Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove #3) by Shelby Mahurin

Unable to help myself, I lifted my face to the sun, savoring its warmth. Just for a moment. I didn’t know where we were, I didn’t know how we were, and I didn’t care. Instead, I felt . . . whole. Curious sensation flowed through my limbs, as if the waters had not only restored me but strengthened me too. Empowered me. Or perhaps I’d finally died and entered the Summerland. Or was this Heaven? Neither would explain Nicholina’s presence, yet what else could it be?

Panic sliced through my reverie, sharp and unexpected, and my smile vanished as quickly as it’d come. Because it hadn’t been my panic. No, the emotion had come from someone else. I groaned loudly in realization: Nicholina recognized this place too. Though her thoughts came too quickly to untangle, a sense of longing permeated them. A sense of despair.

Fuck.

I shook my head.

Though our bodies had separated, it seemed our consciousness had not, and no god would ever be cruel enough to saddle me with Nicholina for eternity, which meant—which meant this wasn’t Heaven at all. I glared up at the crystal-blue skies. The single cloud there seemed to mock me, and I couldn’t stop a harsh chuckle. It took the shape of a burning cross.

Worse—now I couldn’t feel my magic at all. Cautious, curious, I tried to summon the golden patterns in my mind, but they didn’t rise. Though the veil between Nicholina and me hadn’t re-formed, they’d simply . . . vanished. Whatever magic fed this place, it clearly wasn’t like mine. It wasn’t like hers either. It was more powerful than both, and it’d stripped us equally bare.

When a familiar voice crooned a lullaby behind us, we turned simultaneously. Nicholina’s panic deepened to dread, interlaced with my own morbid curiosity. “Who is that?” I asked, watching two figures approach. A slender, dark-haired woman—perhaps my age—bounded hand in hand with a sallow-faced little boy. Deep shadows drained the life from his eyes, yet still he laughed, breathless, and tried to keep up. Sensing his struggle, the woman swept him up in her arms. They fell to the ground together, still laughing, rolling amidst the lavender. Neither of them noticed us. “Sing for me, maman,” he begged her, sprawling across her chest. He wrapped frail arms around her neck. “Sing me a song. S’il vous plaît.”

She squeezed him gently. In her pale eyes, adoration and anxiousness shone in equal measure. My heart twisted in response. Beside me, Nicholina had stilled, her attention rapt on the little boy’s face. “And what song shall I sing, mon bébé?” the woman asked.

“You know the one!”

Her nose wrinkled in distaste, and she smoothed the hair from his forehead. Black like hers. “I don’t like that one. It’s too . . . grim.”

“Please, maman.” His pale eyes sought hers earnestly. Indeed, he could’ve been the woman’s miniature. “It’s my favorite.”

She scoffed in fond exasperation. “Why?”

“It’s scary!” He grinned, revealing a chipped front tooth and dimples. “It has monsters!”

Rolling her eyes, the woman sighed. “Very well. But just the once. And don’t—don’t sing it with me this time, all right? Please?” I would’ve frowned at the odd request if I hadn’t felt her unease echoing through Nicholina. If I hadn’t known what would happen three weeks hence. This little boy . . . he wouldn’t get better. He’d die a slow, painful death in the days to come, and this—this wasn’t my hell, after all.

It was Nicholina’s.

But she hadn’t always been Nicholina. Once, she’d been Nicola.

I couldn’t look away.

Closing her eyes, the woman leaned back into the lavender, and the boy nestled his face in the crook of her neck. I knew the words of the song before she sang them. They resounded in my very bones. “Beneath the moon of harvest, a ripple stirs the leaves.” With a high, clear soprano, she sang the eerie lullaby slowly, still stroking the boy’s hair. “The veil is thin, the ghouls a’grin, rattling the eaves.”

He giggled as she continued.

“A bridegroom hears them calling, wakes from eternal sleep, to seek his love, his Geneviève, who married her Louis. Beyond her glowing window, fair Geneviève doth sing”—despite his mother’s request, the boy began humming along—“to the babe upon her breast. The bridegroom starts to weep.” She hesitated now, her hand stilling on the boy’s hair as he continued the song without her.

“The dead should not remember. Beware the night they dream. For in their chest is memory—”

“Of a heart that cannot beat,” the woman said softly, no longer singing. The boy grinned, and together, they finished the disturbing lullaby. “Beneath the moon of harvest, a ripple stirs the leaves. The veil is thin, the babe a’grins, and even ghouls shalt grieve.”

The boy let out a loud, delighted cackle. “He was a zombie. Right, maman? The bridegroom was a zombie?”

“I think a ghoul,” she offered, her eyes unfocused. She still clutched the boy’s head to her chest, tighter than necessary. “Or maybe a different sort of spirit. A wraith.”

“Will I become a wraith too, maman?”

She closed her eyes as if pained. “Never.”

The conversation drifted from there. Nausea churning in my stomach, I watched as they eventually stood, walking hand in hand back the way they’d come. Nicholina did not blink. She stared at the boy’s back with naked longing, unwilling to spare even a glance at the woman. At the boy’s mother. Nicola. “What was his name?” I asked quietly.