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I feel a foot on my back. A second later it kicks my side, flipping me to my back. My wings vanish, the pain and pressure of them too great.

I’m blind, and yet I feel Euribios’s soulless, empty eyes staring down at me.

“I will never stop fighting you,” I say.

“I count on it, enchantress.”

Familiar magic—Des’s magic—reaches out through our bond and brushes against me. A choked cry nearly slips out at the sensation.

Des?

… Ssshhh …The shadows seem to whisper.

All at once, the darkness peels back. Its smoky, shadowy tendrils fold away from the edges of the room. I can smell old bones and rot, I can see the pale walls and the Thief’s stolen throne. I take in a shuddering breath. The quiet humming from the pool behind me drifts in again.

… A trick …

… A clever trick …

The whispers are coming from all around me, and I feel as though I might be going mad.

Slowly, the Thief’s form becomes visible. One by one the stars on his body wink out, and then the darkness settles back to pale flesh.

… He doesn’t know …

Euribios still looms over me, his foot resting on my chest. His own chest drips with inky black blood that evaporates into the air like curls of smoke. A few final claw marks heal over as I stare.

… Don’t tell him …

Tell him what?

But then, as quickly as the whispers come, they’re gone.

Euribios tilts his head. “How to punish you for your transgression?”

I steel myself, swallowing thickly. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that trying to carve out the Thief’s heart has probably earned my mate some form of punishment.

The shadows around us ripple, raising the hairs along my arms. Just when I expect to hear Des’s distant screams, there’s …nothing. No screams, no weakening of my bond.

The Thief sways, his foot leaving my chest. He glances away from me, at the doorway.

He turns back to face me, his furrowed eyebrows belying his confusion. “Hmmm … on second thought …”

Euribios lifts his foot from my body and extends a hand to me.

I stare at it warily.

When I don’t take his hand, he smiles down at me. “Fine.”

With one hand he reaches for my head; with the other, my mouth. Taking a thick clump of my hair, he begins to drag me towards the pool.

I scream, my cries muffled by his hand, and I claw at his wrist—anything to relieve the horrible pressure on my scalp.

“Tradition dictates that every Death King’s bride must be baptized in the Well of Resurrection.”

The closer we get to that pool, the more the humming becomes a soft dirge. That glowing,flickeringwater calls to my siren.

Right as we’re on the very edge of it, Euribios lifts me to my feet, so that I can see, first hand, the pool he means to baptize me in.