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He lets go of me, and I hoist myself out of the water, shivering with cold. My body is still coiled tight with tension, and adrenaline courses through my veins.

Talan pulls himself from the river. “You don’t know how to swim?”

“Not really.” A lie, of course. It’s just that my human body can’t function in ice.

He tilts his head, his gaze lingering a moment too long. My heart rate speeds up. Does he realize there’s more to my story? Before he can press me for information, something draws his gaze, and he turns to look at the basilisk.

The creature throws back its head, howling on the other side of the river. Its dark, scaly wings spread wide, and it roars. The sound of that wrathful cry makes my stomach clench and sends fear to the marrow of my bones.

I rub my arms, trying to unfreeze my muscles and rid myself of the chill. “L-looks like y-you were r-right,” I stammer, shaking like a leaf. “W-we’re safe.”

“Safe.” His voice is a low growl. “I’m not entirely convinced of that.”

The basilisk dips one foot in the water, lowering its head to look at the rushing current. To my horror, it plunges in.

“It seems the legends are wrong,” Talan says, swooping me up in his arms again.

I wrap my arms around his neck. Over his shoulder, I watch the basilisk’s spiked back glide across the river.

“Maybe crossing the river was more of a metaphor,” Talan mutters.

His arms tighten around me as we whip through the branches, and his steady heartbeat thrums against me.

When I peer over his shoulder, I see the shimmering scales of the serpentine basilisk closing in on us, splashing through the water.

“Talan,” I breathe, “can you go any faster?”

We run.

For a while, Talan puts me down, and I run alongside him, sprinting at my full capacity. But there’s no way I can match his insane Fey speed, especially not when I’m half frozen and wheezing in the wintry air. He picks me up again, carrying me through the snowy forest as if I weigh nothing. Icy wind rushes over us as he presses me to his chest. His pace is relentless and utterly inhuman.

I’m cold as the arctic, my clothes frozen, the air biting my skin. My asthma makes my lungs tight, every breath scraping the inside of my chest.

In Talan’s arms, a little of the chill melts away. I look back. He’s put some distance between us and the basilisk.

Maybe even monsters get tired.

Talan stops to listen and glances at the bright stars to get his bearing. In the next moment, he starts moving again. He knows where he’s going, which is good, because I’ve lost all sense of direction.

My eyelids droop, and my teeth are still chattering. My thoughts grow fuzzy, and my frozen fingers sting in the cold.

I don’t ask for him to put me down. I’m too cold to run, barely functioning.

Talan’s soothing voice pierces the fog in my mind, pulling me back to reality. “Almost there, Nia.”

I open my eyes to see a tiny white cottage with crisscrossing dark wood and a little chimney. For a moment, I’m not certain it’s real. It looks like something from an enchanted story for children, a haven popping up just when we need it.

But Brocéliande isn’t a fairytale. The monsters in this world are very real—and one of them is carrying me.

CHAPTER 7

My eyes open. Talan is tending a crackling fire. Firelight caresses his body, the dark shirt that fits tightly around his broad shoulders, his muscled arms.

Warmth washes over me. Dreamily, I pull the blanket tighter around me. I fell asleep on the hardwood floor by the hearth, and Talan must have slid a pillow under my head at some point. My clothing is cold and wet, and I almost wish Talan had undressed me—for temperature reasons, of course.

Inhaling deeply, I stare at the fire and the golden glow of the mahogany hearth. After the frozen chill of the forest, this little cottage feels like a dream.

Slowly, I sit up, clutching the blanket, and look around. The Tudor-style home has white walls and dark beams. There’s not much furniture—a rough-hewn table, a wooden chest, and a few chairs. Beneath me, the thick rug smells faintly of pine and cedar smoke. Everything about this place feels cozy and safe, a refuge tucked in a corner of the wild forest.