“Asha’s gone, Blaise. I don’t know if you’ve even pulled your head out of your own chest long enough to notice. You handed her over to that psychopath. Do you know how frightened she is of him? How many times Ellie had to go and sleep in the bed with her because she would wake up screaming?”

My mouth is moving, but no words are coming out.

“And now Kiran is going to have to agonize over what’s happening to her. Like you’ve been agonizing over Nox. You can’t handle your own burdens, your own pain, so you gladly hand them off to someone else.”

Marcus has lowered his bow, placing a firm hand on Evander’s shoulder.

Evander shrugs him off and bolts to his feet.

“Now’s not the time for this, friend,” says Marcus, but Evander doesn’t seem to hear.

He’s stalking toward me, and for the first time in my life, I see nothing but contempt in those beautiful eyes of his.

“Tell me, are you happy now? Did you find what you were looking for? Tell me it was worth it, Blaise. Tell me you got what you wanted. That the price of my child’s life was worth it.”

He approaches, and I find myself stepping backward, my back hitting a tree.

“Tell me. Was. It. Worth. It?”

I wonder for the first time if Evander is going to kill me.

I wonder if I’ll let him.

He looks to be contemplating it when someone steps in front of me.

“That’s enough,” says a voice I ache for like the earth thirsts for water in the middle of a drought.

Nox emerges from the shadows.

Evander looks Nox up and down, and the most beautifully cruel smile warps his usually kind face. “See how long you can keep that up, defending her, before it’s you who ends up in a ditch while she’s onto something shinier.”

Nox tenses, and for a moment, I wonder if the two most important males in my life will rip each other to shreds.

Ellie lets out a wilting cry, and the hostility melts from Evander’s face. In an instant, he’s back at her side, cradling her hand in his, pressing his forehead to hers as he whispers apologies in her ear.

I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but I hear him beg her forgiveness for not protecting her.

Marcus’s voice is steady as he addresses Nox and me. “I think it would be best if the two of you go.”

It’s only then I recognize the bloodlust in Nox’s eyes as his gaze settles on Ellie’s wound.

Nox nods and disappears into the shadows.

I take one last look at Ellie, her teeth gritted, her brow twisted in pain, and follow him into the dark.

PART IV

CURSED

CHAPTER 49

EVANDER

Our hands are clasped together, mine and Ellie’s, though I can’t tell which one of us is shaking. Probably both. Of course it’s both of us, Ellie from the pains of labor, me from the rage boiling up inside me.

The bones in my hand are slowly knitting back together from where the Other crushed it.

I hardly notice.

Panic courses through my veins, causing my whole body to tremble, my knees to shake, though they’re planted in the earth next to Ellie. Next to my wife.

She is going to die. And if not Ellie, if the Fates spare her, then our child is going to die.

I can’t see a way around that, a world in which the Fates don’t take our child from us, and neither can she.

How did I let this happen? Why did I place my family in danger, all in a fruitless quest to help a leech who’s never wanted to be helped? A girl who’s never cared about anyone other than herself?

We’re going to lose our child, and I might lose Ellie too, and I can’t even blame Blaise for it.

I can blame no one but myself.

How do you let go of someone who’s drowning? How do you live with yourself?

That was the question I asked Ellie, unsure at the time that I could live with myself if I did.

What I didn’t realize was that while I was swimming against the crashing waves, fighting with Blaise’s thrashing limbs as she grabbed onto my neck and pulled, we weren’t the only two in the water.

How do you let go of someone who’s drowning? How do you live with yourself?

It’s that you see your wife and child are in the water too, and you realize you can’t save all of them.

Tears sting at my burning eyes as I watch Ellie writhe. Sweat coats her forehead. Her screams are becoming more pronounced now.

Again, Ellie asks for a cloth to bite down on, worried her wails will attract the Others. As if the blood isn’t already doing that.

And there is so much blood.

Amity does as asked, though I suspect mostly to give Ellie something to do, a way to calm her anxieties.

Ellie pushes, and I squeeze her hand and tell her I love her, though that hardly seems enough.

“It’s too early. It’s too early,” she keeps whispering, and each time it chisels away bits of my heart. By the end of this, there will be nothing left except a cavity inside my chest where our joy should have been.

All the while, Amity keeps at work, tending to Ellie’s wound and checking on her progress. Marcus keeps watch. I’m not aware of a time when he lowers his bow, feeble as his poisoned muscles must be.

The Others don’t come.

There are moments when my vision blurs, and all I can see is that vital moment. The mere crashing into Ellie’s back, slamming her to the ground on top of Amity. I can hear the crunch of her ribs, the sound of her cries of agony.