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“If I had not taken the Mark, what would have happened to you?” Scarlett demanded. Frost coated the windows as she worked to control her own frustration and anger.

Sorin didn’t seem to notice as he sighed. “Taking the twin flame Mark without a companion is offering a piece of your soul up for anyone to find. It is drawn to its twin flame, but if it is not accepted…” He paused, running his hands through his hair again. “It continues to try to find its mate and drains its owner of their power. It weakens them until they have depleted their magical reserves or until something else finds it.”

“And then it drains your very life force,” she snapped.

“If you knew, why did you ask?”

She ignored his sarcasm. “You would have lost all of your power? You would have left your Court, your people, defenseless?”

“It was the only way I could find you in the Lairwood House.” His face had softened, but his voice was still edged with frustration as he spoke. “The connection from the twin flame bond—it allows us to find each other, Scarlett. It is a supernatural linking of our souls. It is why we can speak into each other’s minds. We can feel each other’s fear and sadness and joy.”

“It’s how you knew I was in the Witch Realm,” she said, as so many things suddenly made sense. How she felt like he could sometimes hear her thoughts. How he always seemed to know where she was. How he could reach her when the darkness was suffocating.

Sorin nodded. “Yes. It was not a full twin flame bonding, but a fractured one I suppose. I panicked when I felt your terror. I wanted to come to you, but I could not let Talwyn see I was weakening, even though she suspected. Had I left, she would have followed, and I did not know what was happening. I did not want to make things worse, so I sent Rayner.”

“You riskedeverything.You risked your Court,” she said, her tone still severe.

Sorin took her face in his hands. “Yes,” he snapped, his tone full of uncompromising will. “And I would do it again. I told you the day I pulled you from that hellhole that I would cross deserts and oceans and lands and realms to get to you. Then I told you in a dark forgotten library passage there will never be a world where there is not a you and me because should you be ripped from me in this world, I will cross them all to find you. I have told you in every possible way I could without coming right out and saying the words.”

“You should have just said them,” she cried. “You said you had told me everything. I specifically asked you!”

“You deserved to have the choice, Scarlett,” he answered, searching her eyes, his own seeming to plead with her to understand. “I did not want you accepting the bond because it was shoved on you, or you thought you had to save me.”

“But I needed to accept it to save you!”

“I wanted you to accept the bond because youchoseit. Not because my life depended on it. I wanted you to accept the bond because youwantedit. Because you choseme, not the bond.”

“I would have chosen you,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “I would have chosen you the day you kissed me in the archery grounds. I would have chosen you the night we danced at the Pier. I would have chosen you when I saw the pride in your eyes when I wielded my magic in the courtyard for the first time. I would have chosen you the moment you showed up in that room to rescue me.”

“You do not need rescuing, my Love. You never have,” he said softly, reaching up to brush back stray hair.

“You’re right. I don’t,” she snapped, stepping out of his reach. “I take care of myself. Every damn day. I have for years. Apparently I still am. I thought I had found some place to breathe, even if just for one second. I thought I had found a place where I could depend on someone other than myself. I thought I had found home.”

“You have found that,” Sorin argued. “This is your home. This is your family.”

“I didn’t realize families kept something likethisfrom each other,” she replied sarcastically.

“Scarlett, that is not fair,” Sorin protested.

“Not fair?” She stalked back to him, poking him hard in the chest with her finger. “What’s not fair is that every single one of you knew I was your twin flame and no one bothered to let me in on the secret.”

“Youwanted to make the choice, Scarlett. You wanted to decide your own future,” Sorin shot back.

“Back to this again?” Scarlett screamed. She raked her hands through her own hair, forgetting it was in a braid. She swore as her fingers caught in the plaits and yanked the tie out, shaking her hair free. “Youtook my choice away by not telling me!”

“No. I. Didn’t,” he ground out through his teeth.

Scarlett froze. “What do you mean no you didn’t? The minute you chose not to tell me, you took away my choice.”

“You could have chosen at any moment,” Sorin said. His voice was as lethal as when they had fought that morning. “At any point in time you could have chosen this.You could have chosen us. You told me you chose me. All you needed to do was chooseus.You did not need to wait for me to tell you anything. You have never waited for permission for anything before, so why this? You do not get to blame me for pushing something away because you were too scared to acknowledge it was there.”

Scarlett stared at him as emotions warred inside her. She could feel her eyes turn to flame, and Sorin’s did the same. Flames appeared in one hand, and ice crackled at her fingertips in the other. Her shadows swirled around her, a twister of black. She closed both her fists, pushing that magic down, down, down.

After several moments of thick tension, she said, “We are done here.” She turned to leave, not sure where she was going to go. She didn’t care. She took a step through that smoke screen, through that rip in the world in her mind, and as she did, she felt Sorin grip her elbow.

She stumbled when her feet sank into sand, and Sorin caught her, keeping her upright.

“Let go of me,” she seethed, whirling to him.