Page 25 of Florescentia

“Calm yourself,” he said strictly. “I will handle this.”

“Sir, we need to put him away—”

“Do it. It’s him, I can confirm that,” Maxim said. “Do not embalm him, it’s a matter of the family’s wishes.” His hand rubbed up and down my back in a soothing motion. “I have to take her home now.”

There was no stopping the shaking—my entire body was frozen like ice. My bones and joints rattled together like a stalling steam car. If I let it go on any longer, my fingers might suffer frostbite or some other ailment of the cold. No amount of blankets would ward off the chill from my bones.

What remained of my husband was stored in the morgue of the county. But Dorian lived on, in me, as guilt. A final declaration of my luck running dry.

Chapter Eight

The Nova

There was an evil within me, a rage I could no longer hold the reins to. This was what madness was made from, born in the dark and rising as the sun cleansed the earth in the purity of dawn.

My face was wet, head throbbing like a horse’s hooves on the track. I slammed the door, the sound not even registering as I stumbled up the stairs. Red light from the sunrise trickled through the windows, reflecting off mirrors in the house to bathe it in crimson. Even the whistle between my fingers was silent. There was nothing between me and my vindication. Not my body, not my morals, not even my higher judgment.

The library study doors slapped against the walls when I heaved them open.

I grabbed the grimoire, falling to my knees in the middle of the floor.

“Tell me!” I screamed, my nose touching the cover as I prostrated myself. “Tell me what to do!” My plea devolved into an angry sob.

It was not a prayer, it was supplication. A desperate, awful thing for someone to perform. To be stripped of everything. Vulnerable.

There was nowhere to go but up.

“Whatever is out there, listen to my call.” The words were barely audible, possibly only mimed. “Florescentia.”

My eyes were sealed shut so hard I began to see colors behind my lids.

All was quiet, not even the shuffling of a cat or a shadow, just my breathing. My pulse. And the coo of a pigeon loitering in the flower box outside the window.

I looked up, the bleary image of my library as plain and usual as I’d left it. The warm wood only set afire by the sun revealed above the neighboring tenements.

The books were all in their places, abandoned experiments beginning to collect dust, and the grimoire was still . . . like some average book.

“What is the point of you,” I muttered. “You can’t even—”

The cover snapped open against the floor.

This time, all pages were filled with black.

With rabid, restless fingers, I tore at the paper.

“Useless!” I shouted at it.

One by one, I ripped them from the bindings, yet the book never got thinner. Tearing and tossing until the paper cuts began to sting between my fingers.

Even when I stopped, with pages covering the floor . . .

It looked as if I’d done nothing to it at all.

The only thing worse than my luck right now was my posture. My back ached from vulturing over my notes. The phone blared again. It was like a train spike shoved straight through my eye, with the way my migraine was progressing. It had been going off nonstop. No doubt it was Maxim or Clara, maybe even my mother or my in-laws.

My nail dragged across the text of a book. A shaky line drawn under anything important, accompanied by a dog-ear. Books were piled up beside me, behind me, all over the desk, and in my lap—no surface was safe. I’d pulled most of my books from the shelves and organized them by topic.

There had to be something. Anything.