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From the way the Queen’s smile widened, she knew she finally had his attention. “Everything has always come so easy to you, hasn’t it, Skylen? Language, mathematics, magic, statecraft,women.” He didn’t miss the suggestive lilt to her voice, as if to say she knew about that reputation Taly had once accused him of having. Perhaps rightly so.

“You haveeverythingyou’ve ever wanted,” she went on, “and everything you’ve ever needed. The world is yours. It has been promised to you on a jewel-encrusted platter, and yet you’re unhappy. Because you don’t want the world. You want everything that you have right now. You want your life on Tempris, but you realized a long time ago that it has an expiration date. One that,despite current events, you can still feel approaching. You dread the day when your mother will finally call you home, yet you’ve resigned yourself to it. You’ve never had to struggle, so in the face of hardship, all you see is looming inevitability.”

Skye remained silent, clenching and unclenching his fists. Anything he might’ve said to the contrary would’ve been a lie.

With a snap of her fingers, wood flew, groaning as the dummies reassembled. Unmarked. Whole.

Except for a single head that landed in her waiting hands. Coming closer, she placed it gently back upon the dummy’s shoulders.

“That is until recently,” she went on. Her fingertips glowed gold as she secured the head in place. “When the world went to hell, you finally gained some clarity. The same clarity that all men gain when faced with an end. You realized that there was something you wanted. Enough to buck your family’s reins. Enough to kill for, to die for. And the longer you lived with that truth, the more you wanted it. Wantedher—a human, then a time mage. The want consumed you, so much that you stopped seeing the struggle it would take to stay with her and forged a new path.”

The Queen stepped back to inspect her work, the pale jewels in her black hair glimmering in the summer sun.

Skye felt as though he’d just been opened up, the pieces of him laid bare. “What do you want with us?” he rasped. The weight of that power was suffocating as she came to stand even closer to him, barely a handful of feet away. “With me, with Taly? Why that test? Why did you bring me herethe way you did? Why did you send your fairies to torture me?”

The Queen gave a delicate shrug. “You needed a push,” she said simply. “Without encouragement, there was a chance that you would’ve done nothing. That you would’ve stayed in that city and followed Ivain’s command, obeying his every order and never thinking for yourself. It would’ve been easier. It’s always easier to let other people make your decisions. And then when I sent Taly back, you would’ve been the same man that you were when she left. A man that saw hardship as inevitability. Who faced defeat on a bridge and nearly let it cripple him. That man would not have been strong enough to protect her. He would not have been able to face those that would see her dead, butyou—”

Her eyes flicked up and down, looking him over. As if she could see through him, to what lay beneath his skin. “You might have a chance. If you keep going down the path that’s now opened before you, you might just be strong enough to stand at her side.”

If he kept learning bloodcraft. If he kept experimenting, kept getting stronger. Kept sacrificing for that forbidden power.

Leaves rustled overhead, fairies peeking from between the branches.

Skye’s heart was hammering in his chest. The Queen watched him as he backed away, those eyes following him as he turned to go. He needed to see Taly. Needed to get away from the Queen and that suffocating gravity of power.

“It’s feels good, doesn’t it?” she called when he passed under one of the arches.

He glanced over his shoulder, waiting.

That smile was back. “Taking ownership of your life,” she clarified. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

Skye didn’t bother to reply as he exited the arena. The Queen already knew his answer.

Taly dove beneath the water, swimming down to the bottom of the pool. Fire and water crystals swirled across the floor in nonsense patterns, shimmering softly, and when she reached the deepest part, she hugged her knees to her chest and exhaled slowly. Streams of bubbles raced for the surface.

Here she stayed, listening to the gentle roar of the water as her hair whorled around her, pushed by the gentle current.

After Skye had left to go do whatever it was he planned on doing, she had spent her day sorting through clothes and books, trying to figure out what would stay and what would go. She had come to the palace with nothing, so it was a little astonishing just how muchstuffshe had managed to accumulate in only a year.

Clothes, jewelry, trinkets from the fairies, gifts from the Queen, and so many books.

At least that last one was easy. Azura had given her a list, slipped beneath her door that morning. It detailed every reading assignment and spell she needed to complete before she returned to the palace—which Taly had no doubt that she would at some point. The future was a weird,tangled mess, and even if she hated the Queen right now, forever was a long time to hold a grudge.

Home.

That word had been chasing her all day.

They were going home tomorrow. Back to Tempris. Back to an island full of shades. And even though this was what she had been working towards for nearly a year, desperate to get back to her friends and family, now that the time had come…

Taly craned her head, looking up at the light as it danced across the surface of the water. She wasn’t sure how to finish that thought. If she even wanted to.

Being in the palace had come with an assumption of safety she had taken for granted. True, the Queen’s methods had been brutal, sometimes cruel. But Taly had never feared for her safety. She’d never wondered if she’d live to see the sun rise. Never doubted she’d live to see it set.

It had taken nearly a year, but she finally understood the gift she’d been given.

Azura, for all her eccentricities, had given her time. Time to train. Time to get stronger. The Queen had given her a chance against the Sanctorum—one she wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Taly’s lungs were starting to burn. She was out of air, so she unfolded her body and kicked off the bottom of the pool.