Then as quickly as she became, Eliana unbecame, and all the light and magic drained out of her as if a switch had been flipped.
She sagged against the doorway Silas had just been standing in and let out her breath in a gust. There followed a silence so profound it seemed as if the Earth itself might have stopped spinning on its axis and everything on it—every person and bird and insect, lacking gravity—had been flung out into the far reaches of space.
Then an odd sound, liquid and gurgling, broke the unnatural stillness.
Choking.
She whirled around and—no. No!
Mel was lying on her back on the stone floor, coughing up blood.
The bottom fell out of the world. Eliana dropped her sword and dropped to her knees beside Mel, her hands fluttering over the spreading stain in the middle of her
