They say that in your final moments, your life flashes before your eyes—a series of still images projected from your subconscious to your dying mind. For Ursula, it began at fifteen: the firefighter pulling her from the rubble of St. Ethelburga’s Church, the flashbulbs as she left the courthouse with her first foster family. The next few scenes were a blur, one family after another, accompanied by a soundtrack of tutting, screaming, and finally shrieks of “I can’t take this girl anymore!”

When her lungs were close to bursting, the filmstrip slowed. Her tiny apartment in Bow flickered past. Those two arsehole students fighting in the club. Last of all, Rufus’s words reverberated through her skull: “You’re a sad cow who won’t make anything of your life.”

He’s right. Because now her shitty life was over in a flash of shattered bones and burning lungs. Burning.

A final burst of rage inflamed her—rage at the unfairness and the futility of it all. She hadn’t asked for any of this—to be a mystery girl with no family and an infernal fire inside her. Anger flowed, a hot magma in her veins. It erupted from her, broiling and volcanic. She pressed her blazing hands into the wight’s shining eyes.

Its hands wrenched off her throat, and she heard her own scream.

Chapter 8

Hot blood gurgled from Ursula’s throat, bubbling into her lungs. Drowning in her own fluid, she was kept conscious only by the agony wracking her body. Then her vision blurred, and she no longer cared about the injustice of her short life. She just wanted to sleep, to rest peacefully in silence, free of this mind-shattering agony.

But instead of silence, a melodious sound drifted into her ears. Kester, speaking in Angelic again—but she understood the words, something about healing waters and leaching out the pain. Her sight began to clear. She caught a flash of green eyes above her. Kester kneeled over her, changing, his brow furrowed with concern.

As he spoke, she could feel her bones shift and slide into place, the pain slowly dulling. Gently, she touched her neck. It still throbbed, but the skin was smooth, healed over. She rolled over, hacking a crimson spatter of blood onto the blackened earth.

Still crouching, Kester quirked a smile. “I imagine this hasn’t been the best birthday celebration you’ve ever had. But you made it.”

He’d called up a demonic and lethal creature without warning her, and now he was smiling about it. “Wanker.” She choked out the word, her voice box still raw.

“Is that any way to talk to the man who just saved your life?”

Ursula rose to her knees, gasping. Though her ribs and left arm were healed, they still throbbed with pain. “That wasn’t a trial. That thing almost killed me.” She was fresh out of patience.