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The pooling, shifting shadows wash between the trees like waves, coalescing into a shape behind him. Alastair lets out a choked breath, pressing a hand to his face as his eyes wince closed. There’s blood on his fingers. I reach for him, but he shakes his head, the motion stilted. He takes hold of me, lays me back. Leaves crumple beneath my spine. He’s on his knees, staring down at me. He drags his thumb across my stained lips.

Camille is at my other side. Her fingers circle around my wrist. She kisses me hotly, her mouth tasting of the ocean. Then she takes the mirror from Alastair and holds it nearer my face. Bright amber eyes stare back.

Waves crest through the forest, foaming as they break against the trees. The frothing tide tangles around my ankles, my wrists, my throat—I’m swathed by gauze. It’s my veil, embroidered with crimson flowers, pinned to my hair like on the night of my betrothal.

The three of us cling together as everything blurs. It’s like the night when I plunged my hands into the bathtub of seawater. When strands of kelp tied my limbs. When the tide rose impossibly against the windows of the Saltswan library.

We’re swept up by a current, dragged away from the woods into icy, lightless depths. My chest aches with the need for air, and I struggle, my veil tangled around me like a fisherman’s net. Then I am lifted in strong arms—Alastair, holding me cradled against him, swims through the current with sure, even strokes.

I surface in a tide pool, clinging to the rocky edge. I drag in a desperate breath. Alastair is beside me, pulling Camille from the water. We lie together on the shore, the only sound our ragged gasping. With trembling hands, I unwind my veil from my face, folding it back so I can see clearly.

The sky is lilac, glowing and dreamlike. The trees beyond the shore are the same trees as in the Arriscane woods: I can make out one with a rough wooden platform and trailing tatters of lace. But all of them have shifted backward, the natural randomness of them rearranged into a corridor.

We are nowhere familiar—somewhere that is both ocean and forest, and whollyelsewhere. We were supposed to bring Therion to us, to our world, and instead we’ve landed here. “It didn’t work,” I say, frantic, desperate.

Alastair clutches hold of my wrist. His changed eye is weeping blood, his face is pale and stricken. Wordlessly, he gestures to where the shadows lie thickest between the strange trees. A shape is emerging, ghostlike and ashen. Camille gasps at the sight of it. She stares, her mouth open, a fearful, awestruck expression on her face.

Standing before us is Therion.

He’s a stir of feathers and a whisper of dark fabric. Bared teeth and gleaming eyes. In the lilac light he is so different, soreal, compared with the way he appeared in my nightmare visions, or in the mine on our betrothal night.

His chest is bare, and his skin has the look of sleekly daubed oil paint. His hair is a waterfall of ink that spills down his back. A mantle of feathers blends seamlessly with his features, arched around his temples and shoulders in pearlescent brushstrokes.

“Lacrimosa,” he breathes, and at the sound of his voice, the forest quivers. The trees bow low toward us; the earth trembles.

I push myself to my feet and take a cautious step forward. Placing myself protectively in front of Alastair and Camille.

“Therion, I didn’t betray you,” I tell him, speaking quickly, my words tumbling into a frightened rush. “I didn’t know that a Salt Priest would be there on the night of our betrothal.”

Therion’s mouth curves into a snarl. “I know it wasn’tyouwho betrayed me, Lacrimosa. It was that boy, that Salt Priest, who sought to banish me. If the ritual was not interrupted, he would have succeeded.”

“If you don’t blame me, then why have you…” I hesitate, searching for the right words. “Why are you haunting me?”

“Gods do nothaunt.” Therion’s eyes narrow, anger sparking in his gaze. “I have been trying to reach you, to call on you, my betrothed. I need you to help me escape.”

I glance around us, confused. “Escape—from here? But isn’t this your world?”

“No. This is a place between—neither the chthonic nor the mortal realm.”

I look again at the forest, the water. Seeing it with renewed understanding. The shift and blur of the Arriscane woods and the familiar coastline as it’s transfigured by the otherworldly lilac sky. “You’re caught here.”

“Because of the ritual,” Alastair adds, his voice stilted. “Because I stopped it.”

Therion’s attention flickers to Alastair for a moment. He dips his head in a slight nod, though he is still seething, furious. “Yes. The ritual was incomplete. And now I am caught between my world and oblivion. But it will not last. As the darkness floods in, I am less and less able to hold myself anchored. Lacrimosa and I are both under threat.”

Realization settles over me. I stare at Therion in horror. “That is why I’ve been losing time? All the strangeness, the visions, the haunting… It’s because of our bond.”

“We are as one, Lacrimosa. This same darkness comes for you as well.”

Camille lets out a fractured gasp, and clutches hold of my arm. On my other side, Alastair presses close. But even hemmed between them, I am frightened and trembling. All I can hear is Therion’s voice, the furious ire in his explanation.Oblivion, darkness, banished.“Therion,” I whisper, pleading, “you have to let me go.”

“I will not let you go. You aremine. You have been ever since you first drew breath.”

Fear spikes through me, like a needle piercing silk. “What do you mean?”

“You were promised to me by your brothers on the night you were born.”

“No,” I say. “That isn’t right. The night in the cave, behind our altar, was the first time they’d ever spoken to you.”