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Frustrated, I rub my hand over my eyes. “I don’t need to sleep. What Ineedis to go back to the mine. Or Therion’s altar, in the caves. I have to try and speak with him, to tell him I didn’t mean to break my promise.”

Alastair gives me an unreadable look. “Come back inside. I have something to show you.”

I follow him into my cottage. He closes the door behind us and locks it. I watch, annoyed at the sight of his long-fingered hand turning our iron key. Camille appears from the front room, her flashlight scanning over the kitchen. She raises her brow in question; Alastair shakes his head.

He points to the kitchen table, motioning for us to sit down. I pull out a chair, too nervous to argue. “What did you have to show me?”

Camille sits opposite me, scrubbing at her cheek as she yawns. Alastair turns on the kitchen lantern, and the room fills with softened light. He reaches into the pocket of his overcoat and takes out mymirror, which he lays down on the table. “You left this behind. I don’t want you to accuse me of being a thief again.”

“Thanks,” I say flatly, not moving to pick it up.

From his other pocket, he takes out a book. It’s the same one he was reading at the beach, the ancient poem written in Tharnish.

Camille snorts when she sees it. “Do you really carryThe Neriadwith you everywhere?”

Ignoring his sister, Alastair leafs through the book until he finds the section he wants. “Read this,” he orders, handing the book to me.

He stands at my side as I look at the page, leaning down with his elbows on the table. Some of the phrases have been underlined, and there are tiny penciled sketches in the margins. An unfurled leaf, a cresting wave, a delicate feather. A peculiar emotion rises in my chest.

“Did you draw these?” I glance at Alastair. We’ve shifted unintentionally close together again, just like in the garden. I can make out a spray of freckles across his cheeks, patterned like a constellation. I draw back, needing to widen the distance between us. I hate that I’ve let him in like this, to my life, to my house. That I need his help.

He doesn’t answer my question. Tapping the page, he says again, “Read it.”

It’s discomforting, to be so close to him. I try to focus on the line he’s indicated, ignoring the way our arms are touching, the rising warmth from that small point of contact.“Sennvh devlient, fume devlient.”

Alastair laughs, but there’s no unkindness in his tone. He seems more amused than anything. “Your Tharnish is dreadful.”

I shoot him an irritated look. “We can’t all be experts in dead languages.”

“Go on, then,” Camille says to her brother. “Show us all how to pronounce it, I know you’re desperate to.”

“Sennvh devlient, fume devlient,” he says, and in his mouth, the Tharnish words are like music, beautiful as an incantation. I’m so caught up byit, the cadence of his voice and the way his face turns softer when he reads, that it takes a moment for me to realize.

This phrase—it’s the same as the strange boy’s chant from the night of my betrothal. “What…,” I ask slowly, turned cold with foreboding, “… does it mean?”

“As the smoke vanishes, so let him vanish away.”

The words echo through my mind like the ringing of the iron Saltswan bell. I feel as though I’m hallucinating again. I wait for the rush of pounding darkness, but this is strikingly, terribly real. My hands begin to shake; I close the book and press it to my chest. Thinking of smoke and chants and howls. The chamber at the bottom of the mine, the toppled brazier, spilled liquor, an echoing silence.

Alastair gently takes the book from me and sets it aside. “Did you know there’s a pivotal moment inThe Neriadwhere Naiius—the hero—rages at the gods?”

I shake my head. “I only know the scene where Naiius goes into the forest; there was a Caedmon sketch of it in the gallery. It was an alternate panel forThe Dusk of the Gods, but he never used it in the final version.”

Camille looks between us, her mouth twisted in amusement. “I can’t believe it,” she says to me with a teasing grin. “You’re almost as much of an embarrassing nerd as Alastair.”

But I’m trembling, my blood has become ice. “What does this phrase mean?”

“It’s an ancient idiom, and Naiius uses it in that scene. He condemns the gods to be gone—not just from the mortal world, but the chthonic realm as well. The Salt Priest at your betrothal has done the same to Therion. You can’t speak with him. He’s been banished. Permanently.”

I stare at Alastair, wishing hopelessly for a way to dismiss his conclusion. Even Camille looks stunned, the teasing smile wiped from her face. I knot my hands into the too-long sleeves of my brother’s shirt,thinking of the visions I’ve seen—Therion, trying to reach out to me. If he is truly gone, how could that be? “I don’t believe you, Alastair. I have to try to speak with him again. I have to know—”

Shakily, I pick up the obsidian mirror. I’ll take it to the altar in the grotto caves, sip from the chthonic liquor there, call to Therion just as I did on the day I promised to marry him. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go to the mine.

My fingers close around the handle of the mirror. The polished surface is flat and opaque, featureless as a becalmed sea. But when I touch it, the glass begins to ripple. A slow hum starts up within me, echoing against my bones.

I clasp a hand to my mouth. My fingers come away stained with indigo. Noise fills the room, a buzzing static. Pain spikes at my temples. It’s the same way I felt at the entrance to the mine when I touched the new salt. And I can’t let go of the mirror. I can’t move.

I sit as still as carved marble. The light around me darkens piece by piece. Alastair tries to take the mirror from me. I tighten my hold, the motion involuntary. He clutches my wrist as he tries to work my fingers from the silver handle.