Power (Soul Savers) Read Free Page B

couldn’t
help but feel that it was all my fault.
    Mom stood at the head of our group, leading us in the prayer
that we’d said and heard much too often these last few months. Bree stood on
the other side of Tristan and Solomon to my right. No one else had come to this
private funeral, but only one major absence bothered me.
    Owen had missed them all, of course, but since this one hit
closer to the heart, I’d hoped he’d make an appearance. But no. Still no word
from him since the other night. Perhaps he was unable to make it. Perhaps we’d
be holding his funeral next. Don’t think that
way. No news is good news. That’s what everyone kept telling me. After all,
if the Daemoni killed or even held Owen captive, they’d certainly be bragging
about it.
    Trying to push Owen out of my mind, I refocused on Mom and
the pyre she stood next to. The body lain out on top, with her hands folded
over her stomach, looked so tiny, so helpless, so vulnerable. So still. The
tears brimmed the rims of my eyes and slid down my cheeks. I’d tried so hard to
help her. I gave her as much Amadis power as I possibly could over the months,
trying to fill her with goodness and eradicate the darkness within her. Trying
to draw her out of her coma. But giving her all I could still hadn’t been
enough. I hadn’t saved her.
    Even if Tristan didn’t hate me, I didn’t understand how Bree
could not. She’d given up her own world, the Otherworld, and her faerie life to
serve the Angels and give them Tristan, only to lose him to the Daemoni when he
was six years old. Lilith had been her everything for the past three hundred
years. And now her daughter, Tristan’s sister, was gone. Because I’d failed. I
shouldn’t have been at that stupid nightclub the other night. Maybe if I’d been
here right before she died, I could have done something at the last minute.
    Mom finished the eulogy, and Solomon moved forward with a
match as long as a chopstick. Tristan let go of me, stepped up and placed a
hand on Solomon’s arm.
    “Please. Let me,” Tristan said, his voice low and gruff.
    Solomon returned to my side as Tristan moved to the pyre. He
lifted his hand to Lilith, caressed her forehead and smoothed her blond hair
away from her face, so peaceful now, so much like Dorian’s when he slept. Tristan’s
other hand faced the pile of logs and twitched. A flame shot out of his palm
and ignited the wood. I dropped my head and closed my eyes, too much of a
coward to watch. When Tristan returned to my side, though, I forced myself to
give Lilith all that I had left to give her.
    Mom, Bree, Tristan, and I lifted our hands and the burning
pyre rose from the ground. We sent it over the edge of the cliff and let it
hover there for what felt like hours, waiting, but nothing happened. In the
other funerals, the pyre—body and all—had disappeared before
incineration.
    We’d given Lilith an Amadis send-off, but she apparently
wasn’t Amadis enough for the Angels to take her in the same way they had the
others.
    Because I had failed.
    Plumes of black smoke with a tinge of purple began to darken
the sky in front of us as the flames grew bigger and licked at the frail little
body. A sob caught in my throat, choking me. I can’t watch this. I forced myself to keep my eyes open.
    “Lower her to the sea,” Bree whispered. “Please. She would
like that.”
    With our powers, we carefully lowered the flame-engulfed
pyre to the sea below and silently watched.
    “ Ms. Alexis! Ms.
Alexis! ” Ophelia’s voice cried out.
    I automatically turned toward the woods that separated this
part of the island from the mansion, although the sound came in my head. Panic
immediately swept over me at her urgent tone. Ophelia served as the head of
staff at the Amadis mansion and often babysat my son.
    Dorian? I asked
her in response.
    “ He is fine. He is
fine. It is Ms. Katerina! Please, send Ms. Sophia. Now! ”
    My heart stuttered at her desperation, and if the grief