Elijah Even though he didn’t want to leave Lily behind, Elijah couldn’t stop smiling. His mouth pushed at his cheeks, her emboldened heartbeat echoing alongside his and reverberating through his chest. Every ache and pain in his body vanished, leaving behind only light and buoyant, radiant joy. She hadn’t left him. She hadn’t run. She loved him. Elijah curled his lips inward, desperately trying to get a hold of himself as he prowled between the cells. He stayed in the shadows, pressing his back to the walls whenever footsteps neared. Without his sword he felt naked, but the raw power of his flames gave him strength. He could do this. He could save Lily and the witch, and end Red Ripper’s tyranny once and for all. For the first time ever, he tucked his hair behind his ears. He told himself it was so that he could hear better, but the heady thump of his heart and the rush of heated blood through his veins told him other

 Lily The last month had been a blur. No – it had been a whirlwind for Lily, sending her heart lurching in turbulent circles whenever it escaped from the cage she had so meticulously built for it.Every day, she stared at herself in the mirror as she dragged a comb through her dark blonde hair and tugged it into a loose braid down her back. It had grown, and as the autumn crept in, carried on the cold breeze that shook burning leaves from the trees, it was starting to darken in colour, too. Her eyes were her own, although they were set back further into the hollows of her eye sockets and glazed in a perpetual way that spoke of more than pain – it was an ever-present ache that ate away at her flesh, day and night, dawn and dusk.That was what the gaunt look to her features and the pallor to her olive skin spoke of, too. Even her plump, red lips appeared thinner and paler.Lily scowled up at the ceiling. She&r

LilyWinding her long, wavy hair into a braid, Lily could finally meet her eyes in the shadowed mirror. With every day that passed, she felt more herself – and more lost than ever. The grief was beginning to still, to quieten, but as it did she felt further from the life she had grasped, for so short a time.Strands of her dark blonde hair stirred slightly in the cool autumn breeze, spilling in through the ever-open window. The curtains rustled, drawing her attention to the purpling twilight outside.Soon, the shift would be upon her. Twisting the length of ribbon around the end of her braid – in the same citrine colour as the bunting she and Atticus had prepared for the festival of Mabben tomorrow – she hardened her resolve. She knew what would be waiting for her beyond the walls of this now-familiar bedroom. Lily had spent too many hours staring at it through the long nights spent in Atticus’s bed.Biting back a sigh, she pulled on a cloak and shoved her feet into a pair of well-wor

LilyThe bark was rough against Lily’s back. She drew comfort from it, from that subtle brush of pain. It reminded her that she was alive, that she had survived. She had made it out of the cell in Red Ripper.Dropping her head into her hands, she let out a ragged sigh. Writing a letter for Elijah had filled her with nerves, the kind that felt more like snakes writhing in a dark pit than friendly butterflies flapping their wings in her stomach. He’d seen Atticus take her, but… She was more worried about him that what he thought of her.There was something else, though – something Lily didn’t want to admit, even to herself. Writing to Elijah had suffocated her with guilt. Last night, she’d felt something for Atticus. Not in the same way that she did Elijah, nowhere near, but when he’d called her beautiful… She’d felt it. It was the way his eyes, limned from within like sunlight streaming through summer leaves, had burned into her. Then she’d broken her own rule, and she’d shuffled furt

Lily“I can’t believe you’re back, Lils.” He’d said it a hundred times over dinner already. Lily’s heart twisted a little more each time.Her dad reached over the table and squeezed her hand. Lily stiffened at the touch for a second before relaxing into it. For all his faults, Atticus had never once touched her without her express consent since he’d rescued her from Red Ripper. Today, she’d been touched more than she had in the last month and, as the rush of excitement wore off, so too did her ease at the feel of foreign fingers on her body.She swallowed hard and, after a moment, she let his fingers drop. “Me either,” she murmured, poking at the roasted vegetables on her plate.“Aren’t you going to eat those?”She shrugged and pushed the plate over to him. “Probably not.”His brow furrowed, even as he took it and started to eat her leftovers. “You’ve told me what happened while you were gone, but… You haven’t told me everything, have you?”“I can’t.” Her voice came out hoarse. “Not y