The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

words or understand them. I was losing the ability to make…
thoughts, but I heard that—heard Casteel begging, and
through the torrential pain, I shook my head. I took those
screams roaring through me and all those frayed slivers of
thought to form one word, over and over. “No. No. No,” I
whispered and screamed as all the light went out around me
because I would rather be dead. I’d rather be—
“You’re killing her. Please,” Casteel pleaded. “Please,
stop.”
“You. Oh, you have always been my favorite pet. And
when she wakes, she’ll know how to keep you alive,” she
replied, her voice fading and draining away until I wasn’t
sure that what I heard was real. “Malik. Retrieve your
brother.”
And then there was nothing.
My head throbbed endlessly, and there was a metallic
taste in my mouth when I opened my eyes. Fragments of
sunlight drifted through the thick branches of an elm.
“Poppy?” Kieran’s face leaned over mine. My head…my
head was in his lap. “You there?”
I swallowed, wincing at the pain. “I think so.” I started to
sit up. “Where are we?”
“In the woods just outside of Oak Ambler,” Hisa
answered as Kieran helped me up. I rubbed my aching head
as I squinted. Hisa’s features were stark.
I kept looking as my mind slowly cleared away the fog.
Delano sat beside Naill, who stood with a hand over his
heart. Emil and Vonetta knelt beside the…beside a prone
body. “Tawny?”
“She’s alive.” Emil looked up quickly, his eyes haunted.
“But she’s been wounded.” He stepped aside, and I saw the