“We can try,” Jax promised her. “Di, can you—” He glanced back to the skysailer, but Di, it seemed, was gone.

Ana

Mellifare prowled deeper into the shrine, humming gently to herself. “Come now, you know you cannot hide from me forever.”

Ana quietly shimmied across the arms. Her grip was sweaty, and the wax was slippery. The only sound she could hear was her hammering heart, and she hoped it wasn’t as loud as she feared—

Her hand knocked over a candle.

It toppled before she could catch it and clattered on the ground.

The Great Dark turned her gaze up toward the statue—

When a bolt of lightning caught Mellifare on the side of the face, and she went stumbling into the pews.

Di dropped from one of the windows accessed by the outside scaffolding. He had a sword wound torn through his chest, too close to where his memory core should be, and it sparked even in the shadow of the shrine. He pulled himself up to his full height, even though it looked like it pained him. “Looking for someone?”

“You,” Mellifare seethed, righting herself. She clutched the side of her face, where the skin had blackened and cracked. “Why do you stop me? You are on my side. You are with me.”

“I am not with you, Mellifare. I was never with you willingly.”

“Lies—I was in your head. I remember.”

Di shifted uncomfortably.

“You promised me the heart, Dmitri.”

“I am sorry mine was not enough,” he replied—and winced. He must have heard the song.

Or realized how bad that pickup line was.

Ana curled her fingers into the soft wax underneath her. She had to keep going.

Don’t stop, she coached herself, and began to creep forward again, her heart thundering like funeral drums in her ears. She had to go quietly, and quickly, while Di kept Mellifare occupied.

“And what did Viera promise when you turned her? Or was she dead before you made her a monster?”

“A monster? I gave you freedom.”

“You took away who I was!” he snarled.

Mellifare laughed. “I made you better. Now where is my heart, brother?”

“I am not your brother.”

Below her, Mellifare circled Di like a carrion bird did to a corpse. “You will tell me. You do not have a choice.”

Then she flicked her hand. A bolt of light jumped out of her fingers and shot toward Di. He caught it in his hand and shot it back. It whirled over Mellifare’s shoulder and slammed into the intricate stone molding above the door. A piece of marble cracked off and shattered on the ground. Mellifare launched herself at Di, arcs of lightning striking the pillars and scorched stone walls, leaving burned flower markings in their wake.

Goddess’s spark, Ana cursed, and the hair on her arms stood on end. She doubled her pace to the shoulder of the Goddess and down the side of the statue. An arc of lightning shot up into the rafters, and Di went flying back into the benches, snapping them in half like a twig. She had to end this—fast. She jumped down the last few feet onto the pedestal.