Sweet Legacy

She isn’t. She can’t be. I won’t let her.

My hands are wet and sticky, coated. I don’t look at them because I already know what I’ll see.

“Here,” our mother—Cassandra—says, dropping to my side and wrapping her palm around the hilt of the knife sticking out of my sister’s chest. “Quickly.”

“No!” I shout, grabbing her wrist. “It might be stanching the blood.”

“There is no time,” she replies, placing her other hand over mine. “I’m a trauma nurse and a Sister of the Serpent. I’ve trained for this.”

Sister of the Serpent? What? I can’t make sense of her words.

For a moment, our gray eyes meet. I see confidence and determination in hers, along with the fear. I let her unwrap my hand from her wrist. Turning her attention to Greer, she slowly pulls out the knife. I stare at the flow of blood. It gurgles out of her like a bubbling brook.

I struggle to keep from throwing up.

“Give me your right hand,” our mother says.

I just stare at Greer, shocked and numb. She can’t be gone. She can’t.

“Gretchen!” Cassandra barks.

Jerking up, I look at her.

“Give me your right hand,” she repeats.

With jerky motions, I lift my right hand and hold it out to her. She takes the knife—a small dagger, no more than a four-inch blade, with intricate gold carvings on the hilt—and holds it above my palm.

“This will sting.”

Like I care. All the emotion in my body—all the emotion I ever let myself have—drained away with Greer’s life force. I hear Grace sobbing in the background. I wish I could find release like that, a way to let it out. I wish I didn’t care so much that it feels like the knife landed in my chest.

Sillus is wailing. “No, huntress. No.”

Cassandra presses the blade into the flesh of my palm, but I scarcely feel it. I’m numb. I don’t feel anything.

She tosses the dagger aside and yanks my hand forward, over Greer’s chest. Turning my palm over, she presses it to the wound.

The action yanks me out of my disconnect.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

She doesn’t respond, just watches the spot where my blood and my sister’s mingle. Unmoving, she looks like she’s willing something to happen.

“What are you doing!” I shout, practically screaming in her ear.

I’m losing it, I know I am. But I’ve never lost a sister before. I’ve never lost anyone I cared about. I’ve never even cared about anyone before, and now all of a sudden it’s all happening at once—the caring, the losing. My brain—my heart—can’t take it.

Grace’s sobs get louder.

“Shhh,” Milo soothes

I turn and see him kneeling at Grace’s side, his arms wrapped around her in comfort. As much as I don’t allow myself to care about many things, Grace cares easily and deeply for the people in her life. This must be hurting her even more than it hurts me.

And that magnifies my pain.

Sillus huddles against my side, his little body hiccupping with sobs.

The tears come, flooding my eyes and spilling over. Beneath my palm, I feel . . . nothing. No movement, no breath, no heartbeat. She’s just gone.

I don’t know what Cassandra thought she was doing, but clearly it wasn’t enough.

I look up, and my eyes meet Grace’s. Hers are red and puffy, full of tears.

I’m sorry, I mouth.

Grace shakes her head. She doesn’t blame me—not now, anyway. Maybe she will later, after the raw emotions are gone. But I blame myself. I should have done more. I should have known something like this would happen.

I hang my head. I’ve failed Greer. I’ve failed Grace, too. I was supposed to protect my sisters—I’m stronger than them, and I have more experience with monsters and mythology. I failed, and now Greer is dead.

Everything is over: the Key Generation, the door, the prophecy, the war and the restoration of balance and the lives of every creature within the abyss. One less heartbeat in the world, and everything changes.

Something pulses beneath my palm.

I jerk back. I must have imagined it. There is nothing there. Greer is gone. She—

It pulses again.

“She moved,” I gasp.

“What?” Grace asks, her voice barely a whisper.

I look at Cassandra, who is smiling through her tears.

“She moved,” I repeat. “There! She did it again.”

“See it, see it!” Sillus cries.

Cassandra sighs with overwhelming relief. “She did.”

“Impossible,” Milo gasps.

I ask, “How?”

Grace scrambles to my side and presses her palms to Greer’s face.

“Your blood,” Cassandra explains. “From the left vein it has the power to kill, and from the right it has the power to heal.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“The healing blood,” she continues, “can—in very rare instances—also return life to the dead.”

My mind reels. “What?”

Cassandra smiles. “When administered within moments of death, your blood has the power to save a life.”

Grace sobs. “Oh my god, she’s breathing.”

“How do you know that?” I ask our mother.

As far as I’m aware, Cassandra hasn’t been a part of our lives or the mythological destiny we carry since she handed us over for adoption. She shouldn’t know about the blood.