Greg thought for a second that it might really work. Agatha was on her knees, crying, and the golden figure of her father was fading away like morning mist.
Instead of anger, the core pulsed with sadness, and in that change, Greg felt the tiniest spark of hope. It was possible that redemption wasn't impossible, but he might still be able to choose to let go.
Then Agatha's eyes changed.
At first, it was just a flicker of purple light coming through the tears, but it spread quickly, eating away at the brown of her irises until her eyes glowed with the same bad energy as the core around them. Her face, which had been open and vulnerable, changed into something else. Not anger.
It was not sadness but something worse, like nothingness. The face of someone who had looked into the void for so long that it finally looked back and won.
"You're right," Agatha said, but her voice was wrong. In layers. It was like thousands of voices were coming through her at once. "It's too late..."
