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But his hands passed right through her shoulders.

“No,” he breathed. He tried again, but… Why couldn’t he feel her? Touch her? Why couldn’t he hear the sound of her heart beating? “No, no, no.”

“Shards.” Ivain was on his knees beside him, eyes wide as he tried to assess the situation. “How…?”

And that’s when he saw it. A shimmer of aether covering her body like a veil.

Skye reached for her again, but it was like trying to catch a shadow. Her body began to fade—flesh and blood turning to smoke and mist. The color leached from her cheeks; her eyes drooped shut. It was as though something vital were being drained away.

“Stabilize her!” Ivain’s hands glowed with shadow magic, and tendrils of aether snaked through the air, trying to grab at the fading image. But she was just that. An image. A facsimile. Not quite real, and yet— “It has to be you, boy!”

Skye pulled at his own magic, letting it fill the air around him with a violet glow. If he searched for it, he could still feel thetug, tug, tuggingof that thread. Weak but—

Not knowing what else to do, he grasped at the rapidly fraying edges, wrapping his own aether around it as he began weaving the strands back together. Stronger. Tighter. Adding bits of himself to fill in the gaps.

The image began to resolve itself. Slowly. The next time he reached for her, Skye managed to grip her shoulders. She was like smoke in his hands, and he gave her a shake, nearly sobbing in relief when she gasped awake.

Her eyes found his and—

Skye blinked. Her eyes… weren’t the right color. They were too bright, too…fey. And now that he was looking more closely—her cheeks were too angular, the arch of her brow too high. Everyfeature had been sharpened and refined until there was nothing human left.

But then again—she wasn’t human. She had never been human. That’s what Aiden had said.

Sarina’s gasp from beside him confirmed that he wasn’t the only one that had noticed the change.

“Taly?” Skye tried to control the tremble in his hands as he gave her another gentle shake. “Taly, where are you?”

She reached up to grasp at his wrist, and Skye couldn’t help but shiver at the buzz of aether that swept across his skin. She was still staring at him when the first trail of blood rolled down her cheek.

“What’s happening to her?” Sarina snapped as the blood began to leak from the girl’s eyes like crimson tears.

The image began to stutter.

“Hold on to her!” Ivain clapped a hand to his shoulder, and Skye felt a wave of aether being forcibly injected into his veins. It was like pure adrenaline, and he grabbed onto it, pushing it into the spell.

Taly flashed in and out of focus—once, twice, three times—before she finally stabilized. There was more blood on her face now, trailing from her eyes, her nose, even her ears. She touched a finger to her cheek, smearing the perfect lines of crimson that marked her skin.

“C’mon,” Skye whispered, holding tight to that thread. “Stay with me. Just a little longer. Where are you? Are you still on Tempris? Are you at the palace?”

“Oh, my little one,” Sarina sobbed. She tried to wipe at the blood on Taly’s face, but it was liketrying to touch a ghost. “What have they done to you?”

Taly was still staring at the blood dripping down her fingers like it was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out how to solve. Skye gently wrapped a hand around her wrist, and her eyes finally snapped to his.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Her voice was distorted and garbled, as though she had already stepped one foot out of this world.

“Where are you?” Skye asked again. “Please. I know you’re hurt; I know you’re tired. But I need you to tell me where you are. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”

“I found the relay,” she said, her brows nudging together in confusion. “I talked to Ivain.”

“Taly, I know, but—”

The thread was starting to pull taut.

“She’s fading again.”

“He needs more aether.”

“Move.”