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“Do you think if I ran away right now and started living with the deadlings in the woods that anyone would notice?” I asked Adeline.

She smiled as she walked next to me. “I think you have a better chance at becoming king.”

I smiled back. “You have your sister back. That must at least be nice, right?” she asked.

I shrugged. “It’s nice knowing she’s not struggling for every meal like I used to do. But…there’s a different type of worry with her being here. Malachi defends us, but most of the fae still hate humans. They don’t want us here. I worry that she’ll see something or change the way she sees me.”

“You think she’ll fear you?”

“I think she fears me already.”

“Because of Malachi?”

The truth was, it wassomuch more than just Malachi that frightened Tessa. It was all of it. We came from a world where it was just us two. Us and our father, who didn’t really count as a whole human being.

It was terrible and dreadful and difficult every single day. But it was constant. It was a painful type of comfort.

Tessa had grown to know a version of me that was defiant and scrappy. Before I was sold to marry Malachi, I would have laughed at anyone who tried to tell me what to do. Who tried to tell me who to be.

Tessa saw that. She was there every time, watching her big sister rip through this world with no regrets.

Who was I now? The human girl who walked on ice around the fae? They certainly didn’t fear me. No, theyneverwould.

I wouldneverbe their equal. Even with Adeline.

Adeline still waited for my reply. I wasn’t going to lie to her. She had become a great friend to me over our time together. And I knew she would understand.

“Partly because of Malachi,” I started. “But I think she will fear who I have become, too.”

“The wife to the King of Shadows?” she asked.

A chill ran down my spine at her words, even in the warmth of the evening. King of Shadows. “No,” I corrected. “She’ll fear me because I am broken.”

“Oh, Jade,” she stared. “I think we’re all a little broken. You, me, Malachi. Even Tessa. It’s what makes us sane.”

I smiled at her kind words. “You think we’re all sane?”

“Well,” she retorted. “To be honest, I think you and I may be the only ones.”

I shook my head at her as we came to the clearing of the lagoon, the same lagoon where we had been attacked by atigerof all things.

“It seems different here,” I noticed. The large lagoon with the beautiful blue water seemed hardly larger than a pond now. The forest around the clearing looked half as threatening.

“That’s because you’re different, now,” she said. “Saints, it feels like a lifetime ago when I brought you here the first time.”

“Do you think Malachi will be just as pissed if he finds us here again?”

“Please,” she said, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. “We can take care of ourselves.”

Something stirred in my chest at her words. She was right. I had changed since I had been here last.

But so had she.

She wasn’t the ditsy, naive girl I had taken her for when I first met her. Adeline was strong in ways I would never have to understand.

I silently thanked the Saints for that.

“Are you going for a swim?” she asked me.