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“Well, you keep saying that I’m destined to die, so maybe this is how I go. Not in a fire. Not eaten by shades or trying to keep you from jumping over the side of a ballroom balcony. Not even drunk and stumbling through an abandoned airtram station, which thank you for the warning, by the way. Because of you, Ryme is still standing, and I’m still alive.”

Taly hesitated. “I didn’t warn you.”

“Oh yes, you did.” She took a step back, but he followed, grinning madly. “Well, you actually sort of yelled it at me, but that doesn’t matter. I got the message.”

Something like horror dawned in her eyes, and Skye nodded. She was finally catching on. This wasn’t just a dream. It was so much more.

“Skylen Emrys,” she said, soft and lethal, craning her head as he took her face in his hands, “don’t you dare do what it is I think you’re going to do. You stay right where you are. Stay where it’s safe, you arrogant—”

Skye kissed her—hard. And Shards, he wanted more than the dream. He wanted to feel her warmth, to hear her heart beating. But this—this was enough. Right now, that sigh and that gasp and that tiny moan—it was enough.

“No,” he said against her lips as the dream began to fall apart. The ground shook, cracks spiraling out around them, and through the wind and snow, the sparkling spindrifts of magic that whirled in the air, he said, “I’m going to find you. And now I know how.”

They began to fall, and he held onto that final vision of her, eyes wide and lashes flaked with snow, as darkness swept in.

A moment later, he woke up, warm and safe in his bed. The glow of dawn had barely started to brighten the windows, but he didn’t feel tired. The dream was still vivid in his mind, and for the first time, the way forward was clear. He finally had a plan, and the first step began three stories below ground on the basement floor of the townhouse.

The place where Ivain had locked away every book of forbidden magic that they’d brought with them from Ebondrift.

“What about this one?” Aimee asked, handing the glamograph to Sarina. They both sat at the long table in the formal dining room, combing through box after box of old pictures. In the weeks since the first attacks, Ivain had made several trips to Harbor Manor, rescuing the serving staff, emptying the vaults and armories, and, even though it was a luxury they could barely afford, salvaging personal items and family mementos.

Keepsakes that they were now sorting through.

Sarina wanted to hold a funeral for Talya, and Aimee had volunteered to help organize it. True, she and Talya had never gotten along, but now that the human was gone… well, Aimee wasn’t sure how to describe her feelings. Not sadness. They hadn’t been that close. But she did feel regret. And perhaps some grief by association. She didn’t like seeing her aunt and uncle so devastated, and she felt helpless when she passed by her brother in the hall, the pain and regret dragging behind him like a physical weight.

And Skylen…

Aimee sighed. She was worried about him the most. She’d run into him that morning—literally. He’d nearly knocked her down the stairs, using one hand to keep her on her feet while the other clutched a large cloth-wrapped bundle to his chest. There had been something manic in his expression, and she got the distinct feeling that he had just come from a place he wasn’t supposed to be.

“She looks very pretty in this one,” Aimee added as Sarina took the glamograph from her hand, smiling sadly. It was an image of Talya, fifteen years old according to the scrawledhandwriting on the back. She was standing next to a skinny brown foal.

“That’s Byron,” Sarina said. “No one thought that horse was going to survive, but Taly stayed with him all night, talking to him and trying to get him to take a bottle. Needless to say, we were all amazed the next morning when they were both still there, and she’d managed to get that foal to feed.”

Sarina placed the glamograph off to the side, where there were two stacks, one slightly larger than the other. “That one will work for the service, I think.” She wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief, then her nose. “Taly loved that horse. I’m glad Aiden was able to find him.”

Aimee placed a hand on Sarina’s shoulder as she rose, moving to the hearth to stoke the fire. The formal dining room was lovely, even with sheets still covering most of the furniture. A section of the table had been cleared, and pieces of jewelry, drawings, books, even hair ribbons were neatly organized in piles. Without a body, they had decided to place items representing Talya inside an urn that would be buried on the property.

“I remember hearing Talya practicing the piano,” Aimee said, placing the iron poker back beside the mantle. “Perhaps we should include some sheet music.”

Sarina gave a teary nod, staring at a glamograph of what appeared to be Skylen and Talya sitting on the front steps of the manor. They were both laughing, unaware of the person holding the glamera. “Look in that box over there.” She waved a hand at a wooden chest halfway beneath the table. “I kept all of her old practice manuals.”

Aimee nodded and heaved the box onto the table. She found the practice manuals easily, all scrawled with childish handwriting. Some had drawings in the margins. There were more glamographs too, from when Skylen and Talya were both very young.

Aimee picked up a faded stack of glamographs, pulling the fraying ribbon holding them together. There were pictures of them in the sparring ring and working with horses, and more still where they’d obviously been posed, their shoulders stiff and their clothes clean and pressed.

A perfect, happy childhood. A family formed despite a lack of shared blood.

Aimee couldn’t help the small stab of jealousy. They were lucky. Even for the nobility, life was hardly ever that kind.

Younger and younger they became until Aimee pulled a faded glamograph from the stack. In this one, Talya was standing in a doorway alone, skinny and pale, dressed in an oversized shirt that dragged the ground. She hugged a stuffed bear close to her body. Her expression looked distinctly hollow.

“That was Taly’s first night at the manor.”

Aimee jumped, not realizing Sarina had risen from her chair and come to stand behind her.

“Skye was the one that found her,” Sarina went on as she began gathering up the practice manuals. “Her house burned in the Vale fire, but she was hiding in the basement. She was covered in so much ash and soot—it wasn’t until we got her bathed that we realized her hair was yellow.”

Aimee only half-listened, still staring at that face. It tugged on a memory, something deep and buried. “Excuse me,” she said abruptly. She didn’twait for Sarina to respond before striding from the room, the glamograph clutched in one hand.