Page 84 of Demon Heart: The Complete Series

XAVIER

A fter slamming the past version of me into the snow, breaking three of his legs and knocking him out, I shifted and ran to Roman.

Butterfly shook him, something terribly wrong. I heard Una laughing. The fairy? Here? But Roman had killed her.

Then it all happened so quickly.

Darcy leaped onto Butterfly.

Roman shoved Butterfly away from him.

Roman’s chest exploded, glittering dust spraying onto the snow, leaving a smoking hole where his heart should be.

A jet of dust streamed into the sky, vanishing into the clouds. A second followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, shooting off in various directions. They kept coming. I lost count. Struck by shock and sickening terror, I propelled myself forward. A blow like that would kill a human.

A human without a heart did not live.

But his body didn’t collapse into the snow. No blood poured from his injury. He stared down at himself, completely dumbfounded.

“Roman!” Darcy yelped, scrambling up to my shoulder when I arrived. “Your chest! Your skin!”

His skin began to sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight, much like the dust all over the snow. It spread to his hair, the entirety of him like a Christmas tree decoration.

Roman touched the edges of the hole in his chest. “Am I dead?”

“You should be,” Butterfly said, moving closer. “Una. That deceitful fairy.”

“I’ll say.”

I wanted to take the witch in my arms, scream at the skies to bless this apparent miracle. But I was afraid of breaking him.

“Dust,” Butterfly said. “The dust.”

Roman met my eyes. “How… What the hell?”

“I don’t know.” I sounded so pathetic.

“Is he really alive?” Darcy asked me.

“I’m alive,” Roman said.

The rat ran down my body, jumping onto Roman’s boot.

Rain began to fall. At least, I presumed it to be rain—rain that never fell in this level. Snow, then. It often snowed.

Flecks of glitter landed on the rat’s white fur.

Roman…

Glitter?

“Dust,” Butterfly said again.

“But the wound…” Darcy said.

More of the glittering snow came down, falling heavier by the second.