Seeing Light (The Seraphina Parrish Trilogy) Read Online Free

and deep rumbling laugh. He knows I’m done. He has me now.
    I drag myself to the top of the stairs and pound on the door with my palm, sobbing and crying out, “Please! Help!”
    “No one escapes me,” he roars. “And your soul,” he pauses to sniff the air, “it smells divine.” He opens his mouth hungrily and the split tongue of a serpent unrolls itself from it, then lifts in a slow and obscene motion to lick against what must be his lips.
    I prop myself against the door and turn to face my death, watching as the Reaper slides a massive bow from his saddle, pulls an arrow from his quiver and breathes on its tip, setting it on fire. Then he loads it into the rest and pulls back on the bowstring effortlessly, aiming it directly at my racing heart. All while holding my gaze with his horrible blazing eyes.
    If this is it, my final moment, then I will not be a coward, so I sit up straighter and refuse to look away.
    At the moment the arrow releases, slicing the air in half, the door propping me up suddenly opens and I fall backward, my body dropping flat on the ground. Heat from the flaming arrow screams past, narrowly missing my fallen head.
    Two strong hands grab my shoulders and heave me inside. My savior pushes me out of the way as another flaming arrow whizzes by, sinking its fiery point with a loud thwock deep into the back of a wooden pew. The person slams the door shut, shrugs out of their coat, and quickly throws the fabric on the flames, stifling them into a roiling cloud of smoke.
    I breathe heavily in relief, certain that my life is about to end. “Thank you,” I say but don’t move. I’m in too much pain, too upset, and too tired from running.
    The shadowy figure turns in the darkened vestibule and walks toward me. When moonlight hits their face, I blink several tears away to clear my vision, unable to believe that I’m really, truly seeing the person before me.

::4::
Terease

    Perpetua Gray, my former classmate, stands with her hands on her hips looking down at me. Her eyes are no longer a crystalline blue but are now varnished with black ink. Wrinkles feather the skin at the corners of her eyes and her hair hangs limp, its youthful sheen washed away with expedited time. She’s a grown woman now, aged twenty-five years since I last saw her, making her appear at least forty. I try to stifle my shock because it’s only been two weeks since she left the Academy.
    “Bet you thought you’d never see me again.” She extends her hand, helping me from the ground. I ignore my protesting muscles, my broken heart, and stand to meet her gaze.
    “I thought the Society sent you home. And you’re—”
    “Old?” She raises a graying eyebrow.
    “Just older.” It’s so strange to see her image and beauty fast-forwarded into her future. Mona and Charlotte hadn’t changed this much. Perhaps they just arrived. Then I realize with a jolt that they’ll all be dead within a few weeks.
    Perpetua ignores my expression, but I have the feeling she knows where my thoughts have led me. “Why are you here?”
    She lets out a little huff. “As it turns out, there’s no leaving the Society. Not alive, anyway.”
    My eyes widen. “I had no idea.” And all this time I believed that Perpetua and her team had been sent home to their families, as if expelled from an ordinary boarding school. More proof of the Society’s twisted practices.
    “The good news is that I’m not going to treat you like a sixteen-year-old mega-witch anymore. At least my brain has matured with this wrinkled bag I have to call a body.” A grim smile touches her lips. “And I guess you could say being here has given me a new perspective.”
    Before I can respond, she says, “We should get you cleaned up.” Then she grabs my arm and throws it over her shoulder. “Lean on me.”
    “What about the Reaper?” I glance back. The horse-beast circles the building. I catch glimpses of him and his rider through cracked windows and wonder if