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He grips me tight. “This is different.”

I take long strides to keep pace, and after over an hour of winding through trees, he lets go of my arm. I follow his figure through the dark shades of the woods, all in black with the brown pack on his back.

“Where are we going?” I ask for the tenth time and finally get a response, as vague as it is.

“I have something to show you.”

He gives me no clues despite my torrent of questions. We hike farther east under the menacing clouds, and the edges of my map expand and push the boundaries of my mind.

“If the Centress is so confident that magic is diminishing and causing weather disasters, why doesn’t she stop the magic from dying instead of taking it from babies, especially if she is only moving magic from one part of the cycle to another and not replenishing anything?” I ask instead of offering another guess at where he’s taking us. “And if the cycle was designed to reuse magic and not let it die, why is it running low after all these years? You didn’t answer when Sypher asked, but you must know.”

“Besides the fact that I’m a mistake and can’t create new magic to fix the very problem I was made to prevent from happening?” he asks, clearly a tad sensitive. “It’s cruel. I’m stuckwaiting almost twenty-four years of every lifetime to be gifted a shred of magic. I should be its source, but all I can do is block it.”

Made, not born—yet both are true if his story is. I wait for him to keep talking as we push past low branches.

He snaps a twig off a tree on his way by and proceeds to break it in half over and over as he speaks. “It’s the Separation. The loss of magic was almost nonexistent until the border around Sonnet was put in place. Hollows and Vaile aren’t meant to be apart, and magic isn’t meant to be contained and concentrated like it is now in Sonnet. Hollows haven’t been allowed to take part in their role in the magic cycle since the Separation. It’s breaking the natural flow and destroying magic faster than ever before. The disasters come every few months now, but it’s not only the weather that’s a problem if magic gets too low—the connection to the Immortal Realm will be severed, and Vaile won’t receive gifts anymore. It’s an unintended consequence of the Separation, but the Centress isn’t willing to take on the risk of undoing it and bringing Hollows and Vaile together again.”

“But if Hollows don’t actually take magic, what’s the risk?”

He tosses the last bit of broken twig aside and holds a low-hanging branch away from my head as I walk between two trees. “The risk is eliminating all Vaile. Before the Separation, Vaile started mating with Hollows even though they were linked with another Vaile, but the children born to the mixed parents were always Hollows—without the gift of magic. After a few generations, hardly any Vaile were left.”

“So either the magic dies due to the broken cycle and extreme weather destroys the land—or all Vaile and their magic die out?”

“Basically.”

“And which side are you on?”

“Both. I don’t know.” His steps slow. “I only know that I can’t let the connection to the gods in the Immortal Realm be cut off, or you’ll never be able to help me.”

“Oh right,the gods.”

He stops and sneaks a finger under my chin, latching his eyes onto mine. “You can’t believe in magic—and what I am—and not believe in the gods.”

I can. Denial is much easier than blindly believing.

But I give him this one thing, this one truth. “I believe in you, who you are. Not because of the gods and the Immortal Realm that don’t exist, but because—” I struggle with the words, the emotions I lay bare with them, my throat closing. “Your eyes.” I rake in a shaky breath. “When they’re looking into mine—it’s as though thousands of eyes are looking back at me, thousands of hearts and souls captive inside you.”

Pain sinks into his features at the truth in my words, and something else…vulnerability, like the way I feel when he stares so deep, when I’mseen.

His past is much longer, and far more painful than mine, his mother more despicable. And those names on the cave walls—they belong to him, each one a lifetime, a death. Each one a person he once was, and still is.

He swallows whatever words he can’t spit out and releases my chin, then takes my ear, and we walk.

The sound of rushing water grows louder, and I stiffen, pushing through each step as though wading through thoughts.It’s fine. I’m fine. We’re not at the falls.It’s a river.A light rain trickles from the clouds and makes its way through the maze of branches above me.

We reach a narrow bridge hanging between two skinny logs for handrails. Eli crosses first, the path of wooden planks swinging and bouncing under his feet, the rain splattering freely on his finally dry clothes. I rally the muscles of my legs into obedience and step onto the bridge.

Near halfway across, the slightest glance down makes the white rapids far below bubble into view. The mist rises like at the falls. I can’t move one more step. Cam’s scream plunders through me, taking every bit of strength I have left. I fall to my knees, hands on my ears.Crack. I can’t tell where the sound came from. The rain rushes to drench me as though it might wash away the filth staining my conscience.Too late.

How quickly I spiral. I bury myself in the torment. I try to block out the screaming, try to erase those babies’ faces like I erased their chance at a family. I try to hide behind walls of guilt, letting only the musty, wet stink of this bridge reach me. But I can’t hide who I am, the choices I’ve made. I can’t blame an elixir that doesn’t affect me. Every thought is truly, painfully mine. Every choice is born from a free mind, and I own my existence, from my soaked skin to my unbelieving soul. I own it.

And it’s too fucking much.

My name falls with the raindrops around me. I toss up another shield, another wall, trying to shut everything out. But it doesn’t stop—my name, dripping and dropping around me.

“Never!” Invisible darkness tears down my walls. “Look at me!”

Let me hide.