Page 3 of Silvercloak

She kept one palm resting on Joran’s unbeating chest and raised her wand with the other.

“Ans visseran,” she incanted, self-hatred pluming inside her. “Ans visseran. Ans visseran.”

Revive. Revive. Revive.

A sense of utter depravity clutched at her with gnarled fingers.

Necromancy was not just unlawful—it was sacrilege. It went againstnature, against all the various gods and Saints upon which Ascenfall was built. Something essential of the human spirit was lost in death, and it could not be brought back through the veil betweenthereandhere,no matter how skilled the mage.

But this was Joran. She had to try.

“Ans visseran. Ans visseran. Ans visseran.”

Nothing happened immediately, but these things took time. Time to coax the heart back into thumping, time to cajole the blood into flowing. An inescapable law of physics: whether magical or not, an object in motion wanted to stay in motion, and an object at rest wanted to stay at rest.

Surely Joran’s heart doesn’t want to be at rest,Mellora thought pleadingly.Surely it bucks against its very stillness. Surely it can sense me just on the other side.

The Bloodmoons watched as she incanted the spell again and again, but there was no telltale lurch beneath her palm. Desperation surging, she bit down hard on her tongue until she tasted blood, letting the pain stab and swell in her mouth.

If pleasure worked like rest torestoremagic, then pain worked like adrenaline toenhanceit. A short, intense burst of energy, granting extraordinary power in the most dire of situations.

And Saints knew Mellora needed it.

“Ans visseran. Ans visseran.”

Joran’s heart remained a stone.

But ithadto work. This was Joran. Saffron’s dad.

Saffron.

Mellora prayed to Omedari, the patron saint of healing, that her daughter had not witnessed her father’s murder. She was still concealed in the pantry, but if she pressed her eye right up to the keyhole …

Focus lapsing dangerously, Mellora’s gaze flitted up to the pantry—

—just in time to see the golden doorknob begin to turn.

No,roared everything inside Mellora, but the handle kept twisting.

If the Bloodmoons saw Saff, they’d kill her too.

Mellora spun on her heels, squaring her wand. She had never cast a killing spell, but to save Saff, she would do anything.

“Sen ammort—”

Her curse was severed by the two killing spells striking her heart.

The golden doorknob stopped turning.

The room rocked still.

For several moments, silence sprawled out like nightfall. Wordlessly, the intruders burned crescent moons into their victims’ lifeless cheeks, the skin bubbling a grotesque burgundy beneath the tips of their wands.

If a death did not serve its original purpose, at least it could spread fear.

When the Bloodmoons departed, they left the door hanging off its hinges like a rotten tooth.

And when Saffron Killoran finally opened the pantry door—it could have been moments later, or hours, or days—the living room smelled of charred flesh. Of smoke and ash and something honey-sweet.