Nico fell to his knees, shoulders folding in around his torso like he’d lost an organ.
“This can’t be real,” he said, and swore softly under his breath. “No. No.”
The four of them, one by one, had turned to Tristan, expectant. His brow furrowed, lips tight.
“Do we think it was the Forum?” asked Parisa after a moment, her voice like sandpaper. “They got in and out last time, didn’t they?”
“Could have been someone like Wessex Corp,” said Reina darkly.
“Someone should tell Atlas. Or Dalton.”
“Whoever did this, are they still here? In the house?”
“No.” Parisa glanced at Callum, who shook his head. “No. Not anymore.”
“I want answers.” The words, when they left Nico’s mouth, were explosive, juvenile with demand. “I want an explanation.”
“Does it count?”
To that, the others glared at Reina, who sighed loudly.
“Look, we were all thinking it,” she said. “Rhodes is gone. So that means—”
“The elimination is about sacrifice,” Tristan spat. “Death.”
The room fell silent.
“Is this not death enough for you?” Nico’s voice shook with outrage. The ground beneath them rumbled with it, but in answer, there was little Tristan could do but stare.
“How dare you,” Nico suddenly snarled at Tristan from the floor, leaking with toxicity that sparked mid-air. “How dare you—”
“Wait,” Tristan said. “What are you seeing?”
The others froze, stiffening.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
“It’s Rhodes,” Callum supplied, and the others flinched at her name, revulsed. “Her body on the ground.”
“What?” Tristan’s pulse quickened. “No. No, it can’t be—”
He felt the cool traces of Parisa’s presence in his head and shivered.
“He doesn’t see it,” Parisa said, sounding bewildered at first, and then astounded. “He doesn’t see anything.”
“Wait.” Nico scrambled to his feet, taking Tristan brusquely by the shoulder. “What’s there, then?”
“Nothing.” Not entirely true. There was an excess of magic in the room—volumes of it, impossibly swollen—but the air was empty of her. It was vacant of Libby herself, and that was the only thing Tristan could see or feel: her absence.
Libby was gone, clearly. Even her magic was gone from the room.
“She’s not there.”
“But she’s here,” Nico insisted raggedly, while Parisa, the first to manage a response, hastily bent down, brushing her fingers over nothing.
“This is… uncanny.” She stared down in awe. “The blood, it’s—” real.
Blood. No wonder they were all repulsed.