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Her answer was a single word, icy in its delivery. “Crystal.”

He continued holding her gaze before his expression softened. “Good. Now, all that’s left for us to discuss is—”

But whatever he’d been about to say was interrupted when the doors to the throne room burst open, the velocity causing them to slam back against the walls with a loudBANG.

Alex spun around with her friends, her face paling.

“No,” she whispered again, this time barely a breath of sound. Because this part she’d seen before. And she already knew how it played out.

“That’s the same guy from yesterday,” Declan said, sounding confused. “I thought you said this wasn’t your memory, Alex?”

She couldn’t respond. She was paralysed, a silent witness to the unfolding tragedy.Again.

Together with everyone else in the room, Alex watched as Niyx ran with immortal speed towards Astophe, his movements a blur. His appearance caught the Meyarins by surprise—he was supposed to be locked away inTaevarg, just as he had been for millennia. Lost in their shock, no one reacted in time to stop him from reaching the king. But it wasn’t Niyx they should have been stopping.

Just like when Alex had first seen this memory—from Niyx’s mind—Astophe opened his mouth in a surprised, pain-filled gasp, something that happened a fraction of a second before Niyx crashed into him, trying to pull him to safety. But it was too late—silver blood was already pouring from the fatal stab wound that Niyx had never delivered, even if everyone thought he had.

Riza’s bloodcurdling scream echoed around the throne room, pulling the council members from their shock and causing them to surge forward. But this part Alex had seen, too, and she watched with her heart in her throat as Niyx disappeared into thin air before anyone could reach him.

“What—I don’t—” D.C.’s voice wobbled. “But… he didn’t have a weapon. And… he just… disappeared. Just like—Just like—”

Just like Jordan.

D.C. didn’t finish her sentence. Perhaps because she refused to let her mind put the pieces together, but also because the scenery around them changed.

No longer in the throne room, the six of them were dragged right through the palace walls and partway along one of the corridors before they came to a halt in a small receiving room, one Alex had never seen before.

Nothing was happening in the room; or at least, nothing any of them could see. But Alex knew the reason for that, too— because, under the cover of Jordan’s transcendence gift, both he and Niyx were invisible.

“A single second to make a world of difference,” came Niyx’s hoarse, grief-filled voice from somewhere to Alex’s right. That was all he would have needed to push Astophe out of the way. All he would have needed to save the king from Jordan’s blade.

When thethumpsound came not even a moment later, Alex didn’t jump, unlike her friends. She already knew Niyx had needed to move quickly so that the truth didn’t get back to Aven. He couldn’t let Jordan send word through his bond—he had to make certain Aven believed the lie, the version of events the council members had seen with their own eyes: that Niyx had willingly killed the king and was a loyal servant of the Rebel Prince.

And so, when Niyx knocked out Jordan to keep him from mentally communicating that he’d completed the task commanded of him, the scenery around Alex and her friends blackened—Jordan’s memory fading as he lost consciousness.

But the Gate of Secrets wasn’t finished with them yet.

When the darkness cleared, they were no longer seeing from Jordan’s mind, but Alex’s.

“This is—This is—” The real Jordan was alarmingly pale as he glanced around the familiar, snow-covered forest.

“It’s Raelia,” Bear said, puzzled. “We’re back at Raelia.”

But Jordan already knew that. Because the memory showed him in the scene along with Alex, the two of them huddled in the snow together in the aftermath of her having out-willed Aven’s Claim on him.

Just like the first time, Alex felt it right down to her soul when she asked if he remembered what had happened to King Astophe, her heart breaking anew when the realisation hit him.

“I killed him—I killed the King of Meya!”

Reacting to the sound of his own horrified cry, Jordan staggered back a step. When Alex reached out to him, he recoiled from her, unable—or unwilling—to look in her direction. All he did was keep watching the memory play out, his face now as white as their wintry surroundings.

“It wasn’t you. Listen to me—it wasn’t you!” memory-Alex tried to tell him, but her friend only shook his head, his tortured features awash with denial.

“Jordan, I have to make you forget that you did that,” she went on, and the real Jordan gasped out another pained sound as further comprehension made him stagger yet again. “I can’t tell you why, just that it’s important.”

Both versions of her friend were in shock, but Alex didn’t know what to do. She was the cause of Jordan’s current torment, the reason he’d never recalled this secret—because she’d stolen it from him.

While the memory version of him had understood enough to trust that she had a good reason for what she was doing, the present Jordan looked like he was going to be sick. His expression only worsened when she uttered her order for him to recall being knocked unconscious before he could complete Aven’s command.