SERAPHINA'S POV
Terribly late.
The words seemed to echo endlessly through the ritual chamber, bouncing off the black crystal suspended from the ceiling and the ancient stone beneath my feet until they became something far larger than a simple sentence.
Terribly late.
Terribly late.
Terribly late.
My gaze remained fixed on my mother's body.
Margaret Lockwood lay crumpled where Catherine had thrown her, hair spilling across the bloodstained floor, stark against the darkness surrounding her.
I couldn't feel Sylvia at all.
The bond that had connected us through dreams and blood and distance had disappeared so abruptly that panic instantly flooded my veins.
No.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
No.
She couldn't be dead.
Not after everything.
Not after hearing her call me her precious little girl.
Not after she’d finally looked at me with love I'd spent most of my life believing never existed.
