CHAPTER 2

ISLA

Another tendril rose from behind it, hovering near my face. The tip hovered close enough that I could feel the cold radiating off it.

“This is—” I started.

The beginning.

I stared at the glowing points where its eyes should be. “You can’t just—”

You summoned. You bled. You opened the door.

“I can close it.”

You won’t.

Something in the way it said that—certain, deep—made my skin prickle.

The tendril at my wrist loosened, only to wind higher up my arm, testing the line of my shoulder. Another slid across the floor toward my other leg.

“I don’t even know what you are,” I whispered.

You...