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“For giving you the wrong impression. Wewerefriends. But just because we were thrown together as classmates, as neighbors, doesn’t mean I want to continue that now.” Alastair pressed his lips together, mouth drawn into a taut line. “I’m sorry, Lacrimosa. I have more important things I need to focus on.”

He was nonchalant, but his words resounded in her ears as though she’d been struck.I’m sorry, Lacrimosa.The flatness of his tone, the uncaring way in which he spoke to her—suddenly she saw, as though unveiled, who Alastair had always been. A bored, wealthy boy who now no longer wanted to associate with a girl like her—a miner’s daughter who lived in a little cottage rather than a grand, named house, whose dead parents owed his father money.

It unstuck her, and she was suddenly all in motion. She wrenched the red ribbon from the bundle of letters. In a messy, clumsy rush, she shredded the envelopes into a confetti of scraps.

“Letting me think we were friends is only one of the myriad things you should apologize for, Alastair Felimath.” Her eyes began to sting, and she blinked rapidly, refusing to let the tears fall. “I don’t ever,ever, want to see you, or speak with you, again.”

Lark threw the torn paper on the ground at Alastair’s feet. He watched the pieces scatter without reaction, then stepped back and began to close the door. She turned away before it shut, running from his house with the ragged sound of her sobs filling the air. Grateful for them, because then she couldn’t hear thesnickof the latch, Alastair closing her out of his life.

She ran all the way to the beach below her cottage. Sunset bled over the waves, red as a ribbon. In the cliffside cave where her family kept their altar to Therion, Lark hid. She sat on the cool stone floor and buried her face in her hands, and she cried.

It was night by the time she emerged, drawn to the lights of the cottage like a moth from the dark. Oberon was in the kitchen. Shecould see him at the stove, still in his work clothes with dark streaks of the salt dust on his shirt. She wanted to run to him, wrap her arms around his waist, bury her face in the scent of sweat and salt, and tell him everything.

Instead, she wiped the tearstains from her cheeks and forced herself to breathe evenly. If her feelings for Alastair were felt raw and tender before, now they were unbearable. And however much she craved the comfort of her brothers, the ache of vulnerability, the desire to curl into herself, was fiercer.

“There you are,” Henry said when she came into the house. He was flushed from a bath, his hair still damp. “Where have you been?”

“I went walking and lost track of time,” Lark replied, her head down, as she slipped through the kitchen and went onward to the hall. “I’m going to wash my hands, then I’ll be down to help with dinner.”

She went upstairs before either of her brothers could reply. In the bathroom she washed her face and pressed a damp cloth to her swollen eyes. She brushed the knots from her tangled hair.

“Damson was right,” she told her reflection, her fingers clenched tightly around the handle of her brush. “You should have stayed at Marchmain. Then none of this would have ever happened.”

CHAPTER EIGHTNow

I’m in the dark, falling, falling. I hear howls and screams, the scrape of claws against stone. Pale feathers cloud the air and they are crumpled, spattered with blood. As though they have been violently torn loose. An enormous, flame-bright eye blinks open, the pupil dilating as it struggles to focus on me. I open my mouth to cry out, but I’m beneath the ocean. Salt water pours down my throat as I gasp and choke; a strand of seaweed binds my neck like a snare.

Then the brisk wind rushes over me. I reach out, desperate, and clutch a roughened edge of stone. I’m on the shore, curled in the hollow of an empty tide pool. It’s night, the sky is full of stars, a cleaved moon reflects silver against the beach. Past a wide stretch of sand, waves crest and break with ahush,hush,hush.

I push myself up to my knees. Far in the distance I can see my cottage, wreathed in ivy and tucked behind the breakwater. All the windows are dark. My brothers are gone. I am alone, out here beneath the starlight. But—how?

When I was in the bathroom, my hands plunged into the icy water, the sun was still setting. Now it is thickly dark. I’ve lost hours or more, but it feels like the space between one single breath.

I think of the torrent of water on the stairs. The veil on its hanger.The faces I saw outside my room: Therion’s furious image, the anger in his eyes. He’s angry atme. I imagine him back in the chthonic realm, awash in rage as he reaches out for the bride who escaped him.

I betrayed him. I never intended it, but the fact remains. We’re married. I promised to stay with him in his world until the end of the salt season. And now I am not there.

I clamber out of the empty tide pool and brush the sand from my skirts. I’m filthy and bruised, my knees throbbing and my palms scraped. My bare feet are cut and bleeding. I drag in an aching breath, still lost to the memory of being caught beneath the water. The thought of going back to my empty house fills me with renewed fear. But if I don’t go home, there’s only one place Icango.

I turn toward Saltswan, tall on the cliffs, windows glowing beacons in the dark. Memories come back from the night of my betrothal, fleeting and tangled. Alastair, cutting my hair, his strong arms as he carried me out of the mine. Alastair, taking my obsidian mirror and hiding it in his pocket.

He lied to my brothers. He stole from me. The last time I went to Saltswan—four years ago, after the summer bonfire—I swore I would never speak to him again. But I don’t have any other choice. Right now he’s the only person I can ask for help.

As I make my way to the clifftops, there’s a frantic rustle from the grasses. I stumble back, caught by panic. My imagination paints shapes against the dark. Orange eyes, a snow-white wing, a sharp-toothed snarl. The sound of the waves below becomes Therion’s howl as the brazier scattered, as the boy pulled me away from him.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I say, my voice trembling, reedy against the stillness of the night. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

There’s a burst of motion from the field, the wildflowers parting. I clutch at my throat, too afraid to even scream. An enormous hare bursts from the grass. It rushes past me, close enough that I feel the hot, fleeting touch of its fur against my ankles.

I stand, frozen in place, as the sound of the hare dies away into the field. All I can hear is the thunder of my own heart. It fills my ears as I force myself to move, to follow the moonlit path toward the iron gate of Saltswan.

The house is exactly like I remember. The manicured garden, everything clipped back and espaliered into shape. The front door with its frosted glass panels. The iron bell, the silken rope. This time I’m not afraid to ring. I grasp hold of the rope and pull it, hard. It clangs out a harsh, metallic note. A sound comes, muffled, from deep inside the house.

I ring the bell again. There’s footsteps, a blur of movement. Finally, Alastair opens the door.

He’s holding a book with his finger marking the page. A loosened silk tie drapes about the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. He scowls at me and I’m fourteen again, my hands clasped around a ribbon-tied bundle of letters. My voice sticks in my throat. I want to turn and run back to my cottage. It takes all my effort to be still.

When I don’t speak, Alastair’s brows slant into a heavy frown. “What doyouwant?”