KEILAH

My knees trembled beneath me. The Queen’s words echoed again and again in my mind like a bell tolling for the dead.

She’s out there.

Alive.

My mother—alive?

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt. But before I could ask anything, before I could reach for that sliver of impossible hope, the Queen’s face twisted into something crueler. Colder.

“Tomorrow, you’re going to watch me kill the vampire and the wolf.”

My blood turned to ice.

“No.” The word fell out of my mouth like a prayer, like a curse. “You can’t—”

She took a step forward, her gown dragging like...