Page 156 of Summer of Sacrifice

“Mother?” Sorscha squeaked in disbelief.

Seleste gasped.

Winnie wept.

“My darlings,” their mother’s ghost said, touching each of their cheeks, her hand cold. “There is no other way. Let her do this.”

Already, the spirit was fading, and Sorscha’s hand lashed out. “Don’t go! Please!”

“I wait for you in the Afterlife, my dear ones.”

And she was gone.

Winnie, Sorscha, and Seleste wept openly.

Watching. Waiting.

Higher Aggie rose until they had to squint. The magic stopped streaming into her, the battle quiet behind them. Aggie’s body tilted, her gown swaying. The Reaping Moon began to pass behind her, but it was Aggie who blocked out the sun.

“She is the dark star,” Winnie whispered through tears.

“And she will blot out the sun,” Sorscha cried.

Seleste sank to her knees. “Lady Magie de la Nuit.”

WINNIE

Athania’s limp form suddenly animated and screeched within Grimm’s grasp, tearing at her skin, at the vines of Lord Night’s power holding her in place. Flailing uselessly atop the rock with no more magic left.

Aggie had it now. Aggie had it all now.

Grimm moved from where he’d bound Chresedia in shadow ghouls.

The Reaping moon slipped behind Aggie in the sky, everything plunging into murky darkness.

“No,” Seleste whispered, one arm reaching out toward her Sister. “Aggie, NO!”

Chapter

Thirty

GRIMM

He hovered over his prone, floating wife, shifting into his mortal form. Blinking rapidly, he cleared the tears from his vision. He needed to see her.

“Don’t you dare leave me here yet, witch. If I’m alive, so are you.”

Her lips curved at his words, those honey eyes fluttering open. Black veins etched along her cheeks, her jawline, the column of her neck. Her heartbeat was so faint.

“Our grave has been dug as one, and we’ll climb in together.” A single tear slipped from her eye, and he wiped it away with his thumb. “Are you ready, my love?”

She nodded once, and Grimm shifted back into his reaper.

WINNIE

The reaper roared, a cry of agony that shook the ground until Winnie almost lost her footing. Sorscha was clawing her way up the rocks, screaming. Seleste was on her knees, weeping. But Winnie couldn’t move.

You are going to right all our lives, Aggie. You watch and see, she’d told her Sister in the Spring.

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