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I sniff back snot I didn’t have just moments ago.

But in Dare, there is no pity to be found.

He looks me over like I’m little more than an unimpressive painting. “You have given up so easily.”

My mouth is pulled tight with a grimace.

I shake my head. “He’s going to kill me.” My voice breaks on the words.

But all that does is urge Dare to roll his eyes.

“You have weeks left,” he drawls, as though bored of me and the sobs I often fall into. “One here, one on the mountain at least, and you think you have lost already.”

“I have lost,” I grit out through bared teeth. “He made the fae promise. I thought I could change his mind, and then thepromise would change with it. But he’s always had this plan. He was always going to do this.”

Dare turns his back on me.

He makes for the weapons table.

But I saw the exhausted shake of the head before he moved away.

I watch him pick through the throwing stars.

“He was never meant to fuck you, heartbreaker. He was never meant to forge that bond. If you ask me, Daxeel is lying to himself more than he is lying to you.” He shrugs a shoulder and fingers through the small throwing knives laid out on the table. “The lie he tells himself is that he can sever the bond through the wish, then kill you.” He cuts his gaze to me for a lingering moment, one weighted with meaning. “He can no more lift that blade to you than to his own dying sister.”

Dare takes a fistful of stars from the table and turns to me. His chin is lowered, his eyes lifted to look at me from beneath his long lashes.

“Your weapon against Daxeel is in your hand, heartbreaker.Guilt.” His eyes flash on that word, like it’s a cursed word that rots the soul. “His guilt for what he’s done to you, how he punishes you, and how deep his love for you runs—it will consume him. It’s time, perhaps, for you to punishhim.”

For a long moment, I just stare at him.

Slack-faced, I watch as he extends his hand and holds out the fistful of silvery and chalky black stars.

He arches a dark, shaped eyebrow at me before he gestures to the weapons.

“Pull it together. Pick your weapon. And strategize.”

Whether it’s the lessons, Dare’s insensitive pep talk, or the reminder of Aleana dying, I don’t know, but for the first time since I learned my horrible fate in Daxeel’s hand, I think of someone else.

Compassion, maybe.

And so the moment Dare dismisses me with a flick of the hand, I rush through Hemlock House to find Aleana.

It takes a quarter of an hour, but I do locate her—in the dining hall with my Eamon.

They both look up as I stumble through the doorway.

Stillness ripples over them. Statues in tall-spined chairs. The surprise blinks their eyes.

Aleana’s face fast softens into relief.

Then Eamon’s splits with a grin; one that deflates him with a hushed breath.

It’s Aleana who announces, “I thought you’d died in that bed. All my knocks went ignored.”

The smile I spare her is small, maybe a little ashamed.

I gravitate closer and take the chair beside hers.