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“Lacrimosa,” he says, choked. His head bows forward. His eyes shutter closed. When he looks at me again, his irises are bright as amber. Like the eyes of a swan. Like the eyes of a god.“Lark.”

The world seems to speed and slow all at once. His features shift—boy to swan to god—the planed lines of Therion’s mortal guise slipping back and forth into Alastair’s features.

Distantly, I hear Camille crying out—but it’s as though she’s far away, back at Saltswan, calling our names from the library window. The space around me begins to soften. Like the world is melting away.

With a sound like an indrawn breath, water cascades into the room. It pours down the walls and covers the floor, rising and rising. I struggle, trying to stand up, but tangling strands of kelp are around my chest, my waist, my throat, trapping me in place.

Alastair leans over me. Everything is blurred and brushstroked, like we are in the heart of an oil painting. His teeth are clenched, his eyes bright as flames. In Therion’s voice, he says, “You are mine, Lacrimosa. I refuse to let you go.”

A wave crests, soaking us both. I fall to the floor, the mirror still clutched in my hand. Water pours into my mouth. It tastes of chthonic liquor, of the bitter herbs I burned on the brazier. I am sinking, the room is an ocean, and the waves are closing over my head.

Breathing harshly, Alastair kneels on the floor beside me. Camille takes hold of my wrists, holding me still as her brother pries my fingers away from the mirror. Together, they wrench it from my hands.

I sprawl out on the floor with a gasp. Alastair collapses on top of me. We’re crushed together, his elbow in my ribs, my cheek against his shoulder. He looses a ragged breath and my arms go reflexively around him. I can feel his heartbeat, racing, where his chest is against mine.

Then we’re both scrambling away from each other, caught by the frantic need to put as much space between ourselves as possible. Camille gapes, clutching the mirror to her chest. “What wasthat?”

I look around, caught up in hopeless confusion. Everything is just as it was before: no rising sea or snaring kelp or overwhelming noise. The only sign that anything waswronglies in the way that everywhere Alastair touched me—as himself, as Therion—feels like it has been burned.

Then I notice the bandages on my arm have come untied. There’s something strange beneath, pale and silken. With shaking fingers, I tear the bandage away. My stitches are gone. In place of the healing cut is a smooth, neat scar and three silken feathers. Trailing and downy, silvery white.

Like the feathers of a swan.

I turn toward Alastair, my arm outstretched. I’m trembling, though I don’t know if it’s with fear or anger. “Now do you believe me?”

His head is bowed forward, his face hidden by the fall of his hair.He doesn’t move, doesn’t respond. Camille touches his shoulder. Sharply, he looks up. One of his eyes has changed, the iris cut by a slice of brilliance, like a spark of fire has caught there.

A sliver of Therion’s amber gaze.

“Listen—” he begins. His teeth clench, he flinches. Pressing a hand to his face, he draws away bloodied fingers. A crimson tear leaks from his changed eye.

Camille gasps, catching his face between her hands, holding him still while she stares at him in horror. “Alastair,” she breathes, choked and frightened.

I move toward him shakily, chilled by terror. Before I can reach him, Alastair shoves himself away from Camille’s touch. He gets to his feet, cuts me a furious look that stops me in place. He scrubs his bloodstained fingers against his shirt, then snatches up one of the flashlights from the floor. Motioning tersely for Camille, he says, “We’re going home. Lacrimosa—stay here. I’m finished with you, with all of this.”

Camille looks between the two of us, incredulous. “We can’t justleaveafter that.”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Alastair goes down the corridor toward the front of the house, his footsteps echoing loudly through the silence. I hurry after him. I’m dizzy, my steps unsteady; I have to catch myself against the wall for support.

I grab his sleeve. “Alastair. We need to stay together. I—I need your help.”

A muscle feathers in his jaw as he glares down at me. “I should have left you to the Salt Priest.”

There’s more blood on his cheek, fresh tears clotting through his lashes. He’s hurt—because of me. I hate myself for this: the waver in my voice, the way I’m holding him tightly, the desperation I feel. But more than that, more than anything, I hate how frightened I am to watch Alastair leave.

I’m afraid for him, afraid for myself. Of what might happen if he walks away and leaves me here alone.

Lowering my voice, I whisper, “Please.”

The shard of amber in his changed eye is like a spark, like fire. “No.”

“We should stay together,” Camille insists. She casts a beseeching look at Alastair, but he only shakes his head.

“Camille, I don’t want to be anywhere nearherright now.”

She looks between us, from her brother to me. Then, with a troubled sigh, Camille puts her arm around my shoulders, drawing me back from Alastair. “I’ll stay with Lacrimosa, then,” she says.