CHAPTER 32
“Noooooo!” I scream, running towards the First. Ru catches me around the waist, holding me back.
“It’s too late, Em.”
It’s not possible. What I’ve just seen is a trick, an illusion designed to scare us. It must be, because it can’t be real. It can’t be.
“My dear Emily, just look at your mighty First now,” Bethamous gloats, now standing on the First’s lifeless back. “You see how easy it was for me to dispose of it?” He laughs and kicks the body savagely.
“Em,” Ru mumbles, “I--”
Something interrupts him. Bethamous cuts off his laugh, eyes ablaze. I look to the First, hope burning in my eyes, but there’s no movement from it. Not even a twitch.
My hope dies.
Then I hear it.
Faintly, but growing louder. The song of the Krobats.
Without thinking, I reach out my mind and find
