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I ran farther and harder, the distance of the shadowstep taking its toll on ht for more of the Dark Room’s dead, thin air, and when I couldn’t take it anyrassy ground as I e just outside of town

There were fires, everywhere, and just asaround to put the as the orchestra to the screams of the townspeople, I realized with stark horror that each of the fla

Every fla Each one was a candle that Agatha Black had set alight with heralive

Chapter 17

The countryside was cool, the air sith the shts in a perfect place to relax, to take in the quiet rush of wind through the trees, of a clear night lit by a canopy of stars

But inside,

Mercifully, the fires had ended Royce and the others arrived in tiatha’s fla to reverse the intensity of the fires the witch had created There were, in short, no survivors, only piles of ash and blackened skeletons

We hauled our asses away just as we heard the first siren We couldn’t very well hang around inside town This was the modern day, far, far away from a time when people would be condemned to the stake as witches But when the appearance of unfan faces coincides with the spontaneous coe faces to flee the scene as soon as humanly possible

Far below us, down at the foot of the hill, the city was bathed in the red and blue of sirens, e their damnedest best to help where they could I shook my head mournfully Those people didn’t need paramedics and police No one could help them Send a hearse instead

My insides clenched with the sobering reality of once again co, could we have possibly done to stop her?

“There was nothing we could do”

Bastion sighed as he slurass next to me Even with the distance the pulse of his body ar human nearby

“You read hed “I don’t even knoe’re supposed to do now”

Bastion shook his head His fingers dug into the earth, clawing and pulling at tufts of grass, his knuckles white, his hand shaking

“We find her,” he said “We kill her All thirteen of her”