PROlOguE
Six Years Ago
T
here
was
blood
on her hands, congealing slowly. The body in her arms was cold, its once-vibrant cheer orever van-ished rom the world.The dead girl had a thick rope around her throat, attachedto a chain hooked into the wall. Sisal bonds held her wrists behind her back. I she had been able to shapeshit, that ropewould have burst or blended into her orm, but the innocenteleven-year-old girl who had been bound, beaten, and mur-dered had been human, nothing more.
I failed you. I’m so sorry.
The survivor looked up at the sound o a stied gasp o pain; someone was moving across the room, through a pile o what she had thought were dead bodies. She couldn’t summon