Chapter Fifty-One
Baba Yaga is standing above a familiar, broken-looking female body sprawled like a corpse at a crime scene. Only the chalk outline is missing.
There’s a giant iron-cast skillet in Baba Yaga’s hand with blood smeared on it. A welt on the head of the limp body matches that part of the skillet.
“Thanks to this attack, you voided my contract with Nero,” Baba Yaga says to the body. “Now I can take care of you for good.”
Though I don’t usually feel emotions in this state, an arctic chill permeates through my bodiless being.
No wonder that body is familiar.
It’s mine.
In fact, I’ve seen myself this way once before—during the fight with Beatrice, after she killed me inside a vision. That time, I was able to prevent that fate by changing the circumstances that led to it.
H
