“So that’s the type of person you would have me be with, then?” he asks. “Someone practical. Someone who doesn’t have their head in other worlds?”

My blood chills, but I don’t answer him.

My lack of reply seems to please him, and he says, “If you get bored, I wouldn’t mind hearing about them, you know.”

I scoff, then immediately wince, grabbing instinctively at my wounded belly.

“I’d hate to give you more fodder for your imagination,” I say. “It seems like a rather dangerous place.”

He shrugs. “It is what got me into this mess to begin with. Though, I suppose it might have saved me too. That’s the thing about pivotal moments. Did they bring disaster, or did they save you from something much, much worse? I suppose we’ll never truly know, just have to wonder.”

An aching hits me. The same one that tugged on my heart when Nox told me that Farin had once belonged to another world. Not this one, or the one Nox and I are originally from, but another realm entirely. Farin’s a realm-walker. Like me.

“The strangest part is the way the air feels different,” I whisper.

Farin shakes his head where it’s propped against the cave wall and stares out into the distance. “I disagree. I think it’s the way your muscles never seem to work the same in the different worlds. When I crossed from the Nether to Alondria, it was as if my muscles turned from lead to as light as a feather. Then here, I feel as though they’re weak again.”

I level a glare at him.

“What?” he asks.

“We’re describing the same sensation, yet you claim to disagree?”

“How are we describing the same sensation? You said the difference was the air. I said it was the muscles.”

“Yes, well, this realm feels like walking through air that’s thick and heavy and resists you. It’s the same feeling as one’s muscles being weak, just blamed on a different source.”

“Just blamed on a different source?” he says, before he trails off into what I believe is Farin’s infamous imagination.

CHAPTER 63

BLAISE

Nox drops Abra’s severed head as he launches toward me, but it doesn’t matter.

Nox is a moment too late.

His chest hits the crooked railing a few feet above me, his hand extending.

There’s just enough time for his fingers to brush against mine as I fall.

The fall is quieter than I would have thought, though I could swear I see Nox’s mouth twist in agony as he bellows something.

It’s probably “No.”

I’m not sure why I’m as shocked as I am, but I am.

I’m going to die.

I’m going to die, and Nox didn’t save me. Not because he didn’t have the chance, but because he chose revenge against Abra over saving me.

There’s a part of me that knows I deserve this. That this was always how my story was going to end. The betrayer justly betrayed.

It doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I close my eyes, preparing for the vat of liquid sunlight to take me into its arms, to sear away the pain. Because surely it can’t hurt worse than this. Than the feeling of my soul being shredded in half.

But then my hand catches on something, or rather, that something catches me, and I open my eyes.

At first, it’s just a flash of red, but then Piper’s face comes into focus, her face twisted in exertion as she clings to the rafter with one arm, the other keeping me suspended.

The cry that rips through the air as the weight of catching me wrenches at her shoulder muscles jolts me back to attention. Instinct takes over. I shove the image of Nox’s face aside, tuck it into the corner of my mind, as I climb up Piper’s arm and onto the rafters.

When I reach the top and clamber over Piper, she’s whimpering in pain, but she bites it back long enough to nod her head to the side.

“We need to go,” she says through clenched teeth.

“You saved me.” My voice sounds lifeless.

She blinks. “Someone needed to.” She pushes herself to her feet, looking like she might sway from the pain. Still, she stares up at the higher rafters, a glare of indignation pouring off her face.

Nox. She’s glaring at Nox.

“Blaise,” he says, and though I shouldn’t, I let the sound of my name on his lips cause my heart to skip. I turn to face him, bracing myself for the agony on his face at what he’d just done. But when I look up at Nox, there’s no emotion to be found.

He tosses something down at me. I catch it, and it’s metallic and cool to the touch.

I stare down to find the adamant box in my hands, the echoes of a slithering fragment of ancient magic trapped inside, chilling my bones.

When I look back up, Nox is gone.

CHAPTER 64

ASHA

Nagivv purrs, her dark snout dry and cracked with dehydration as I pet her, whispering words of comfort that I’m not sure she can understand.

Sores have cropped up around her snout, where the iron muzzle Az had fitted to her digs into her flesh.

She whimpers as I try to soothe her. I sit in the crook of her belly and legs, swollen with dehydration, as she lies across the floor of her sanctuary.

The day of Az’s coronation, he brought me here to celebrate. I suppose he thought it would be a special sort of gift to see her again.

She’d lunged for him, nearly ripping his throat out. It was only because a fae guard, sworn by his fae oath to protect Az at all costs, jumped between them that Az survived.

The guard did not.

Az had a muzzle crafted that very day.