‘Join me, Mina.’ His voice was inside her head.
‘Never,’ Mina replied.
He grinned wolfishly. Mina lunged forward, moving so swiftly she was past Mourini’s shade before he could reach for her. At Dario’s side, she tried to grasp the tentacles wrapped around his gold thread. But the twisting blackness slipped through her fingers, and each time she touched the gold a scream echoed in her mind.
Writhing tentacles fully circled the gold now, merging to become a single band that glistened and moved like oil. It began to contract. Mina knew a moment of hope, thinking it was shrinking, then realised it was tightening, squeezing in upon the thread. New tentacles began darting off the originals, reaching for Dario’s star-lit outline.
Mina sensed Mourini’s shade behind her without having to turn.
