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Her eyes narrow "Mac, are you all right?"

"Never been better," I tell her, stepping closer, but it’s not true So the slab in the cavern that once housed Cruce and ain, that cold, hated stone My body began to tre had become a wobbly affair and I’d had to sit for a tiether, shall--"

I punch h shirt, flesh, and bone and rip out her heart

I clench it in my fist and crush Blood drips Muscle explodes Bits plop to the floor Interesting That’s what gives theery’s body teeters and slumps to the floor

Life to death in an instant Not with a bang Not even a whiht it would be

Disappointed, I grab Cruce’s ankle, buo up and up, windingrows heavier with each step

I wonder if I should have eaten Margery’s heart

Perhaps I weaken because my body requires food I never paid attention to how often MacKayla ate or what I consider when she last fed her body It was quite soo

I decide to eat the next huht of steps, rows labored I pause at the top to catch , I desired corporeal for,trapped alaxies the sa host after host into picking le animate form I was able to possess that hadn’t rapidly decomposed, until MacKayla But while she doesn’t come apart at a level of cellular cohesion, her body has its share of weaknesses I then the bird inthe flesh of my children until I become fully, untouchably immortal

Beyond the half-crumbled wall that once concealed the stairwell, I hear the crush of stone beneath shoes So Cruce’s body, I skirt debris and hoist myself up and into the demolished roo searching the ice-covered rubble for supplies Perhaps pretty, delicate things, like strong, arrogant things, are ery was stout, dour, and dull, and died so quickly

"Full of fun and games and slowly," I murmur Then I’ll eat Or perhaps I’ll eat while she’s still alive Perhaps living flesh better nourishes

MacKayla never ate a human, bound by scruple, chained by morals, but it’s conceivable that human flesh, like Unseelie,

MacKayla knows this woman well