The earth trembles again.

“It didn’t work,” Farin says, no intonation in his voice.

My stomach flips. “I don’t understand. I was sure it would have done something. Maybe it needed more blood. More time. I can make it again.”

I spin around, frantically grabbing at loose threads of silk, but they’re even more damaged than before, and few of them are long enough to tie together.

There’s nothing I can do.

My hands are shaking, sweating. I’m not sure what happens now, if I die here.

I’ve never died before.

Never had to.

Farin turns to me, slowly, the way his expression warps telling me he’s thinking the same thing.

I don’t know what happens to him either, if he dies here.

I’m betting it’s nothing good.

My stomach twists.

“We’re stuck then,” he says, his gaze somewhat distant, like he had a whole life planned out for himself, one that’s just been torn from him.

“There’s a chance a ship will come by,” I say, though even as I say it, there’s nothing convincing infusing my tone.

The ground rumbles, as if to contradict me.

We’re underground. In a cavern at the base of a canyon. And if that volcano just spouted lava, it won’t be long before it starts pooling into the canyon, slipping through the caverns, petrifying everything in its path.

Farin and I are going to die here, and I don’t know what that means.

He blinks a few times, like he’s trying to clear away a mist that’s fogged his expression.

“Farin?” I ask.

I instantly wish I hadn’t.

Because something in him changes.

He blinks again, but now that the fog has cleared, something else is revealed behind those brilliant blue eyes.

I’m not entirely sure why, but I take a step back.

His throat bobs. “You said this would work. You said we’d be able to get back.”

“I thought we would,” I say, eyes widening at the panic flaring up through him. “I don’t know why it’s not working.”

His gaze snaps to mine, and his posture goes rigid.

He advances toward me, but it’s more like an animal stalking its prey.

“You said we could make it back.” His breaths are going ragged, his face contorted in whatever craze has overtaken him.

Oh. Oh, no.

It hits me then. Why he’s so upset about not making it back. Perhaps part of it is fear. Dread about what will happen to him if he dies on this island. But Farin is a survivor. I recognize the type, and I doubt he has any intention of death getting in the way of what he wants.

But that’s the problem.

I, inadvertently, have gotten in the way of what he wants.

And what he wants, is Blaise.

Realization washes over me in thick, salty waves, filling my nostrils and thickening the air in my lungs.

“You were just trying to get back to her. This whole time. All that’s happened between us. It just made the process easier for you if I was on your team instead of fighting you,” I say, my fingers clutching the sides of my trousers as anxiety and sorrow overtake me.

Something shifts in his expression, something cold and dark that he slips on as easily as one might don a mask.

Except he’s not donning a mask.

He’s taking it off.

“I would have thought someone who’s lived so many lives would have been less naive,” is all he says, and now he’s looking at me like I’m the prey he’s about to devour.

Fear courses through my veins, dread at the very male I fancied a kindred spirit. I’d been isolated in my experiences for so long, I’d craved someone to share them with me. I’d looked into Farin’s heart and pretended I’d found a mirror when all I’d found was a ghoul capable of shifting into whatever I wished to see.

Stupid. So, so stupid.

“We’ll find another way back,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm, like one might do with a rabid animal you’re trying not to spook.

Except Farin’s not the one spooked.

My back hits the cave wall, and it’s like life itself is telling me I can’t go any further. That I’ve taken more than my fair share from it, and this is the end.

I don’t know what happens at the end. I’ve only ever tasted beginnings and middles.

“There has to be another way. Our bodies are back in—”

I catch my breath, because Farin cocks his head to the side, a silent challenge.

Because my body is back home.

He doesn’t have one if the tapestry runs out.

“You tricked me,” he says, his voice a whisper, but it’s trembling now. “All this time, and you were just waiting time out. Waiting for us to reach the end of the tapestry, where you get to go home, and I get to go…where, exactly, Wanderer?”