Page 261 of Blackwood

“She’s not yet lost, Cade” Sabine says. Her eyes flick to the window behind us, to the shape on the couch that hasn’t moved in two days. “She is… drifting. Between this world and the next.”

My stomach twists.

“Then how do we pull her back?” Cade asks. “Tell us, Sabine. We’ll do anything.”

“She will not come back with noise. With logic. With fire. For her spirit is no longer in a place of reason.” She steps closer, looking between us like we’re pieces of some ancient ritual. “You must meet her there in the darkness. Where the soul bruises and the spirit hums beneath the skin.”

I shake my head. “You’re talking about her heart, her soul. What if we can’t reach it?”

Sabine places a hand over my chest, fingers splayed. “Then you’ll bleed with her.”

I sink to my knees. It happens so fast. One second I’m standing. The next, I’m on the cold stone floor, hands gripping my hair, throat closing.

“We can’t lose her,” I whisper, shaking. “I can’t. Not like this.”

Cade kneels beside me, wrapping an arm around my back, anchoring me as I fall apart. “We won’t.” But I hear the fear in his voice too.

Sabine kneels in front of us, her hands warm and steady on both our chests. Her eyes go half-lidded, like she’s seeingsomething none of us can. “You boys, you ain’t just her lovers. You’re her line of life. Her weight in this world.”

Her fingers press a little deeper, right over our hearts. “You’re the fire and the flood. Her balance and her madness. The pull in her bones when the dark starts whisperin’. You two boys are the gravity in her chaos.”

She leans in close, eyes glowing like coals. “If you don’t show her the path back, she won’t find it. She’ll keep wandering’ through shadows, lookin’ for a door that ain’t there.”

I lift my head, tears streaking my face. “How?”

Sabine’s gaze softens, “Once she is truly broken, your boy Knox will call to her and have her face the truth. But it is you she must follow once he’s through,” she says, eyes locking on mine.

She rises slowly, silk swaying with the wind. “She will walk through hell if she knows that you,l’ombre,are waiting on the other side.”

Cade lets out a bitter breath, shaking his head. “She’s already broken, Sabine. You saw her. You saw what all of this did to her.”

Sabine turns to him with a strange calm, like a storm speaking through still waters.

“No, chéri. You do not yet know what broken is,” her voice lowering into something thick and ancient. “She is breaking, yes.Not broken. Not yet. What you see is the storm building.The waves rising.”

She lifts a finger, tapping it gently to Cade’s chest. “Your girl’s still raining on the inside, mon loup. And if you don’t let it pour out of her… she’ll surely drown in the silence instead.”

Cade flinches, like the words hit bone. Sabine turns back to me, eyes dark and full of something older than language.

“She must shatter, you must let her,” Sabine says looking deep into my eyes. “And when she does—when the scream tears through her soul like a wildfire—that is when you call. That is when she will hear your voice,l’ombre.”

She closes her eyes for a beat, like the wind itself is listening. Then she exhales and straightens, silk whispering around her ankles as she rises.

“Now come. This cold ain’t no friend to men with hearts already splintering’. Wind like this gets in your bones and makes the sorrow stick.”

She taps her fingers twice against the railing, like sealing a spell. “Inside now, before the chill makes ghosts of the living. We got work to do.”

We step back inside. The warmth doesn’t help. The air in here is thicker than outside, like grief left to rot in silence.

Knox is still crouched in front of her, hands wringing, voice raw. He doesn’t even glance up. “It’s not working,” he mutters. “Trying to pull her back like last time… it’s not fucking working.”

He looks up now, eyes bloodshot. “Back then, there was something. Sadness. Grief. Pain I could feel, something I could grab. There were so many emotions with Zeke I could pull out of her.”

His hands shake. “But this?” He takes a shallow breath. “There’s nothing. No fear. No sadness. Just a void. She’s just… gone. It’s like talking to a corpse with a heartbeat.”

Knox looks away, defeated. “I don’t…” He looks up at Sabine, eyes pleading. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

Sabine glides forward like smoke through a ritual. She walks toward Bella without touching her. “You must findone, Knox,” she says. “You need one flame to light the way. One crack in the armor to bring her back.”