Page 166 of Children of Blood and Bone

Think!I ram my head against the door, blood pounding as her screams grow. I can’t get in.

I need to get her out.

I race along the corridor, but the distance does nothing to break the anguish. Concerned faces flash as I stumble past.

Lips move.

People speak.

I can’t make out their sounds over Zélie’s screams. Her shrieks ring through the door. They screech even louder in my head.

I crash into the nearest washroom and slam the door. Somehow, I latch the lock.

I can sense they’ve started on theGnow; it’s as if the curve is etched into my own back.

“Ugh!”

I grasp the porcelain sink’s rim with shaking hands. Everything in me comes out. My throat stings from the burn of vomit.

The world spins around me, violent and thrashing. It’s all I can do not to pass out. I have to power through.

I need to get Zélie out—

***

IWHEEZE.

Cool air hits me like a brick to the face. It pulls the scent of wet grass into my lungs. Wilted reeds tickle my feet.

The dreamscape.

The realization brings me to my knees.

But I have no time to waste. I have to save her. I need to bring her to this place.

I close my eyes and picture her face. The haunting silver of her eyes. What new letter have they carved into her back? Her heart? Her soul?

Within seconds, Zélie appears. Gasping. Half-naked.

Her hands grip the earth.

Her eyes hang empty in her head.

She stares at her shaking fingers with no recognition of where she is.

Who she is.

“Zélie?”

Something’s missing. It takes me a second to realize what’s wrong. Her spirit doesn’t surge like the ocean tides.

The sea-salt scent of her soul is gone.

“Zél?”

The world seems to shrink around us, pulling in the blurred white borders. She’s still—so still I don’t know if she’s heard me or not.

I reach out. When my fingers graze her skin, she shrieks and scrambles back.

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