Page 92 of Edge of Stars

The crimson force that we witnessed around Mother…

Now it’s under my sister.

Swirling around her feet like a zillion ignited rave club lights, bouncing and zooming and—

Flying.

I keep one hand on Mother while twisting around and up as thoroughly as I can, mouth agape as I watch her rise even higher than Mother’s cruising altitude.

“Kell!”

But the power of her launch is her miracle and her bane. My sister, so full of conflict and sorrow and fury, doesn’t have any concept of how to balance herself or hit reverse. She wobbles wildly in the air, dipping and weaving, until leveling enough to descend safely.

But that’s just what I think.

She doesn’t want to come back down at all. Her purpose is to remain at exactly that height, with precisely that angle over the beach. I can see it in the determination on her face now, but even more from what she does with the rest of her body.

The arch of her back. The backward hooks of her hands. The way she scoops them both along the side of her body, gathering the red energy like it’s a collection of the sludge in which she was buried yesterday. But once it’s balled up in front of her, formed into the size of a mega beach ball, we all see that it’s not mud. Not even close.

My sister is a comet bearer.

A star wielder.

But most obviously: a really mad magic bringer.

The star—comet? light orb? fireball?—lights up her hands as she raises it high, using the thing as a counterweight for her swinging legs. I stare at her with a mix of dread and awe, but also with the agonizing wish that we could flip back time by a dozen years, when she was pulling off stunts like this on the climber rings in the playground.

But Kell’s not playing around anymore.

She reminds me as much as soon as she hauls the ball behind her—and then, as her body rocks back to take its place, hurls the thing straight at Hecate and the diamonds.

From the red star, sickening snarls and sizzles.

From Kell, a scream of agony and avengement.

From the depths of my throat, moans of primal fear.

I duck low, flattening myself across Mother while waiting for the awful explosion.

Which is, despite my frantic prayers to any god that might be listening, exactly that.

A blinding, deafening blast. A searing, terrifying pulse. Inside of seconds, I’m horridly aware of every inch of my skull—along with the conviction that it’s about to crumble apart. Worse, that all the pieces will be washed away into the sea by the stinging rivers that well up from my soul.

Because I know, before raising myself back up, that the woman beneath me is no longer breathing.

Veronica Valari is gone.

Which means it’s no surprise to drag my sights back up and find that Hades is too. Where he was just standing in deep shadows, there’s now only the wind and the tides.

The certainty of it should be an ease on the weight over my chest. But everything only feels heavier.

A soft sob tumbles out of me. It’s not any louder because at least I can claim one comfort in this bleak moment. Mother is totally gone—but so is Hecate.

Except that she’s not.

Aside from a layer of dust along the bottom of her flowing skirts, the goddess is still standing before us as if her grimoire has turned into a sippy cup of cream and she’s the feline who sucked it down.

With a quirk of her head, the witch glances to where my sister has tumbled to the sand. But Kell, agonized and drained, can’t summon one spare spark of defiance.