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Yesterday evening fades into a blurry memory shortly after draining the Centress of her magic. Eli pulled his bloody shirtover his head and knotted it around the exposed flesh on his neck, possibly to avoid the questions as he freed his friends…or stop the black ooze. He sat me as far from him as possible while he and Kelter—both weak and barely functional—managed to take down the guards. I could only hear the sluggish brawl underground…and smell the fresh blood wafting my way. Sola and Coen appeared first, then Kaleida. She hugged me until I was close to passing out again.

Why did it take five days for you to show up?Sypher complained when he entered the atrium. Milo elbowed him in the ribs and threw an arm around Eli, but his blue eyes avoided mine. Perhaps he wasn’t particularly pleased to find his friend cuffed in the woods. Only fuzzy images follow—Coen tackling Eli when he tried to kill the Centress without getting answers from her. Sola cuffing her and forcing her to her feet. A view of the muddy ground after Coen slung me over his shoulder for the walk back to the castle.

Whatever stroke of luck allowed Kelter to survive is beyond my understanding, but what’s even harder to grasp is how he took that knife and sliced straight across Eli’s neck, unaware he would survive the fatal wound. He killed him. My Kelter, my conflict-avoiding, unseen, soft-spoken friend killed him. He did it to save his own life, but what did the Centress do to him all that time she had him locked up? Did she change him, create a killer...like me?

I woke up this morning to a barrage of thoughts and questions without end or answers, those moments with all my memories gone still fresh in my mind. That’s what it took for me to choose to fight for myself. I had to become no one to see I’m someone, to care enough to want to exist and feel again. I have no explanation for my visions, but the pain they cause—the rejection, the death, the memories—makes me who Iam. Whoever that is…Hollows and Vaile can’t take magic from plants, but I can, and I took it from my mother too—but how?

Ugh.My mother. Mentally, I’m going back to not having a mother at all—the only way I know to keep the little pieces of my heart from breaking off and falling to its chamber floor. The Centress can’t take magic from the babies with her necklace or send them away anymore, but Calderans are still under the elixir’s control. All Vaile believe drugging them is necessary to protect Sonnet when the real concern is the border—separating Hollows and Vaile, disrupting the cycle and causing magic to die. Hot rain and violent winds are a gentle ride compared to the disasters to come. Either we find a way to stop it or undo the Separation, because what Eli was made to do—create new magic—he can’t. And if this essence in me is what he needs, I’m at a loss for how to give it to him, how to help.

I don’t know why he made me promise not to fall in love with him. I only know that every breath I take is laced withhim. I’m not alone. I’m not held back. He pushes me. He sees me. He gives me a voice that’s heard and a rhythm to follow. I’m more myself with Eli than I knew I could be. And maybe my heart isn’t capable of giving in to him, promise or no promise, matching beat or not, but I can secretly treasure whatever this is, giving my blood and body and fighting and fucking to feel alive. I can do that…with him.

Though I’m still streaked with mud and blood, someone changed me into snug gray pants and a white shirt while I slept—a foreign skin after wearing Eli’s clothes since arriving atthe castle. Sitting on the bed and still sore all over, I slip the Centress’ necklace from the nightstand into my pocket and tug down on the shirt that hovers at my waist, attempting to cover the cuts and bruises.

I look up to see Kelter in the doorway, showered and wearing black pants and a navy blue shirt with bulky dressing wrapped around his chest beneath it. His unkempt prisoner’s beard is now shaved, revealing that face I know so well. Despite the bags he sports under his eyes and his protruding bones, he has a new air about him, wiser and older, the green and gold pools of his eyes deeper and darker. He smiles, his light freckles giving him that innocent look—but he’s not. He took a knife to Eli’s neck.

He closes the door and comes in for a hug, pulling me off the edge of the bed and into his arms. He wraps his hands behind my neck, his thumbs resting on my cheeks as he shakes his head in disbelief. “Finally.”

I shift my stance at his touch. His skin is too hot. He’s too close. Words don’t surface for the million things I want to say and ask. I rest a hand on his chest. “Does it still hurt?”

“I’m fine. I needed to see you.” He moves his thumbs to my eyebrows, smoothing them gently, then settles them on my temples. His eyes don’t leave mine, as though he can’t bear to look away for a second. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep Eli away from you.”

“You don’t have to. He won’t hurt me.”

“He keeps your fucking underwear in his pocket.”

Does he not see the appeal? It takes everything in me not to laugh despite his sudden change in tone. “I don’t want to know how you know that.”

“He sees you as his prisoner.”

“No, he…” How do I explain?

But Kelter looks at me as if he knows exactly what I can’t find the words to express, and he’s not happy. “You do realize that he won’t let you leave, right?”

“He will…” I look at the hideous saffron carpet, unable to hold his gaze. Or admit he could be right.“But I don’t want to go home anymore. Everyone is drugged. Magic isdying, Kelt. And I have a father here somewhere.”And Eli.

“Did you ever stop to thinkhowhe plans to get what he wants from you? You heard the Centress. The only way to get to your essence is to take your memories—or your life.”

He wouldn’t.

Kelt lifts my head back up, hands still on my face. “And trust me, Eli wouldn’t take your memories even if he could…He’s fond of them.”

How would he even know what Eli wants? I push him back softly. “I have so much to tell you.”But not everything.

“I know.” He hugs me close, and I’m careful not to touch where the knife went in. My cheek rests on his chest, his body injecting heat into me. So warm, so safe, so…not what I need. He strokes my hair, plastering it against my skull, massaging the thoughts and doubts inside into an unreadable mush. “But first you need to eat…and shower. At least I got you out of his clothes.”

“Youwhat?”

He ceases the mind-melting strokes of his hand and tugs at the dried blood in my hair, his other arm low on my back, keeping me near as I try to get away.

The door bursts open, rattling the glass vials.

“I know what you’re thinking, Kelter. Back the fuck away from her,” Eli says from the doorway.

He’s also clean, wearing his normal fitted black shirt, pocket-covered pants and those laughable suspenders. And he’s pissed—squinty eyes below the bruises, twitchy mouth, rollingshoulders—but something’s different about him, something I can’t quite pull into consciousness.

Kelter’s face lands somewhere between rage and torture. “Of course you do.”

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