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Someone grabs my wrist. I whirl, ready to attack, but it’s Hokzuh. Without a word, he folds his arms around my shoulders and flies me forward.

The island is on fire, and there are demon marks all over his flesh, but for once, for a precious instant, I’m glad he came. I’m glad not to be alone.

“I’m afraid,” I confess quietly as Hokzuh lands in the clearing. Just ahead is the valley, the crooked tree, the rock.

“Shall I come with you?”

I shake my head. “I have to go alone.”

He’s holding my hand. Mine is small compared with his, but just as callused, as rough, and as strong. I start to draw it back, but he hangs on.

“Every time I let someone close, they die,” he says in a barely audible whisper. “I won’t have to worry about that with you, Channi. You’ll win.”

With a numb nod, I start to turn, but Hokzuh’s not finished.

Look into her eyes when you stab her, he says, speaking into my mind. Twist your knife deep, until the shadows bleed out of her heart. Then cut out my pearl.

I give a single nod, and then it’s my turn to speak. “When this is over, I want to sail with you. I’ll be one of your pirates—so long as I get first pick of whatever treasure you find.”

“First pick?” Hokzuh raises a thick eyebrow. He cocks his head. “What will you do with your treasure?”

I shrug, trying to sound carefree, but my voice is husky. “Sell cakes, build a temple for my mother. I’ll have time to think about it.”

Hokzuh clasps both his hands over mine. “I’ll be waiting.”

Waiting be damned, I wrap my arm around his neck and touch my forehead to his. It takes him aback, but not for long. He raises his fingers to my face, traces the contour of my cheek. His skin is cool, like mine, each scale like a smooth shard of obsidian against my own.

“Did I ever tell you that green is my favorite color?” he whispers.

I could swear my heart stops then, and I cannot find my words. I don’t need them, for Hokzuh’s mouth finds mine—or maybe it is the other way around. We kiss. It is one that neither of us expects—sweet and clumsy and fierce all at once, but I don’t pull away, and he doesn’t, either. It is not a long moment that we can capture, but it is one that I will crystallize into my memory. Even when we let go, the warmth of his breath lingers on my lips.

“I’ll see you, Channi,” he says, still touching my cheek. Then he recedes into the shadowed woods, and I give myself a moment, a breath, before raising the dagger at my side.

Countless times I’ve used my blood as a weapon, but that doesn’t change the fact that every time I make a cut, it hurts. I bite my cheek, holding in a cry as I slice the blade across my thigh.

As I work, a leaf-green snake coils around my ankle. “Ukar!” I exclaim. Did he fly with us? I flush. “What are you doing here?”

I’m coming with you.

“Absolutely not,” I hiss.

Ukar travels up my leg and around my waist, finally coming to rest around my shoulders. Do not insult a snake so. Especially this snake.

Snakes are stubborn, and Ukar the most stubborn of all. “All right, but if you get hurt, I’m throwing you out.”

I’ll say the same for you. He dives into the undergrowth.

It’s like old times. Smothering a smile, I hold my spear slightly over my head. Its heavy wood is a familiar weight in my palm, but how I wish I’d had the chance to add an extra blade.

No time for idle wishing, for regrets or second chances. Angma is waiting, and I am ready for her.

With my free arm I sweep aside a curtain of hanging vines, and I enter the heart of Sundau.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

It’s hard to imagine that there was a time when I couldn’t feel the magic of this place—this cursed valley in the middle of Sundau. It is quiet here, as if I’ve entered a world far from the one I know. The air shimmers with a cold, wet mist that hums against my skin.

I breathe in, and the smell of clove, high and strong, stings my nostrils. Ahead is the crooked tree where everything began.