It was Seamus who struck first with his blade of bone and drove straight through Elle's heart. The illusion shattered like glass, fragments of light raining down around them.
But the Crow only tilted her head slowly, unnaturally, until it turned a full one-hundred-eighty degrees like an owl, grotesque, wrong.
"Oh! You finally came!" Her mouth stretched from ear to ear in a nightmare grin. "My mother's been waiting for you."
Seamus froze, stunned, just as Elle's body burst into a spray of glittering fireworks before dissolving. He whipped his head toward Maria, who alone could still see where she was hiding, but even she struggled to pinpoint Elle's real body.
Her eyes went wide. "Seamus! On your left!"
He turned, but too late. A blade made of bone flashed right before his eyes, angling to gouge them out.
Yet Elle was suddenly hurled backward instead, smashing into a wall hard enough to shatter it, her body flung clear out the window.
