The Queen of the Dead and the Damned.

Laughing so hard her black curls slithered through the air, like the snakes on Obidias’ hand. My worst nightmare.

Sarafine Duchannes.

CHAPTER 32

Throne of Bones

Her dark cloak flapped in the wind like a shadow. The mist swirled around her black-buckled boots, disappearing into the darkness, as if she could draw it to her. Maybe she could. After all, she was a Cataclyst—the most powerful Caster in two universes.

Or the second most powerful.

Sarafine pushed back her cloak, letting it fall off her shoulders, around her long black curls. My skin went cold.

“Karma’s a bitch, wouldn’t you say, Mortal Boy?” she called across the pit, her voice confident and strong. Full of energy and evil.

She stretched luxuriously, clasping the arms of the chair in her own bony claws.

“I wouldn’t say anything, Sarafine. Not to you.” I tried to keep my voice even. I hadn’t wanted to see her in one lifetime, let alone two.

Sarafine beckoned with one curving finger. “Is that why you’re hiding? Or are you still afraid of me?”

I took a step closer. “I’m not afraid of you.”

She cocked her head. “I don’t know that I blame you. After all, I did kill you. A knife to the chest, in warm Mortal blood.”

“Hard to remember back that far. I guess you weren’t that memorable.” I folded my arms stubbornly. Trying to hold my ground.

It was no use.

She rolled a ball of mist toward me, and it wrapped around me, closing the gap between us. I felt myself moving forward, powerless, as if she was dragging me by a leash.

So she still had her powers even here.

Good to know.

I stumbled over the ridge of an inhuman skeleton, something twice as big as me, with twice as many arms and legs. I swallowed. More powerful creatures than a guy from Gatlin County had met their fates here. I hoped she wasn’t the reason why.

“What are you doing here, Sarafine?” I tried not to sound as intimidated as I was. I dug my feet into the dirt.

Sarafine leaned back in her throne of bones, examining the nails on one of her claws. “Me? Lately I’ve spent most of my time being dead, like you. Oh, wait—you were there. You watched when my daughter let me burn to death. A real charmer, that one. Teenagers. What are you going to do?”

Sarafine had no right to mention Lena. She’d surrendered that right when she walked away from a burning house with her baby daughter inside. When she tried to kill Lena like she’d killed Lena’s father. And me.

I wanted to throw myself at her, but every instinct I had left told me to stay back. “You’re nothing, Sarafine. You’re a ghost.”

She smiled when I said the word “ghost,” biting the tip of one of her long black nails. “Something we have in common now.”

“We don’t have anything in common.” I could feel my hands clenching into fists. “You make me sick. Why don’t you get out of my sight?”

I didn’t know what I was saying. I wasn’t in any position to be ordering her around. I didn’t have a weapon. No possible means of attack. No way past her.

My mind raced, but I couldn’t find an advantage—and you couldn’t let Sarafine get the upper hand.

Kill or be killed, that was her style. Even when it seemed like we should have moved past something as Mortal as death.

Her mouth curled into a snarl. “Your sight?”

She laughed, a cold sound that rippled down my spine. “Maybe your girlfriend should have thought about that before she killed me. She’s the reason I’m here. If it weren’t for that ungrateful little witch, I would still be in the Mortal world. Instead of stuck in the dark, battling the ghosts of lost and pathetic Mortal boys.”

She was close enough now that I could see her face. She didn’t look too good, even for Sarafine. Her dress was ragged and black, the bodice charred into tattered pieces. Her face was smudged with soot, and her hair smelled like smoke.

Sarafine turned toward me, her eyes glowing and white—milky with an opaque light I had never seen before.

“Sarafine?”

I took a step back—just as she struck me with a bolt of electricity, the smell of burnt flesh traveling faster than her body possibly could.

I heard a psychotic scream. Saw her face, contorted into an inhuman death mask. Sharp teeth seemed to match the dagger she held in her hand—only inches from my throat.

I winced, pulling back from the blade, but I knew it was too late. I wasn’t going to make it.

Lena!

Sarafine stopped short, as if smashed backward by an invisible current. Her arms stretched toward me, her blade shaking with anger.

Something was wrong with her.

I heard the sound of chains as she fell, stumbling back toward her throne. She dropped the blade, and her long skirt kicked open, and I saw the manacles around her ankles. The chains holding her to the ground and pinning her to the throne.

She wasn’t the Queen of the Underworld. She was an angry dog trapped in a kennel. Sarafine screamed, beating her fists against the bones. I moved to the side, but she didn’t even look at me.

Now I understood.

I picked up a bone and tossed it at her. She didn’t react until it hit the throne, falling harmlessly into the pile of debris at her feet.

She spit at me, shaking with rage. “Fool!”

But I knew the truth.

Her white eyes saw nothing.

Her pupils were fixed.