✦Dolly✦
Execution blade.
The words didn’t sound real. They sounded like something from an old book in the Magic School library. Something written in cracked ink on pages no one was supposed to touch. Not something that existed outside the packhouse while seven hunters scraped at Skaydal’s wards and tried to find my blood through them. But Riven had said it.
The Council sent an execution blade.
And outside the windows, the wards scraped again. I doubled over before I could stop myself. My mother caught me first. My father’s shadows caught the air around us second, wrapping close like they could stop the pain from reaching me. They couldn’t. The blade smiled again. Not with a mouth. Not with a voice. With purpose. Cold, old, patient purpose.
“What does that mean?” Grayson demanded. Rive
