Page 191 of Children of Fallen Gods

The crash tore the air in two.

Sweat plastered my clothing to my skin. My head was spinning. I struggled to my hands and knees and crawled to the mirror. Broken glass bit into my palms — from the mirror and the glass, mixed together in tiny shards on the floor.

Two bony, rotting hands remained, braced on either side of the mirror frame, as if about to vault themselves out of it…now attached to nothing.

“Fucking brilliant.”

I turned to see Max leaning against the doorframe. His second eyelids were closed now, gaze cool and blue and so very tired. He was not wounded, but he looked impossibly weak. My gaze fell to his hands. They were black.

I got to my feet. “We have to leave. I do not know if it’s dead or—”

My words were drowned out by a strange sound. It started low, and then rose louder and louder:

Shshshshshshsh...

Max and I looked to the now-glassless window just in time for birds to pour through it.

Max muttered a curse, but it was drowned out beneath the sound of their wings, a deafening whisper that swelled like a rising tide. We both braced, but the birds simply surrounded us and then moved past, rushing through the bedroom, down the hall, and presumably, disappearing out another window.

The sound slowly faded.

When I opened my eyes again, Max was staring at my hands. “What is that?”

I looked down. Where my hands had been empty, now they held two pieces of parchment.

I unfolded one. At first, it was blank. Then words unfurled over it.

You are in great danger.

There are more coming for you.

And worse, for your people.

Max breathed a confused curse, and I couldn’t help but agree.

Move quickly.

Use the Stratagram on the paper beneath. I will explain.

“Absolutely fucking not,” Max said. And the next words came as if they could hear him:

I cannot make you trust me.

But they will be coming for you in seconds.

And your people need you now to stop something worse.

“I don’t understand,” I murmured, and Max let out a low scoff.

“Because this is insane,” he said, beneath his breath. “Utterly insane.”

He was right. It was insane.

But then we heard a dullthump,and both of our heads snapped up.

There was a shuddering sound, like the wind through the trees. And slowly, it grew louder, fuller. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I knew what we were hearing. Could feel more of them, coming.

“We have to go,” I said.

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