Chapter 990

Then the visions snapped away. Jude gasped. The wives were glowing, their stones burning white-hot. The watchers sang, not with sound, but with light, forming rings above each wife's head, glyphs spinning faster than eyes could follow.

Zoey stepped onto the slab. "I remember drowning," she whispered. "I remember thinking I would never feel again."

She raised her hand. A shard of the watchers' mural burned in her palm. "But they pulled me out."

She pressed it to the slab.

The glyphs flickered, some sputtered out.

Sophie followed. "I remember being alone so long, I forgot how my voice sounded."

She placed a ribbon, soaked in dye from the orchard flowers.

More glyphs vanished.

Grace stepped forward. "I remember the world ending. And I remember the first time Jude smiled at me after."

She laid a stone wrapped in moss.