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Seph’s heart was a mallet against her ribs, and then Alder’s massive form ducked within the tent.

He was dragging Rasia behind him.

No…

“We found her outside the gate,” the witch said to Seph. “I do believe she followed you outside and was about to run back and warn the others, weren’t you, little one?”

Rasia kicked and squirmed against Alder, but she might have been a kitten held by the scruff for all the difference it made.

Oh, Alder…

But before Seph’s anguish rooted, logic ruled over. It didn’t make sense that this would be Alder. That all this time he’d been working with the man who’d murdered his family––or that Alder would have gone to such lengths of deception for the coat. The very wordsdeceptionandcoatmade Seph remember her grandfather. How he’d glamoured himself to look like his brother. She realized, too, that she could not sense him in the way she’d grown accustomed, and it was then that Seph knew with a certainty: this was not Alder. Was it…Serinbor? That made the most sense, but whoever it was, she felt in her marrow that it was not the Weald Prince.

This was a glamour.

“You…” Seph managed with growing fury. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re not Alder!”

“You think not…?” the witched taunted, looking oddly delighted. “You think you know what sort of creature the Weald Prince truly is?”

“I know that he would never do this to me or Rasia…who are you?” Seph screamed at him.

“Don’t do it, princess!” Rasia yelled. “Don’t give her?—”

Alder—or whoever the person was—clamped his hand over Rasia’s mouth, but not a second passed before the fake Alder roared.

Rasia had bitten him.

Fake Alder shook off the pain, which inadvertently made him lose his grasp on Rasia, but she’d only made it two steps before the witch thrust a hand forward and a bolt of green light shot forth. It struck Rasia’s little body like a whip and wrapped around her tight.

Seph would’ve screamed if she had a voice, but the witch was still clutching her throat.

Rasia yelped and fell to the ground in a cocoon of blazing green light, and Seph’s eyes burned on the witch with hatred.

“The child is still alive,” the witch continued in a voice void of emotion. “But she will not remain so if you do not do what I have asked.”

Anger shook Seph to her core, and when the witch released her grip on Seph’s throat, she collapsed to her knees, glaring at the person glamoured as Alder. He would not meet her gaze.

“This coat I freely give,” the witch said again, this time with a mark of impatience.

Rasia twitched within that cocoon of green light, reminding Seph of another time, not so long ago, when the witch had nearly crushed Linnea’s throat.

“This coat…I freely give…” Seph ground out the words through her teeth.

“Of my own volition.”

Seph shut her eyes. “Of my own volition.”

“And I sever all claim to its power.”

There had to be another way! But Seph couldn’t find it or see it, not with Rasia convulsing beside her. Seph couldn’t believe everything had all come to this. That despite both Milly’s and Abecka’s visions, she would be the one to blame for the world’s destruction.

“SAY IT!” the witch screamed in a voice that broke open with its unnatural power.

Seph looked at the coat. That little token of hope.

Hope, always clinging to dead things.

“And I sever all claim to its power,” Seph said with defeat.