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Yet he stood, immersed in that smoke, making no move to follow her.

“Now that the vampire’s gone, you can return to your previous existence. Pleasure is here for your taking, Silt.”

Kosmina called him Adham. IfSiltbelonged here, maybeAdhamdidn’t. “That vampire moved me like a desert of sand. There’s no going back for me. She believes this is the right course, and Itrusther.”

How . . .monumental.

“I trust her,” he repeated, tasting the words, finding them right. “So either you are not seeing what’s in my heart, or you’re lying about it.” He dragged his focus from Kosmina’s direction to Enti and found her irises swirling. “Why are you sweating? You’re using some kind of power on me!” He shook as he resisted it.

At last, that memory he’d struggled to recall surfaced. Hadn’t he heard tales of an infernal sorceress who fed on the fall of her victims? One who could conjure anything needed to entrap them?

He swept his gaze around his surroundings, seeing Castle Vitis anew.Vitiswas the root word ofvine, but also ofvice. “You don’t read others’ dreams. You read theirsins. You’re the Queen of Vice.” The gambling, gorging, and orgies here had been by design. She was feeding on sin, enabling it. “You lied about the parole, the Gaolers, everything.”

She sneered, “And youneverlie.” Reining in her temper, she asked, “Are dreams so different from vice?”

“Yes!” That was why Enti couldn’t create the scythe; the weapon would have been used for virtue.

She smoothed her hair. “Well, I had to lie. Vice has gotten a bad rap.Viciousused to mean full of vice, now full of cruelty. People got suspicious of me, so I opted for a rebrand.”

“You feed your powers when people surrender—but you can compel them to as well. You’re compelling me right now.”

“Because without that vampire, you will fall!”

“Sowithher, I won’t?” He managed a step away from Enti. “You know I’ll be true to Kosmina. You know I’ll never smoke again. It doesn’t matter to you!”

She ran her forearm over her damp brow. “Your potential for vice is greater than that of anyone I’ve ever known. For the better part of a millennium, you worshipped it like gold. You could empower me as no one before.”

“Never.”

“You already have been. You gave me wrath with Xodin, and even some with the princess. And so much deception. That was good, but I need you at your peak—all your lust, your weakness, your jealousy. And, of course, your habit.”

“I won’t be some mindless host for you. I’m going after Kosmina, will follow her to the end of the worlds.” Yet he remained rooted to the spot as Enti’s power battled his willpower, a muscle he’d left unused.

“Do you know what that princess’s vice is?Pride. And she will never allow you to injure hers again with more lies.”

“Did you work on her too? Making her leave, so I’d get back to feeding you?” His jaw clenched as he fought Enti’s influence. But the smoke swept him up as never before—until nothing could compete against that pull.

Nothing.

Almostnothing.

Kosmina’s pull was greater. The princess with her oasis eyes. He squared his shoulders. “I’ll never lie to her again.”

Desperation crept into Enti’s voice. “Why do you deserve another chance with her when you’ve squandered all you’ve ever been given?”

He had no answer. Only Kosmina could answer that question. He pictured the way she already reached for him in sleep, and calm filled him.

“You belong here, Silt!”

He hated that name now. “That’s not who I am any longer.” At last, he’d discovered himself. “I’m Adham.” He was Kosmina’s protector. He hadn’t only lied to her; he’d lied to himself, because he’dalwaysbeen going on this fateful journey. He’d trained with his sand to give him a shot at defending her.

He would reach his princess before she faced the revenants, then take on hell beside her. If he died giving his life to defend hers, then that would give meaning to everything that had come before. “I’m going to fight at Kosmina’s side.” With no guarantees, he would cross the desert for her, one dune at a time.

“Just wait! Without you to empower me, everyone living in this dimension will be in jeopardy. Don’t abandon us.” A quake rumbled, the third one tonight. Enti’s eyes swirled hypnotically, and she gave a cry—as if with effort.

“You’ve been masking the quakes. The Gaolers stopped sending in prisoners because this place is done, just as Kosmina sensed.”

“I can handle the quakes until they ebb. And they will!”