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‘Please,’ I whispered, and it came out strained, soothing, as I tiptoed my last steps towards him. As if he was a skittish animal, bound to bolt at the first sudden movement. ‘Creon, what in the world is the matter? How long have you been hiding here? Why aren’t you in the camp with everyone else?’

His wings twitched restlessly behind his shoulders. His hands cramped on the moss beneath him – knuckles twisting white, scars stretching and contorting, fingers not forming a single sensible word.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t look my way.

‘Youfrightenme.’ A miracle, how that passed my lips with only the slightest wobble. I stepped around the last pile of stones, hands shaking, to where I could face him without that veil of dark hair between us – only to find him avoiding my gaze, eyes fixed on the earth before my feet. ‘For hell’s sake, Creon –talkto me. You have a perfectly fine voice now. Could you please use it?’

He dragged out a rough breath – a hollow attempt at a laugh, perhaps. ‘I … I shouldn’t …’

Silence again. Whatever it was he shouldn’t, it had run aground in the shallows of his throat; his lips moved without goal or purpose, nothing I could even attempt to read in the darkness.

Zera help me, if only I could take one look into that tangled, shadowy mind, find the thoughts stuck there like thorns in flesh and gently, ever so gently, pick them out again … But all I could do, helpless and insufficient, was kneel before him, settle my hands on his muscular thighs, and whisper, ‘Does it have anything to do with Naxi or Thysandra?’

He shook his head.

‘The bindings?’

A hesitation.

‘It’s the bindings?’

‘It’s …’ He gulped in a breath as if it might be his last one, straightening ever so slightly on that rock. His wings gleamed like black silver in the moonlight. ‘Em, I … I don’t think I should come with you tomorrow.’

I froze.

I had misheard him – Imusthave misheard him. Even though the words had rung loud and clear in the silence of the night. Even though he wasn’t scrambling to correct himself. Even though he still refused to look me in the eyes, an expression not of fear but rather ofshameon his face …

But it didn’t makesense, not a single bit of it, and he had to know that as well as I did, didn’t he? We were going to find the Mother together. That had been the only constant in every plan we’d made, more reassuring than any new magic or godswornfamiliars had ever been – whatever nightmare I might walk into, I’d do it withhim.

So then what in hell was this supposed to be?

‘What?’ I said, a whole three seconds too late.

‘It doesn’t make sense for me to come,’ he mumbled, closing his eyes, words suddenly flowing faster. As if he’d practiced this part. As if it was the argument he’d repeated to himself time and time again, slipping away from every other soul – gods help me, had he planned to just vanish and never eventellme? ‘You have hundreds of unbound mages at your disposal, Em. I’m still very much bound. It would be sentimental insanity to bring me along under those circumstances – I’m utterly useless to you like this.’

Useless.

Useless.

This stronghold of a male before me, muscles like tempered steel, reflexes of a predator, mind sharper than any sword or arrow, a force of nature in the flesh –useless? I’d already parted my lips to tell him he’d gone utterly insane … and then other memories rushed into the void of my confusion, whacking every sensible word I’d been about to speak inside out and upside down in the blink of an eye.

Unbearable, isn’t it?he'd whispered against my temple as he pinned my hands against shelves full of clothing.Feeling useless?

But that …

That had beenagesago.

‘Wait –that’swhat’s been bothering you all this time?’ My voice soared, mind soaring with it. All those moments of brooding silence. All that sudden anger. Not jealousy, not some ill-timed hunger for glory, but just … ‘Your bound magic? That’s why you threw yourself at the Moon fleet so recklessly – because you were trying to prove you weren’t as worthless as you feared you had become?’

He flinched at the wordworthless.

‘I’m not saying youareworthless, you— Oh, good gods.’ A new memory inserted itself into my unravelling thoughts – as if a hundred doors were opening in my mind at once, sunlight flooding in. ‘When you lashed out at me because I suggested you didn’t care enough about breaking the bindings – you lashed out because I wasright? Because youdidn’twant the rest of the world to become unbound and gain that edge on you, and you were trying desperately not to admit it to me?’

His heavy silence was enough of an answer.

‘And so you told me not to use my magic against Thysandra? Not because you were worried about me but because you didn’t want her to—’