But the dread that sallows the queen’s cheeks is what has my knees shaking.

I realize then that it doesn’t matter if within the Rip lies the power to free Blaise of the parasite.

I’m not letting the queen take Blaise anywhere near it.

She must see the resolve in my posture, because the queen says, “You understand then, why this must be our last resort.”

It takes great effort not to inform the queen that this plan is not a resort at all. That it’s not happening, but I hold my tongue.

I simply nod.

“Very well,” she says, turning to go. Over her shoulder she nods toward the package and says, “Use it wisely. Gunter believed it was key to unlocking the chains that shackle the girl’s mind. Find a way, or I will.”

I sit on the chest at the foot of my bed for a long while, mostly because it’s easy to imagine Gunter’s still here with me, leaning forward, elbows pressed into his knees, his steady voice talking me through some complication with one of our theories.

Or explaining to me what’s inside this parcel.

I turn it over in my palms several times, as if I’m a child who’s stumbled upon his Winter Solstice gift and wishes to detect its contents without soiling the wrapping.

Though the package has substance to it, it’s not overly heavy. It’s wrapped in thick layers of burlap, which does nothing to hide the fact that the contents are grooved.

A gentle tug on the string, and the burlap falls open.

My hopes plummet.

I’m not sure why the queen thought this package was meant to be used for the extraction of the parasite.

It’s just a bundle of flax. Flax that Gunter ordered before he died, so he could sit as his spinning wheel and hum and weave thread and forget about the lives and families the queen stole from us.

The flax is brittle in my hand, and I find myself squeezing my eyes shut to block off the tears as my fingers find the tips of the stalks, absentmindedly grinding the seeds to dust between my forefinger and thumb.

There’s a gaping emptiness in my chest where Gunter once was. Where my hope for saving Blaise once was.

I don’t know what I was expecting to find in the parcel. A block of the rarest moonstone, perhaps? Something, anything to help us.

Crumbles of crushed flaxseed fall to the floor.

Just like Gunter fell to the floor.

And because I can’t stand to toss the flax aside, not when it meant something to Gunter, I throw the parcel wrapping itself to the ground.

It lands face up, and my eye catches on a symbol of black ink stamped across the burlap.

Rivrean flax.

The fallen hope in my chest leaps to its feet, and so do I, scrambling for the fallen parcel.

I stare at it for a long while, as if I think I’ll blink and the words will shift.

They don’t.

Gunter ordered a parcel from Rivre, which explains why the queen believed this was to be used in extracting the parasite.

But it’s too much of a coincidence not to take note of.

My mind races, sifting through theories, hypotheses.

It has been theorized that the Old Magic is simply a fragment torn from the Fabric that separates the realms. The Fabric that is not all that different from elemental magic. What if, when the Fabric was ripped, the Old Magic wasn’t the only bit of it to fall away?

What if it seeped into the earth?

What if it feeds the plants that grew there?

What if, in order to free Blaise of the parasite, we don’t need to open the Rip at all?

What if I hold a bit of the Fabric in my hands?

CHAPTER 35

BLAISE

My eyes are crossing from trying to decipher the smudged script of an ancient grimoire for the past hour when the lock on my cell rattles and Nox enters.

I have to blink multiple times to clear the glaze in my eyes, and I dog-ear a page to mark my place before clamping it shut.

“You’re lat—”

I don’t get to finish that accusation, because Nox grabs me by the back of my head and pulls my mouth to his.

The kiss is short but passionate, and when he pulls away, I find I’m a bit dizzy.

“I’m getting you out of here,” he says, running his hands down my neck, tucking my hair behind my ears before his hands come to rest on my shoulders.

There’s life in his pale eyes I haven’t recognized before, that I thought I might never see in him. Not after what happened to Gunter.

The sorrow isn’t gone, the grief over the loss of the male who raised him, but there’s something else, too. Something buzzing inside him, causing his fingers to twitch and his eyes to widen.

It kills me to dampen that spirit. “But your family. If you help me escape—” It’s strange, having to be the voice of reason. Trying to talk another person out of a terrible idea. I can see how Evander and Jerad were so exasperated with me constantly.

Nox shakes his head, a grin lighting up his entire face. “You’re not escaping. You’re being released. We both are.”

“Nox.” I shake my head, hardly believing my ears. “How? Oh.” I clap my hand over my mouth. “You figured it out—how to extract it—didn’t you?”

Nox kisses me again. It’s the type of kiss that promises a thousand more.

Then he tells me everything. He tells me of the queen’s threat to open the Rip to cleave the parasite from me, of her intention to barter something horrible in order to get the parasite to agree. He tells me of Gunter’s parcel, of wonderful genius Gunter, who must have realized just before his death the implications of plants grown near the Rip. Who likely hadn’t wanted to tell us and get our hopes up.

Nox tells me the plan, draws out the entire ritual for me on a scrap piece of parchment, and the more he talks, the more he draws, the more my heart floats.