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Murderer.

Out of all the names I’d been called in my life, I genuinely never believed that murderer would be one of them, yet that man with his bloodshot eyes and his index finger shaking as he pointed at me was screaming it still. Third time now—wait, fourth.

“Murderer! She killed the prince! Attack!”

The golden railing was behind me. More guards were coming from down the hallway on the other side of the balcony in front of Prince Lyall’s bedroom doors, now closed. There was no way out, no way anywhere, and I was doomed.

I was doomed—not only because I was surrounded by all those guards and that fae man screaming at the top of his lungs, calling me the least favorite name I’d ever been called, so much worse than cuckoo.

I was doomed because the prince was dead.

Prince Lyall of the Seelie Court of Verenthia was dead, and I’d seen it with my own eyes, had seen his body on the floor with a knife sticking out of his chest, his once white shirt red with blood.

I’d seen it, and this fae was telling everyone that I’d done it—and yes, I had a history of disregarding my own self when enough people insisted that something was true or wasn’t, but this I knew for certain.

I hadn’t killed the prince. I couldn’t have if I’d tried. I’d had no weapons on me, no means, and most importantly—no fucking motive to kill someone I almost died a hundred times to come heal.

“Step forward at once,” one of the guards closest to me said, his golden sword glistening under the light of the lanterns mounted on the wall that were full of golden Seelie magic.

“Do not attempt to attack, mortal. Step forward slowly,” said the same guard again, and would it be too much to fucking laugh in his face right now?

Do not attempt to attack, he said, as if he couldn’t see that I was shaking from head to toe, that my hands wouldn’t even know how to hold a weapon to attack with, that my heart was thundering in my chest and?—

Wait.

White noise went off in my ears for a second, chasing away the chaos in my mind.

My heart was beating in my chest. I was breathing, though heavily. I was breathing, even if it felt like the world had suddenly run low on air—I was breathing .

I was alive .

So how would the prince, whose life was supposed to be bound to mine, be dead?

The guards came closer—two steps, three.

I gripped the golden railing behind me until my hands hurt, and I wanted to speak, to tell them that the prince wasn’t dead, that he couldn’t be dead because I was still alive, but the words wouldn’t come.

My jaws were locked tightly. My eyes on them—and, no, it wasn’t Delias, the fae who’d opened the gates of the court for us.

It wasn’t Rune’s friend. It was another guard, and so many more were behind him, at least twenty, as if they really believed that I could do anything at all against them.

The fae continued to shout.

The guards continued to approach.

It was over for me. Everything was truly over now.

My God, I should have trusted those instincts, that voice in my head that told me to run while I still had the chance before I even made it to the palace. I should have trusted myself for once in my fucking life—and now I was never going to see my sister and my father and my best friend again.

I was never going to see Rune’s smile again.

“Put your hands in front of you, mortal,” the guard insisted, and I’d have done as he said, only I couldn’t move if I tried. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t scream—I could just stare and hold on and…

Jump.

The voice popped in my head, and this one wasn’t mine.

It was Rune’s.

My heart stood still for a beat and I no longer even saw what was in front of me, not the guards or the man screaming that awful word as he pointed at me still.

I focused only on my mind, on the shadows that fell over me, and I could have sworn that they were alive now.

I could have sworn that they breathed, too .

Jump, Wildcat.

There—that voice again, clear as day.

I’ll guide you. Jump.

I turned my head to the side just to glance behind me, beyond the railing, to the Seelie Court that stretched far and wide below, vast, golden, a place pulled out of a dream .

And the river that wrapped around the queen’s palace was there, with golden lanterns placed on its bed as if to say, see? There’s nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. As if those lights were speaking to me the same way as that voice.

Rune.

I searched for him with my eyes among the guards. I searched for him like he was the air that would keep me alive, but he wasn’t there. And I was certain that his voice in my head wasn’t really his. Just my imagination, my last attempt to survive my end.

But then the guards were so close, barely five feet away, and their golden swords looked so sophisticated, so sharp, so final, and I realized that I did want to jump.

I realized that even if I didn’t survive the fall—which I probably wouldn’t—I would rather die in that river, than be stabbed by that gold and bleed my life away on this polished floor.

The guards moved, spoke.

I moved, too, though I didn’t make a single sound.

I turned so fast everything around me became a blur, and I climbed on the railing. It was easy to do with the leather boots on my feet, and the dress I wore allowed me to move freely.

The guards shouted, ran. The man called me murderer one last time—that I heard.

With my eyes wide open, I jumped.

Regret exploded in my chest at the same second.

My mouth was open, but I couldn’t scream.

My voice was stuck in my throat, and you’re a goddamn fool, Nilah!

, and death had never been so close to me no matter what I’d gone through in the fae realm.

It had never greeted me as warmly as it did now when my eyes refused to blink, and my hands tried to hold onto thin air, and the sight of the river that had been possibly a hundred feet below reflected my end.

No more thoughts in my head, no more voices.

I fell so incredibly fast, and so slow at the same time.

My hands moved in front of my face and all that was left inside me was the regret.

Because if I’d stayed, maybe I could have convinced the guards to let me see the queen and Helid.

If I’d stayed, maybe they’d have put me on trial and they’d see that I wasn’t guilty.

If I’d stayed, I would have survived.

But now, I was going to die.

I fell in the water and my ears absorbed the sound of it, isolated it so that it felt like my skull was full, too. Like my thoughts were swimming in this same water, and my entire body had become it.

My limbs moved—somehow, I was still alive.

I wasn’t sure if I was hurt, and I didn’t much care, to be honest. But the shock of still being alive was chased away by the shock of seeing those shadows tear themselves from the bottom of the river, which was much deeper than I’d thought, and reach for me at an incredible speed.

At this point nothing about what had happened felt real.

As I looked at those shadows reaching out to me like hands, I realized there was a good chance I could already be dead.

Because there was no way I had survived that fall— too high.

There was no way I would ever make it to the surface of the river and breathe again, and there was no way that those shadows weren’t going to suffocate what little air was left in my lungs.

Still, I tried.

I couldn’t tell you why—possibly just my survival instincts taking over. But I moved my limbs and I tried to swim for the surface, both for air and to get away from those shadows I was convinced were coming to kill me for whatever reason. Like I forgot who commanded them.

Like I forgot Rune.

By some miracle, I made it. I broke out of the surface and I drew in air, and I saw lights, and I heard screams. I even saw the balcony, so, so high up the palace, and I’d indeed jumped from a fucking world away.

But I didn’t even have time to hope that I might make it before something cold wrapped around my ankle and pulled.

Sheer terror wrapped around me—and it looked like those same shadows that had been coming for me from the bottom of the river.

I wanted to scream, but my jaws were locked, and thank God they were because I was underwater again.

There had been light, a little light coming from everywhere around me—those lanterns at the bottom of the river—but now they were gone.

Now there was only darkness, and it was moving me in the water, pulling me to the sides like it was trying to knock me out.

I tried to push it off me, thrashing as well as I could while also holding my breath, for a good moment—until Rune’s face came in front of my mind’s eye.

Until I heard his voice in my head again—those same words as before, an echo of them.

Maybe I hadn’t made it up. Maybe Rune had really told me to jump when I was on that balcony. Maybe he really did have a plan—he always had a plan.

It was hard but I forced myself to stop moving, let the shadows pull me whichever way they wanted, hold my breath until my lungs burned. My eyes were squeezed shut tightly, my mind on Rune.

Hang in there, Wildcat, I imagined him saying. Just a little longer …

Then the shadows spit me out like they were suddenly disgusted by the taste of me.

I was moving and I was still in the water, but air was going down my throat, filling my lungs.

I tried to see, tried to find something to hold onto as the current now took me forward, but all I saw was darkness and a pale moon in the sky.

The water pushed me farther and farther away.

I had no idea where the hell I was, just that there was very little light around me now, and I went on for possibly a few minutes before something touched my hand.

I could have passed out from the fear, from surprise, because I had no idea what I’d touched until I slammed against concrete with my shoulder.

Suddenly, there was ground underneath my feet, and to my side. I held on as well as I could, tried to crawl out, tried to blink faster, to see better, except my body was exhausted. The best I managed to do was pull myself halfway out of the water, and then my limbs locked down.

Luckily, the current of the river wasn’t strong enough to pull me under again. I was lying on my stomach on the cold hard ground, unable to even raise my head to see what was around me, where I could go, where I could run.

My eyes closed. My mind collapsed on itself, and my thoughts disappeared with the slow wind. Even though every instinct in my body was certain that death would find me if I didn’t wake up, unconsciousness pulled me under.