My Tethered Soul: Volume 2 (Reaper's Rite) Read Online Free PDF

hand on mine.
    “Zadie, do you think I’m still safe?”
    I opened my mouth, ready to give her words of encouragement, then pressed my lips together. There was no way I could lie to her.
    “First of all, just because your Reaper is gone doesn’t make you immortal. You can still die like a normal person does. But if we’ve gone and broken rules, who’s to say another Reaper won’t come after you?” Maybe mine , I thought. Or maybe Mom’s. The way I understood it, once a Reaper set its sights on a Vila, that Reaper was tethered to the person’s soul, staking claim to her. But that was before I broke the Reaper’s Rite. Before I defeated a Reaper in the In-Between—the Reaper realm. Now, who was to say a Reaper wouldn’t come after both of us? Maybe Mom’s Reaper wanted to take from us what he couldn’t get from our mother.
    Mara shook her head, letting out a sigh of defeat. “Not the reassuring words I was looking for.”
    Instead of apologizing, I pulled her into my arms. There was nothing I could say. We were both scared of what could happen. And we both knew that the only way to beat our fear was to beat whatever Reaper came our way.
    Mara squeezed me tightly before getting up and leaving my room. I rested my head on my pillow. The bracelet Gavin gave me caught the light, and I found myself running my finger along it for a long while. Things would be all right. They had to be. I’d defeated a Reaper before. And I was even better at controlling my magic now. Smarter. Sharper. Quicker. It would be all right. Somehow.
    I took the jewelry box Dad gave me off my nightstand and set it on my stomach. I flipped the lid open and watched the tiny ballerina spin. The music echoed softly in my room. Now that I listened to it, the tune sounded familiar. But I couldn’t quite place it. As if in a trance, I let my eyes drift closed.
     
    ***
     
    My body shook, knocking my teeth together. Why was the bed rocking?
    “Zadie, wake up.”
    My eyes were slits as I pushed Mara away. I was entirely too tired to get up yet. “Five more minutes.”
    “Zadie, come on.”
    “What do you want?”
    “There’s mud all over the floor. Footprints.”
    I scrunched my forehead up, my eyes still not all the way open. “What? What are you talking about?”
    “There were muddy footprints all over the floor. I wiped the ones up in the hall so Dad wouldn’t see, but there are more here in your room.”
    My eyes widened. I sat up and focused on my bedroom floor. Sure enough, a trail of mud led up to my bed. Panic jump-started my heart as I realized someone could have been in my room while I slept. But the footprints only led up to my bed, not away from it.
    I grabbed my sheet and ripped it off of my body. “Oh my God.”
    Mud caked my feet entirely. Splotches of dirt stuck to my ankles and legs. I lifted them from the bed, as if to keep the mud off the linen. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. But was it just mud I had to worry about?
    “Ugh, disgusting,” I whispered, climbing out of bed. The mud was mostly dry, feeling crumbly under my feet and between my toes when I stood. I pulled my covers from the bed and threw them in a pile near the door.
    “Where were you last night?” Mara grabbed the fitted sheet from the mattress and balled it up. “Midnight rendezvous with Gavin?”
    I shook my head. Shock left me speechless for a moment. There were bits of dried mud in a trail from my bed to my door. In the hall, I could see some that Mara must have missed.
    “I don’t…I don’t know. Sleepwalking?” Oh no. I was sleepwalking again. Like I had the night before. Twice in two nights, whereas I’d never sleepwalked before—at least, not that I ever recalled. I was thankful that I somehow made it safely back home from wherever I was, but where had I been? And what had lured me out of my bed? A shudder ran through me.
    “Sleepwalking around the house is one thing, but sleepwalking outside? That’s not exactly