The snow around them was stained dark and steaming, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid bite of spent magic.
Julies' smile didn't reach his eyes. He felt it—an acidic burn in his forearm where Velra's teeth had closed, the old familiar throb of injury—but the worst of it was the sight before him: the parasite unravelling like a badly sewn garment.
Velra's body convulsed, muscles spasming under the skin. The crimson glow that had crowned her like a halo guttered and sputtered; the blazing hair dimmed to dull threads. She screamed once—half a howl, half a sob—and then the voice shifted. Somewhere beneath the parasite's rasp there was a fragile rasp of someone else trying to surface.
"—Faceless Im…" it breathed, so faint that Julies almost thought he'd imagined it.
