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I put out my arm, barring Camille from moving forward. Shemakes a low, furious sound but remains still, tense against me. I extend my other hand toward Hugo. “Let him go.”

He gives me a long, searching look. Then, his mouth tilts into a smile. Low and cold, he says, “Whoshould I let go? Alastair, or Therion?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, fighting to keep my expression neutral. But Hugo’s eyes are alight with pleased realization.He knows what we’ve done.His smile widens. “All I wanted was to banish Therion for good. I never expectedthis. For Alastair to return so changed. With your god—your husband—caught inside a mortal body.”

“Hugo,” I gasp, my breath coming as a sob. “Please…”

“I gave him twice the amount that I slipped into the wine,” Hugo says, gesturing toward the glass vial. “It’s a sedative drug used by the Salt Priests, so luckily, I have more of a tolerance than you all. I knew you’d be suspicious if I wasn’t drinking it, too. In Tharnish, they call itOrramus—it meansthe gift of dreams. Isn’t that interesting? Of course, this was the last of my supply, all I could manage to steal, but I think this was the perfect use for it. To make Alastair so pliant, so biddable, while I finish things once and for all.”

Camille snarls, struggling against my grasp. “You littlewretch.”

Hugo strokes Alastair’s cheek, his fingers blue and bloodless, tremoring from withdrawal. Carefully, he tucks back a tendril of Alastair’s hair, then strokes his cheek. Alastair’s lashes flutter, his eyes opening briefly before he subsides into stillness. “He’s even lovelier like this, don’t you agree?” Hugo muses. “Half-divine, yet completely at my mercy.”

“Take your hands off him!” I snap.

Hugo sets the razor back to Alastair’s throat, eyes narrowed warningly. “I don’t want to hurt him, but I will. I wonder if I killed him, would Therion die, too? And what would happen to you, Lacrimosa, if your bridegroom was destroyed?”

Slowly, I extend my hand further toward him. “It isn’t right, whatthey did to Georgiana. What they did to you. But hurting Alastair or banishing Therion isn’t the solution.”

For the briefest moment, Hugo looks achingly sad. A bruise-eyed boy, too young for any of this, who has been so hurt by the world that his only thought is to hurt it back. Then his expression hardens, his mouth twists into a sneer. “Who says I want to banish him? No. I’m going tokeephim.” He takes out my obsidian mirror, cradling it against his chest as he looks down at Alastair. “I’ll seal Therion inside of him permanently, and they will both bemine. The Salt Priests only care about one thing: power. When I am done here, they’ll be forced to listen to me. There will be no more need for sacrifices after I’ve returned to them with my own captive god.”

I stare at him in horror, so overwrought that I can barely get my words out. “Hugo, please—Alastair has no hand in what the Salt Priests did. He trusted you, he cared about you, he wanted to help you escape them. And if you ever cared for him—you can’t—don’t hurt him this way.”

“She’s right,” Camille says through gritted teeth. “Do this, and you’re no better than the ones who drowned your sister.”

Hugo clutches the obsidian mirror so tightly that his knuckles turn white. He gazes down at Alastair with vicious yearning, like someone starved who is before a laden table. Like he wants to eat both boy and god down to the bones before licking the plate clean. “I can’t let him go. I’ve come too far and lost too much. If being as cruel as the Salt Priests is what it takes to undo their hold on me, then so be it.”

With an indrawn breath, he begins to chant a strand of hard-edged Tharnish. The words are unfamiliar, not the incantation from earlier, intended to banish, but something newer, more insidious.

“No!” I cry, reaching toward him, but Hugo brandishes the razor at Alastair’s throat, pressing it close enough to draw a thin line of blood.

As Hugo continues to chant, Alastair’s features begin to blur and flicker. His eyes open, staring into nothingness, and they’re brilliant,glowing amber. He’s shifting, changing, the planes of his face turned sharper, his hair strewn with feathers. Like a peeled-back shadow, the form of Therion begins to lift from Alastair. Hugo leans close, rapt as he observes the transition.

This is all my fault. It was my idea for Therion to come into our world like this. Alastair made himself weak to protect me, and now I’m going to lose them both, watch them taken apart and remade into a tool of Hugo’s wretched vengeance.

Alastair convulses, his bare feet kicking at the floor, his fingers curved to claws against the boards. He lets out a wet, choking cough; a bubble of indigo liquor spills out from his mouth. Hugo leans closer, focused entirely on Alastair’s face as he continues to chant. Camille looks at me and gives a subtle nod. I squeeze her hand.

We move in a rush; Camille grabs for Hugo, catching hold of his wrist. She digs her nails into his skin, twisting his arm fiercely until the mirror drops to the floor. The obsidian surface cracks into a spiderwebbed shatter as it lands. He swipes at her with the razor, but he misses, and she shoves him away with all her strength—he stumbles back, striking his head on the edge of the windowsill. Bonelessly, he slumps to the floor.

I dart forward and hook my arms beneath Alastair’s shoulders. Camille crowds in beside me, and together, we lift him. He gets to his knees, his head lolling back against my chest. Then, we have him on his feet. His head hangs forward, his face hidden by his sweat-damp hair. A splotch of liquor drips from his mouth, spattering bluely on the boards. We move toward the stairs, Camille ahead and I behind with Alastair propped between us.

We get him to the landing, set him down on the floor. He falls back against the wall, his head slumped, his eyes closed. Camille crouches beside him, her hand on his cheek, trying to stir him. “Alastair,” she whispers, urgent, desperate.

I leave them and hurry back up to the attic door, slamming itclosed. I take out the keys from my pocket. They’re tangled; I can’t find the right one. The first I try is wrong, and then, from behind the door, comes the sound of dragging, unsteady motion. I lean hard against the door, holding it shut as I continue to search through the keys. The handle rattles and the door jars. Hugo hammers furiously against the wood, snarling my name. “Lacrimosa! Let me out!”

My fingers are slippery with sweat. I fumble, almost dropping the key ring. Then the keysnickshome; I turn it and the door is locked.

Back on the landing, Camille is still trying to awaken Alastair. I fall to my knees beside him. My fingers press his throat, seeking a pulse. It throbs weakly beneath my touch. Leaning closer, I turn my cheek to his lips and feel the motion of his breath against my skin.

His lashes flutter; he opens his eyes and gazes at me with irises bright as amber. Swan eyes, Therion’s eyes.

In Therion’s voice, he says, “Lacrimosa.”

Hugo is still calling out from the attic—my name, then Alastair’s, then a string of furious curses. I can hear the echoingthudas he throws himself against the door, trying to break it open. I lay my hand against Alastair’s forehead, feeling the fever-hot burn of his skin.

“Tell me,” I whisper, my heartbeat frantic. “Tell me how to help you.”

It is Therion who looks at me now, pained and poison-sick. “I am—we are both—wounded. What that boy did, trying to banish me, and now—the drugs, the new ritual—I am too weak, Lacrimosa. I need to go back to the mine. To my altar. It’s the closest place to my own world; only there can I heal.”