When Stars Die (The Stars Trilogy) by Amber Skye Forbes Page A

Colette, even if I have to force them from her.

     
    Chapter Eight
     
    Without hesitation, I reach out and touch Colette’s face. I run the pads of my fingers over the roughhewn flesh, and make circles over the scant patches of raw skin. I want to curl inside myself and cry and scream over the fresh truth peeling out in burnt flakes just beneath my fingertips. I did burn Colette. I am a witch. The truth puts my mind in a box that presses in on my scattered thoughts from all sides, until they are crushed to one tiny point and pitched into the chasm of suppressed memories. All that can break through my muddled thoughts is the heartrending present before me.
    I pull my hand away, digging my nails in my palm as painful tears try to push themselves out of my eyes. “I-I’m so sorry, Colette.” I wipe my eyes. “Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt you, I hope you know.”
    I swallow more burgeoning tears. For whatever reasons I can see the burns no longer matter. My best friend is suffering because of me. She may never be the same, if she ever wakes up. Maybe going home is in my best interest. After all, a witch doesn’t belong at Cathedral Reims. Then I hear Colette’s voice in my head: ‘If you don’t feel like quitting, then you haven’t failed. We will get through this, and we will be the best professed nuns the convent has ever seen.’ And I don’t feel like quitting. Colette wouldn’t want that for me. We cannot be the best professed nuns Cathedral Reims has ever seen, but I still can. Like Nathaniel with his dark secret, I will have to bury mine so deep in my heart, one could cut my heart open and still wouldn’t find it.
    I look at the burns, trying to unravel that point in my mind to sort out my thoughts, and one sickening memory climbs out of the chasm. The shadows want me, I’m certain, because Sash was trying to touch me. My being able to see the burns on Colette may have something to do with this. That is the only connection I can draw between them and this. Perhaps it’s a baseless connection, but it is the only way I can make sense of the situation.
    I step away from Colette, straighten myself, and with a firm voice, ask, “Colette, can you see the shadows?”
    Her eyes move rapidly beneath her lids. She remains silent. I wish there were some way for me to get inside her head and pry the answers from her. I wish--
    “Amelia!”
    I whirl around, finding Oliver breathless by the doorframe, his bangs drooping even more than usual over panicked, gray eyes.
    I hasten over to Oliver and grab his wrist. “Olly, you have to feel Colette’s face. You have to!”
    He yanks his wrist away from me. “Amelia, I haven’t any time for this! Your brother--” He looks toward the window and swallows hard. “Your brother is in trouble.”
    “What do you mean he’s in trouble? I was just talking to him not long ago, or rather getting in a little spat, but he’ll forgive--”
    Oliver sighs. “Dear Deus, come on!” He grabs my wrist, dragging me into the hall of the north transept. “We don’t have any time to stand around. I don’t know what’s going on, but I was just coming back from the greenhouse with some tomatoes for tonight’s dinner when I saw Nathaniel on the roof of the east transept.”
    I pry his fingers off my wrist as we cross the nave and make a sharp turn into the east transept. “Are you telling me Nat is up there, and you didn’t bother doing anything while you could?” The reasons for why he could be on the roof turn broken waltzes in my mind, and my stomach knots. It’s bad enough he hates being at Cathedral Reims. What if he had a mental breakdown? The nuns found Marie on the roof of the horse barn when she was coming undone. She threw herself off and broke her leg, smiling as she looked up with crazed defiance in her eyes. “Oh, Olly, you don’t think he’s going to jump, do you?”
    Oliver entwines his cool fingers in mine. His hand is so soft. “It’ll be all right,