They had been waiting for us.

The blue-cloaked strangers quickly closed in. Instinctively I leapt back, but there was already someone behind me. I slammed into them, sending both of us toppling over as well a few others nearby.

Lillian quickly righted me, rolling me off the mass of bodies so we were in a crouch and on my feet again. She leapt from our crouch like a runner taking off, still clutching the skull tight to my chest, cradling it like a football. As we ran over the still-fallen strangers, my feet dug into their backs and stomachs. I didn't feel bad as they cried out in pain.

Had they followed us? I thought with racing panic. Or was Sofia right, and they had been watching her all this time...?

But why were they here? They already had Luc.

What did they need us for?

Unless Lillian had been wrong...

I'm not wrong! Something's changed, she hissed inside my head, even as she leapt over more advancing Gathered. She was graceful in a way I never had been, spinning and dodging with ease. It felt strange to ride along as she spun my body in every direction. It was a little like riding a roller coaster.

She had speed and agility, but they had numbers. No matter how well she danced out of their grip, there were always more coming... and coming and coming. Soon enough there was nowhere left to dodge.

A fist came flying at my face. Lillian twisted my head in time to avoid it, but there was another coming from the side. It slammed into my head, right above the ear. Light and dark flashed across my vision and my body went limp. I fell in what felt like slow motion.

The skull dropped out of my arms. It landed softly in the jacket. The bundle came undone and the skull rolled free, settling into the grass. I landed beside it. We both laid there, eye-to-eye, its empty sockets staring back at me.

A black boot came down on the skull. I barely had a chance to hide my face in the grass before orange shards of bone shattered everywhere. I didn't look back. I didn't want to see it. I pressed my face into the grass and dirt and I wished I could burrow into the Earth.

We were fucked.

The strangers had a different plan for me. Four firm hands pulled me back up to light and air. They held me tight even though I was still too dazed to struggle. Slowly my senses returned. I felt something wet sliding down my face. I looked down and noticed red seeping into my shirt. Was I bleeding?

Seeing my own blood cleared my head a little. I looked up. Polly was being pinned to the lawn by several of the blue cloaks. Her lip was swollen and bloody, but she was still struggling. We were surrounded by a thick crowd, but I could still see Sofia, standing above it all on the porch. She eyed the scene with quiet disgust but just stood there.

People from the neighbouring houses had started coming out onto their own front porches, curious about the commotion. But I noticed that Octavia and Anne were nowhere to be seen. Something about that was worrying...

Can't you do anything? I begged Lillian.

No, she snapped back. I could feel her anger with me... and with herself. I'm too tired. This is why I wanted to rest...

Something cold gripped my insides.

"Do we bring this one, too?" asked one of the blue-cloaks, drawing my attention back to them. She was pointing at Polly, who was still fighting despite the number of people pinning her down.

"No," came a voice from behind me. I tried to look back to see who, but I couldn't. "Just the possessed one."

Wait. My gaze met with Polly's. Her face was being pressed into the grass, but her brow was pulled into a deep frown over her grey eyes, so icy and sharp that they looked like they could cut. She bared her teeth.

But I could see it in her eyes, the same hopeless fear that I felt to my very core.

As quickly as they came, blue cloaks began to slip out of sight. Each one of them dropped into their own shadow, including my captors, who pulled me along with them.

✦

The circular stone room had changed a lot since I had last been here. The stone that made up the walls and floor was now barely visible; everything had been covered with some type of growth. Vines snaked around the stone pillars and the moss carpeted the floor in rolling mounds, thriving beneath the several inches of water that now pooled at our feet and soaked through my shoes. The air was thick with humidity, like we were in a huge greenhouse, dampening all sound and making it hard to breathe.

My gaze followed the weaving vines, tracing their path along the wall. They grew thicker and thicker, until, in the corner, they tangled together in a large pile of knotted roots. The pile was so big it reached the ceiling.

As I looked up, my heart stuttered.

There, woven into the very roots, was Luc, limp and suspended over the ground. He was still wearing his blood-stained t-shirt—the red had since turned a sickly brown—but the wound on his neck had been healed. That didn't say much for his health, though. He was ashen-grey, deep purple circles under his closed eyes.

If I didn't know any better, I'd guess I was already dead.

No. He can't be, I told myself, but I wasn't sure if I believed it.

Lillian thrashed my body, pulling at the restraining grip of our guards. They only tightened their grip on me, making me cry out in pain. My cries echoed through the cavernous forest.

Luc stirred, his face tightening, as his eyes fluttered open.

"Ra...chel?" His voice was weak, but the room was so densely quiet that I could hear him, even if just barely.

The room vibrated with a low rumble, shaking through my chest.

It had come from the same direction as Luc. Then, as I watched, eyes began to appear. Between the gaps in the roots, emerging from the shadows, eyes of every size and every shade peered out from beneath the mass of roots that had Luc suspended in the air.

Another deep vibration shook through me.

The Malix was growling.

"It's almost impressive, isn't it?" came a familiar voice from behind me.

My handlers forced me to turn to face Matilda as she approached. She was dressed in her own blue cloak, only hers had gold detailing at the edges, layered over a heavily-embroidered dress. At her neck was Polly's key.

It took me a moment to realize she was walking on the water.

Her milk-white eyes found my face and she smiled. I felt their probing touch as they traced my features.

"This Malix is the strongest we've seen in centuries. They don't make them like they used to," she chuckled as if she were discussing something as ordinary as a prestigious breed of dog. "The kind of hate that it takes to make something like this... It's almost impressive. Something truly awful must've happened to breed this kind of beast."

"What do you want with us?" Lillian spat, not interested in Matilda's trivia. "You already have what you need to destroy the thing."

"We don't, actually," Matilda said, smiling. She was being too polite; it was making me nervous. "We're missing a piece."

A piece? "What are you talking about?"

Matilda dropped her gaze and tapped at her cheek with one of her fingers. "Now, how do I explain this," she sighed. Her eyes snapped up again. Her power was stronger this time. It felt like she was reaching through me, digging beneath my skin to get at my passenger. Lillian shrank back, burrowing deeper. "When you attempted to seal the Malix away, you split it on accident, correct?"

Neither of us responded.

But apparently, Matilda didn't need us to. "Well, you did more than that, Lillian, dear. When you split the creature and housed it within your body, you fused part of it with your own soul."

A revulsion that wasn't my own hit me like a wave.

No, Lillian thought in horror.

"To destroy the Malix completely, we need the Malix to be whole," she continued. "Otherwise, this will just start all over again. That piece of the Malix will spread through your soul like cancer, consuming you until you become its next mutation." She smiled while delivering the grim news. "So you see, I need something from you."