Burned

with a metallic luminescence, reminding Stark of the torque of yellow gold Seoras wore around his wrist. When the ribbon unknotted and floated free of the tree and into the grove, Stark didn’t hesitate. He followed his gut and this small reminder of honor, and strode after it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
    Heath
    Zoey was getting worse. It was just not fair. Like she hadn’t had enough bullcrap to deal with lately? Now this had happened to her—this shattered-soul thing, and she was slipping away from him, from everything. At first it was little by little. Recently, it’d been more like humongous, cataclysmic piece by piece. As they moved farther and farther into the heart of the grove, keeping away from the edges of the trees and what was probably Kalona stalking them out there, she’d started changing faster. There didn’t seem to be shit he could do about it. She wouldn’t listen to him. He couldn’t reason with her. She wouldn’t even hold still. Literally.
    He could see her in front of him. Even though he was almost jogging along the mossy bank of a musical little stream, he wasn’t moving quickly enough for her. She wandered ahead of him, sometimes whispering things to the air around her, sometimes crying softly, but always restless—always in motion.
    It was like he was watching her evaporate.
    Heath had to do something. He realized what was happening to her was because her soul wasn’t whole. That made sense. He’d tried to talk to her about it—tried to get her to call the pieces together and then go back to her body. He didn’t really understand all this Other-world stuff, though the longer he was here, the more he just
knew
things, which was probably ’cause he was dead as dirt.
    Jeesh, it was totally weird to think that he was dead. Not scary weird, bizarre weird, ’cause he didn’t feel dead. He felt like him, just in another place. Heath scratched his head. Damn, it was hard to figureout, but what wasn’t hard to figure out was that Zo
wasn’t
dead, and so she really didn’t belong here.
    Heath sighed. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t belong here, either. Not that this wasn’t a cool place. Okay, sure, Zo was a mess, and they couldn’t leave the grove without Kalona or whothehellever pouncing on them and probably fucking killing him again. If that was possible. Take away that stuff, and it would be fine here.
    But only fine.
    It was like his spirit was searching for something else—something it couldn’t find here.
    “You died too soon. That’s what it is.”
    Heath jumped in surprise. Zoey was standing in front of him, rocking back and forth, from one foot to another, staring at him with eyes that looked haunted by sadness.
    “Zo, babe, you’re kinda spooky when you do that pop-up-in-front-of-me thing.” He made himself laugh. “It’s like you’re the ghost, not me.”
    “Sorry . . . sorry . . .” she muttered, and started walking a circle around him. “It’s just that they told me that you’re not happy here because you died too soon.”
    Heath stood still but turned with her as she paced around him. “Who’s ‘they’?”
    Zoey waved her hand in a vague gesture at the grove. “The ones that are kinda like me.”
    Heath stepped closer to her so that he walked right beside her as she continued her relentless movements. “Babe, don’t you remember we talked about them? They’re pieces of you. It’s why you’re feeling so messed up right now. The next time they talk to you, I want you to ask them to come back inside you. It’ll make things lots better.”
    Her eyes were big and lost when she looked at him. “No, I can’t.”
    “Why not, babe?”
    Zoey burst into tears. “I can’t, Heath. It’s gone on too long. I can’t bring my soul together. I can’t remember things—I can’t focus—the only thing I know for sure is that I deserve this.”
    “You do not deserve this!” Heath stepped close to Zoey and waslifting his hands to plant them squarely on her shoulders and make her listen to him, once and for all, when a golden ribbon caught the edge of his vision, drawing his attention momentarily away from her.
    A moment was all Zoey’s restlessness needed, and with a miserable cry she said, “I have to go! I have to keep going, Heath. That’s all I can seem to do.” Before he could stop her, she went away from him with a strange, almost floating motion that carried her pale body like a feather in a strong wind, quickly, erratically, and farther