Page 143 of The Shadow Bride

Any tearIcreate.

Realization strikes like a fist to my ribs, and I nearly double over with it. Whirling to face Filippa, I say, “You can close the door.”

Dimitri leans closer, unable to hear over the roar of the waterfall. “What?”

“You created the door,” I say louder, clearer, staring at her in shock. In slowly burgeoning hope. It grows from a flicker to a flame in a single breath. All this time, I’ve been searching for a solution to save my sister, but could it be that—that sheisthe solution? Not her death after all, but her life. Just—her.

Filippa knows how to manipulate the veil; I’ve watched her come and go through it, watched her tear it apart as she pleases. She has never died to mend it, and she needn’t die now either. Breathless with the revelation, I dart forward to seize her hands. “You created the door, Filippa, so you can close it. You’ve been able to close it all along.”

She needn’t die.

Again, Filippa does not react, instead staring back at me with that same unerring cunning. “Yes,” she says simply. “I know.”

Chapter Forty-Six

The Tide Changes

Filippa and I return from the garden alone.

We also—somehow—return human.

When we swim into the grotto, everything remains just as we left it—Lou and Reid sit on either side of my mother, while Odessa stands sentry between them and the revenants. Death waits at the shore impatiently, tapping his foot like a petulant child, before splashing out to meet us in the shallows. Seizing first Filippa’s arm, then mine, he wrenches us from the waves before turning to search for Michal. “Well?” he snaps. “Where is he?”

I collapse to the ground at his feet, struggling to breathe after navigating the vicious current. My limbs tremble with exhaustion, and my lungs ache; my throat is blistered and raw. “He—he refused to come back with us.”

“Excuse me?” Death asks sharply, his eyes widening. “What did you say?”

Sensing the danger, Odessa urges Lou, Reid, and my mother toward the stairs, bending down to snatch up Jean Luc and Brigitte at the last second. They remain unconscious. Though the revenants silently follow, circling them, Death doesn’t seem to notice; his attention remains fixed upon me, his silver eyes darkening, swirling, building like a storm on the horizon.Good.

“Has your hearing deteriorated since we left?” I ask him. “Michal didn’t come.”

I refuse to flinch—to reveal anything—as Death crouches, seizing my collar and bringing my mouth to his ear.

“Say it again,” he snarls.

“He saidno.” I gesture between myself and Filippa, who has managed to remain standing despite her heaving chest. Eyes narrowed, she does not move to defend me, but she doesn’t move to join the revenants either. “We dragged him from the river, but Michal knew if he came back the veil would fall. I couldn’t force him.” Lip curling, I gesture down at my own human body, soaking wet and slight—much too slight to overpower Michal, even if I’d tried.

I couldn’t force him.

And that is perhaps the worst part of all—that I could not convince him, that he would not listen to my pleas. Michal chose to stay in the garden to save the world, and how could I ever take that choice away from him?

“He... said no,” Death repeats silkily.

And—without any further warning—he erupts.

Exploding to his feet, Death throws up his hands before dragging them through his hair, tearing at the strands and screaming with rage. Startled, I fall backward before clambering into the shallows to escape him. “IT SEEMS I HAVE NOT BEENCLEAR”—he sweeps the contents from Michal’s desk—“IF YOU THOUGHTNOWAS AN OPTION!” He upends the desk without ceremony, but—apparently unsatisfied—next picks up the mantel clock and launches it across the grotto at Odessa. The revenants part like puppets, and it shatters against her back as shespins to protect the others, toshieldthem, and wood ricochets in all directions. “Do you not understand theconsequences? Do you think this is agame?”

He hurls the entire desk atmenow, and I just manage to flatten myself upon the rocks as it hurtles overhead. Panic claws up my throat as I roll to avoid the matching chair, then a bedpost, which Death has wrenched from its frame; it streaks into the maelstrom like a javelin. And this—this is bad. Scrambling for the desk chair, I dive behind it for cover, unable to catch my breath. My limbs threaten to fold at the burst of movement, still exhausted from fighting the maelstrom.

I’d forgotten just howfeeblemy body could feel, but this isn’t the time or place for weakness. Though I knew Death would react like this, I failed to distract him long enough for the others to escape. Now they crouch halfway across the room, trapped by revenants, while Odessa snarls and knocks aside another bedpost. She cannot protect five people by herself, however—not with two unconscious and two more on the verge of collapse.

My mother screams as Death advances—shunting aside his precious revenants when they don’t move fast enough—his skin flushed, mottling with rage. “Itoldyou this would happen! Iwarnedyou—”

“Filippa!” Desperately, I lunge toward her, stumbling to where she stands by the shore and watches in silence. “Filippa, PLEASE—”

Death snarls again at that, whirling abruptly—changing tack unexpectedly and charging toward us instead. He mimics my voice in a terrifying shriek. “Yes, Filippa,please! Please, PLEASE, tell meexactlyhow I should fillet your mother and sister becauseof your incompetence, yourfailure.” He bares his teeth in a truly crazed smile. “Tell meexactlyhow I should—”

“I did what you asked.” Filippa lifts her chin at his approach, unflinching, and meets his maniacal gaze without fear. “I guided my sister to your realm, and I brought her safely back again. Where is my daughter?”

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