“Shadowstone,” I whispered hoarsely.
She stared at me, her lips moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I couldn’t hear anything. My heart lurched, and then my legs went out from under me.
And then…there was nothing.
Chapter 23
“You’ve got to let go, baby. You need to hide, Poppy—” Momma stilled and then pulled away, reaching inside her boot. She pulled a slender, black blade free and then spun, rising so fast I could barely track her movements.
Someone else was here.
“How could you do this?” Momma stepped to the side so she partially blocked the cupboard, but I could see that a man was in the kitchen. Someone clothed in night.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and I didn’t know his voice.
“So am I.” Momma swung out, but the cloaked man caught her arm…
And then they stood there, not moving. I was frozen in the cupboard, heart racing and sweating.
“It has to be done,” the man said. “You know what will happen.”
“She’s but a child—”
“And she will be the end of everything.”
“Or she is just the end of them. A beginning—”
Glass broke, and the air filled with shrieks. “Momma!”
Her head jerked around. “Run. Run—”
The kitchen seemed to shake and rattle. Darkness flowed into the room, sliding down the walls and spilling across the floor, and I was still frozen. Gray and dull things filled the chamber, dripping red. “Momma!”
Bodies snapped in my direction. Mouths with sharp teeth. Shrill howls ripped through the air. Bony, cold fingers pressed into my leg. I screamed, scrambling back inside the cupboard—
Something wet and smelly splashed across my face, and the cold fingers released me. I started to climb farther back.
The dark man filled the mouth of the cupboard. He reached inside, and there was nowhere to go. He grabbed my arm, yanking me out. “Gods, help me.”
Panicked, I tugged at his hold as he swept out his other hand, knocking down the creatures as they came at him. My foot slipped in the wetness as I twisted sideways—
Momma was there, her face streaked with red. She was bleeding as she thrust the black blade into the man’s chest. He grunted, saying a word I’d heard Papa say once. His grip slipped away as he stumbled backward.
“Run, Poppy.” Momma gasped. “Run.”
I ran. I ran toward her—
“Momma—” Claws caught my hair, scratched my skin, burning me like the time I’d reached for the kettle. I screamed, straining for Momma, but I couldn’t see her in the twining mass on the floor.
I saw Papa’s friend in the doorway. He was supposed to help us—help Momma—but he stared at the man in black as he rose from the mass of twisting, feeding creatures, and his bitter horror filled my mouth, choking me. He backed away, shaking his head, leaving us. He was leaving us—
Teeth sank into my arm. Fiery pain ripped through my arm and lit across my face. I fell, trying to shake them off. “No. No. No,” I screamed, thrashing. “Momma! Papa!”
Deep, forbidding pain sliced through my stomach, seizing my lungs and my body.
Then they were falling all around me and on me, limp and heavy, and I couldn’t breathe. The pain. The weight. I wanted my momma.
Suddenly they were gone, and a hand was on my cheek, my neck. “Momma.” I blinked through blood and tears.
The Dark One stood above me, his face nothing but shadows beneath the hooded cloak. It wasn’t his hand at my throat but something cold and sharp. He didn’t move. That hand trembled. He shook. “I see it. I see her staring back at me.”
“She must…he’s her viktor,” I heard Momma say in a voice that sounded wet. “Do you understand what that means? Please. She must…”
“Good gods.”
The cold press was gone from my throat, and I was lifted into the air, floating and floating in the warm darkness, my body there but not. I was slipping away into the nothingness, surrounded by the smell of flowers. Of the purple blossoms the Queen liked to have in her bedchamber. Lilacs.
Someone else was with me in the void. They drew closer, a different kind of darkness before they spoke.
What a powerful little flower you are.
What a powerful poppy.
Pick it and watch it bleed.
Not so powerful any longer.
Waking was a chore.
I knew I needed to. I had to make sure my people were okay. There was Casteel. And that nightmare… I wanted to get as far away from it as possible, but my body felt heavy and useless, not even connected to me. I was floating somewhere else, and I drifted and drifted until I no longer felt weighed down. I took a sudden, deep breath, and my lungs expanded.