Bone.Mybones.

For the span of one heartbeat, I imagined a face materialized, but it swirled away into the glare.

Had I been able to speak, I would have demanded he show himself, but I had lost control of my body. What should have been my tongue was a slab of cooked meat I wanted to spit out, but it was attached. I couldn’t move and— Was that asshole getting closer? I was sizzling. Burning. Roasting. And he was the sun.

Dying.

I wasdying.

And he couldn’t care less.

“Please,” Kierce shouted into the void. “Don’t do this.”

“Too late.” He dismissed Kierce. “It’s already done.”

“Frankie.”Kierce boomed my name, and the world trembled beneath me.

“Quit being dramatic,” Dis Pater grumped, “or I’ll take away your millet next time.”

The fierce drum that had beat in my chest for my entire life slowed and then…

…it stopped cold.

In that stillness, within the silent cavern in my chest, the spark that crushed souls in the palm of my hand ignited into a flame that grew into a raging inferno. And the universe shredded my flesh off the bone like I was a Boston butt halfway to a pulled pork sandwich before slapping me together again.

“Well,” Dis Pater drawled in anI told you sovoice, “would you look at that.”

Two days, twelve memorials, and one mental breakdown later…

The sunburnt feelingwouldn’t go away no matter how much moisturizer I slathered on my flawless skin. The itch was killing me. Slowly. Painfully. No matter how I scratched, it persisted until I wanted to claw it off. I might have, my skin, I mean, if I hadn’t been certain it would grow back before my eyes, leaving me with yet more tangible proof my life as I had known it was over.

“I thought I might find you out here.” Josie joined me in the grass beneath the burning tree, which was now warded by Kierce, much to Moore’s sadness. Though she had perked up when I confided there was a second god tree we had yet to locate that was all hers if she found it first. “I finalized the order.”

“Thanks.” I would have squeezed her hand but moving hurt. “Everyone should have a grave marker.”

Little, who Dis Pater had cremated either through intent or neglect, had been scooped into a sandwich bag before the 514 arrived to process the scene. I had sprinkled her remains into the Wilmington River, which flowed past Bonaventure, per Farah’s request.

Farah, who had decided to stay with Alyse a while longer while she mourned Little, and herself.

I still owed Audrey a visit with her best friend, but Farah wasn’t ready to see her. Her grief was too fresh.

“You did better by her than she deserved, Mary.”

Moonlight bathed the roots of the tree, which had turned bone-white overnight. “Little was a kid.”

“They were all kids, and now they’re all dead.”

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