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Hope flickers weakly inside me. “You’re not coming with me?” My voice cracks.

“The next time you see me, Nia,” he says, his voice low and soft, “we will once again be enemies, and you’ll be standing on the wrong side of my battlefield.”

His words send ice cracking through my chest.

He narrows his eyes at me. “Morgan’s heir,” he repeats.

I shrug. “Well, that’s the thing, Talan. You’re not. Your father is a fucking liar. He made up your lineage to steal the kingdom. You come from Merlin.” I shake my head. “But if you don’t believe a word I say, then why am I wasting my breath?”

Talan is no longer looking at me. He’s done with me.

He shouts a command to Tarasque in the dragon’s tongue, and she starts to walk forward.

I swallow hard, my throat tight. My eyes sting, misting. This is the end.

“I was the voice,” I call out. “All those years. The voice in your head. The scorching, oppressive sun, the rivers of pavement. I heard you, too. Long before I ever heard of Avalon Tower.”

He’s still not looking at me.

Tarasque spreads her wings, which shimmer under the sun, terrifying as ever. She starts to lift into the air, and the world falls away under me.

Hours passthat feel like lifetimes. It’s cold beneath the stormy skies. The deep chill settles into my bones, and I’m sure it will never leave. The only thing that keeps me from freezing to death on the flight is the occasional gout of flame from Tarasque that heats the air around us. She knows, somehow, that I need it.

The first half of the flight is absolute white-knuckling chaos. I grip Tarasque’s spines, buffeted by the wind. Lightning cracks close to my head, and the rain hits me sideways.

I wonder if Talan is doing that on purpose.

The second half of the flight, I’m numb, frostbitten down to my marrow.

We near Corbinelle, close to the portal that will take me home. Except that it’s not really home now, is it?

All I can think about—because what else is there to think about when you’re riding through a storm on the back of dragon?—isTalan.

The Dream Stalker who could have easily killed me, but didn’t. Who could have let those orphaned children starve to death, but didn’t. He’s not who I thought. He’s not whoanyonethinks he is.

I don’t know what his plan was for Scotland, and I’ll never forget what happened to Viviane. But a small, reckless part of me wonders if eventhatbattle had a reason, and if I will ever get the answers.

I’ll probably never get over him, and I hate myself for it.

But the way he’ll remember me? The thief. The assassin who got caught. The pretty little liar.

Tarasque swoops lower toward the Lost Palace, and my teeth chatter wildly. I’m emotionally spiraling like the whorls of snow around us. And here, in Perillos, it’s even colder.

I don’t yet know how I’ll get past the portal guards, but I imagine they’ll be easier to handle than Talan.

Damp snow slides over my skin as we swoop toward the glittering Fey city. Every hollowed-out part of me is now ice.

Through the snow and darkness, it’s hard to see the castle’s outline, but I glimpse the lights in the windows. Tarasque seems to know what she’s doing, and she lands outside the Lost Palace.

I’m shaking with the cold, and I stumble off her in a daze, bruised and mud-streaked. As I walk to the portal, I hug myself. Everything hurts, and my dress pretty much froze to my skin on the flight here.

Talan is sending me home. Except it’s not my home anymore. Avalon Tower is ruled by Wrythe Pendragon now. He tried to kill me. And that word—home—is a hollow carved between my ribs.

At least I have Serana, Tana, Darius. Raphael. People who can stop me from losing my mind completely.

My teeth chatter wildly as I walk. I’ll arrive at Avalon Tower looking like hell, but at least I’m alive.Helet me live.

And that’s why I’ll never be able to forget him, and I’ll keep chasing the ghost of that burning ember. He should have killed me. He knows it. I know it. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.