Chapter 12: The Choice

I stood on the ledge with my sister in my arms and could not make my legs move.

The dragon went on singing.

Every note was a hand on my chest, pulling.

"How do you know?" I said.

"I don't know how. I just do."

Linnet touched her half locket, the twin of mine, which hung around her neck.

It glowed gold.

So did mine, against my ribs, in time with the song.

"Two nights ago I dreamed a woman held me and sang it," she said. "I thought it was a dream."

I looked at Ilsabet.

She had her hand over her mouth.

"The last Seraph," she whispered. "She vanished sixteen years ago. The Duke told everyone she died in childbirth."

"Childbirth," I said. "Whose?"

Ilsabet nodded slowly.

"Linnet's. The Duke put her at his own gate afterward, so no one would ask where she came from."

"He turned her into this," she said. "For her power. Gods, Rowan. He's been feeding off her for sixteen years."

A bell began to ring somewhere above us.

It was not the alarm bell of Thornfield, thin and fast.

This was deep and iron, and every beat of it shook dust from the cavern roof.

Boots thundered down the spiral stair.

"Guards," Ilsabet said. "Now."

"The chain," I said. "I have to take the collar off her."

"It's tied to Linnet's blood. If you break it wrong, the collar will fire."

"Then how do we do it?"

The cavern door slammed shut.

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