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There’s not a step worth taking

A breath worth holding

A neck worth breaking

If no one’s waiting

So why should you hold on?

I recognize the lyrics. They push me to my feet and over the missing planks. They nudge me forward one tiny step at a time, grazing my calves and prodding my shoulders. They stick my hands to the rails and silence the creak of the beam and the thundering river. They extinguish the scalding rain—and carry me to him.

Summoned, I collapse into his waiting arms, hot and steamy from the rain. He holds me, and I know—Iknowthat if he lets go too soon, I’ll fall apart.

But he doesn’t, and once I can breathe without shuddering, without visions flashing and death crashing through my mind, we walk. It’s not far before he steps in front of me and grabs my shoulders.

“Ready?” His dark brown eyes flicker with excitement.

“For what?”

He pulls me past dense trees, so close that their bark scrapes the bare skin of our arms. My boots sink into the layer of moss blanketing the ground. The trees tower above in a tight circle around us, forming a canopy that blocks the gray sky. Inside the ring, smaller trees with waxy leaves and bunches of bright red fruit crowd the space. The air is thick and balmy and smells of jasmine.

Mouth clamped shut, fingers fidgeting with his ear, Eli watches me take in the scene, my eyes traveling from the canopy, to the drapes of fruit, to him.

Chapter

Forty-Eight

“Well?” Eli asks, leading me to an open circle of moss in the center of the space.

I take another look at the trees around me, laden with bunches of fruit that look like ripe cherries. “Are these…coffee plants?”

“Yes. I had Milo show me where they are. He planted them years ago.” He slides a hand into his rain-drenched curls, removing his pack and tossing it aside as he sits on the moss.

“Coffee,” I stammer.

“You hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in two days, and you asked for coffee. I thought you wanted it as medicine, then I remembered seeing Hollows and Vaile drink coffee before theSeparation. We only use it for headaches now, and even then, it’s rare.”

I touch the nearest leaf, but my eyes stay on him. “This isn’t what I expected.”

His face falls. “Oh. It seemed important.” He reaches for his ear again, then snaps his hand away when he catches my eyes following the movement.

“I mean, I didn’t expect this from you.” I sit down and fold my legs, a soft breeze playing over my cheeks. “It’s perfect.” Those words do nothing to capture my thoughts, but it’s all I can manage with him across from me. Looking like he does. All dark and hopeful.

“Not hideous?”

I bite back a smile, thinking back to my response at the lake, the feel of his fingers dipping past my waistband. The heat in his eyes flares, luring out the golden specks. But just as I let a sliver of joy show on my face, all the doubts and feelings I thought had fallen into the river rush back, and my smile fades. Maybe I forgive him for dragging me into Sonnet, but what am I doing here, with him, pretending I’m not a killer? That I’m not as broken as he is, that everything isn’t a mess?

I lean in. “I need to know, Elivander. I need to know how you do it.”

He looks up from his hands in his lap, flinching at his full name. “Do what?”

“How you embrace the darkness. How you carry it with you, but it doesn’t eat you alive. You still function. I want to be like you, so it won’t hurt so fucking bad.” I scoot closer to him, our bent knees kissing. “Show me how.”

He stares at me for a long time, his eyes locked but walled off behind the brown. “Why would you need me to show you that?”

He won’t help me if I don’t tell him, and I’m dying here, shriveling up inside myself. I swear I hear my walls come crashing down with every word.

“There’s something wrong with me,” I whisper, my resolve strengthening. “It’s always been there, and it’s getting worse. I feel it in you—the darkness mixed in with the light. I’m drawn to you, but you have these walls up.” My hands creep forward in my lap. “And I see myself behind them.”