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I look around frantically. If Alastair came through, then is it possible that Hugo followed him? But the shoreline is mercifully empty, the three of us the only ones here. “Hugo used me to try and harm you again. To finish the ritual. He wants revenge.”

“Revenge,” Therion echoes. There’s something blackly curious in his gaze, and he arches a brow. “For what?”

I sit back on my knees. The earth is cool and loamy beneath me as I think of Hugo, how sorry he looked as I spiraled away into the dark. His sister lost to the waves, a Salt Priest sacrifice. “Don’t you know the terrible things the Salt Priests have done in your name? They killed his sister in a ritual, hoping for a vision of you.”

Therion’s hand is on my thigh. His claws flex, an instinctual motion, pressing sharply into my leg. I squirm at the sudden sting. He glances down, noticing what he’s done, and with a solemn expression, he loosens his hold. “I am not responsible for their cruelty.”

“But you let it happen.”

“You are all born with free will. I am a god of the salt and the woods and the sea. I cannot control mortal lives like they’re puppets on a string. I could no more stop them than you could, and what they wanted of me… it was not in my power to give.”

It all seems so achingly pointless—the loss, the cruelty, the suffering. “You answered my brothers when they called to you.”

Therion touches my cheek again, his thumb tracing an arc against my jaw. “The Salt Priests seek to harness my power and bend it to their own means. They do not wish to honor the local gods but to claim them. They harness our magic, and they burn it up until we’re forever lost. Like a handful of ashes scattered to the winds.”

Beside me, Alastair’s mouth is drawn into a scowl. I wonder if he’s thinking, like me, of the atmosphere at the compound, the grim altar, the desolation. Everything gray and loveless, as hopeless as a ruin.

“What your brothers asked of me was not the same as the Salt Priests,” Therion continues. “They came to me with tenderness. They wanted my help, not to make me their captive.”

“Still, it isn’t right.” I scrunch my fists into my lap, overcome with frustration. All of us are caught up in such a tangled web. “And now Hugo is going to destroy us all.”

Alastair takes my hands between his own, holding me tightly. “I won’t let that happen, Lark.”

I look to Therion. “We need to go back.”

Therion wavers. The godlike planes of his face shift and stir, feathers softening, broad wings dimming. Replaced by the boyish lines of his mortal guise. He gazes at me with open, earnest fear. “I am afraid of what will happen if we are parted again, Lacrimosa. What that boy didon the night of our betrothal, and what he did just now, has weakened me. Drawing you here was the only way I could keep myself from vanishing. I—I need you.”

I twist my betrothal ring, looking out toward the inky sea. The silver caps of the waves are scalloped as feathers. I feel the weight of him against my chest; when I blink, his motionless swan-form is marked on the backs of my eyelids like a moon on a clear night.

He is on the edge of oblivion, our bond the only thing holding him tethered. I’m so afraid of what might happen if I return: If Therion is banished, if we are still connected, then I will be dragged out of existence alongside of him. Both of us will be lost. But Camille is on the mortal plane, left at the mercy of Hugo. To keep everyone safe, I have to return to my own world.

And to do that, Therion will have to join me.

The feathers at my wrist rustles with the motion of my hands. I stare down at them, then turn slowly to Alastair, examining the amber gleam of his changed eye. Remembering Camille, her brief orange irises and the snowy down of feathers in her hair. Each time we’ve slipped from our world to here, we’ve returned with a piece of somethingother. Some piece of Therion that has marked us like a scar.

“When you came for me, earlier, to try and draw me here, you used Alastair’s body to speak with me.” I lay my hand on Therion’s folded knees. “If I were to allow you to possess me in the same way, then return to my world… what would happen?”

He exhales a long, slow breath, as he considers what I’ve suggested. “What I did to Alastair was only temporary. It was like a projection: I never wholly left this place. But if I possessed you and we returned together to your world… we would always be together. Physically, in the same plane of existence. Unlike when I stepped into Alastair’s consciousness, our connection would be permanent.”

“But would it save you?” I persist.

Alastair tightens his grasp on my hands. “You can’t do this.”

Therion casts him a troubled glance before he goes on. “Yes,” he says, “it would save me. I’ll no longer be caught here, being dragged toward nothingness. I will not vanish, and you will not be pulled from existence due to our connection. Our bond will not be broken, and the terms of our betrothal could still be honored—but in reverse. I will share your world until the end of the salt season. Then, perhaps, I can attempt to leave you, for a time.”

“You don’t sound very certain.”

His mouth tips into a rueful smile. “I’m afraid this is not a path I’ve traveled before.”

I shake back my tangled, dripping hair. I shift closer to him. “I am willing to risk it, if you are.”

“Lark,” Alastair says again. “Please, you can’t. If Hugo discovers the two of you are in one form… he’ll hunt you both down. You’ll never be safe.”

“None of us are safenow, either.”

“I know.” Alastair regards me, sorrow in his mismatched eyes. His hand slides, slowly, to cup my cheek. He bends to me, our foreheads touch. His breath casts over my mouth as he says quietly, “I will do it. I will take your place.”

“No,” I protest. “You can’t.”