*Chapter 40:
ALESSIA
The light died slowly, not like a flame guttering out but like something conscious deciding to withdraw, and when it was gone the room felt emptier than before, as though the air itself had been hollowed out and left behind a pressure that pressed against my eardrums and the base of my skull. The cold that had settled into my bones didn’t leave with it, it stayed there, deep and quiet and patient, and when I flexed my hand I saw that the mark was no longer still, the lines of the symbol had shifted, faint and restless, like something alive moving just beneath the surface of my skin. No one spoke for a long time, because speaking would have made it real, and in that silence I could hear the triplets breathing harder than usual and Blackwell’s pulse in his throat whe
