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A scream tears from my throat as I plummet into the abyss, frigid air whipping past my face. Kiaran’s hands find my waist, fingers digging into my skin as he pulls me against him.

“Kameron.” His voice is a low rumble in my ear, steady and commanding despite our freefall. “Straighten your body.”

Is he serious? Irritation flares.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I bite out, the words nearly lost to the rushing wind, “is my technique for plunging to certain death not refined enough for you?”

His soft laugh brushes my nape, there and gone. “Always so dramatic.”

How can he be so maddeningly calm right now?

One of Kiaran’s hands splays across my abdomen, his touch searing me even through the layers of clothing. He’s holding me steady, I realise—keeping my body aligned with his own.

“Focus, mo chridhe ,” he murmurs. “Breathe. What do you smell?”

Gritting my teeth, I drag a lungful of air past the clawing panic. I force my mind to be quiet, to reach beyond the overwhelming sensations of falling. And there, under the dank musk of wet stone and ancient dust, it blooms—the crisp, mineral tang of water.

We’re not plunging into a bottomless pit, we’re falling toward a subterranean lake. A chance at survival.

Kiaran’s lips graze my skin. “You need to cushion our impact. Push with your magic just before we hit the water.”

A strangled laugh bubbles up my throat. “I don’t suppose a kiss for luck is off the table?”

“As tempting as you are, ask me again when we’re not pulverised.”

Kiaran’s hand dips beneath my coat. “Gather your power here,” he instructs, pressing gently against my solar plexus. “Can you feel it?”

And I can. A second heartbeat, pulsing in time with my own.

The water rushes up to meet us, closer and closer. I shut out the chaos, the fear, the white noise shrieking in my head. I dive deep into myself, toward that writhing knot of magic nested beneath my ribs. It’s wild, writhing against my hold.

“Now, Kameron,” Kiaran’s voice cracks like a whip, jolting me into action, “let it out. All of it.”

I do. I open myself up and let it burst free. It floods my veins, sears through my nerve endings. Every cell in my body ignites.

“Good lass. Just like that. Get ready to cast the updraft. We’re almost there.”

I picture the air around us thickening. Coalescing. Gathering itself into a raging current to slow our descent. The magic leaps to obey, and I feel the pressure closing in like a giant fist. Our plummet falters. Gentles.

Kiaran goes taut behind me, muscles bunching. Any second.

Trust your power. Trust your body. Trus—

White-hot agony rips through me, brutal and blinding. It shreds my concentration, leaves me gasping. The magic gutters. Slips through my grasp and scatters, and I’m grasping at smoke and shadows as the image in my mind dissolves into static.

No. No no no!

I try to gather the tattered threads of my focus. Try to shove one last desperate pulse of power out into the world. But it’s too late. My control is splintering, and we’re falling and falling and falling—

The water hits like a stone wall.

Cold. Everywhere. It invades my mouth and nose, pouring down my throat to flood my chest. The shock of it steals my breath. Turns my blood to ice and my thoughts to sludge. Can’t move. Can’t think. There’s only the searing bite, the dark liquid folding me into its embrace.

I’ve lost Kiaran. Lost myself. Panic claws up, but the frigid water chokes it off as it closes over my head. The world narrows down to a single pinprick of light, then snuffs out. There’s only a bottomless pool and a deeper blackness rushing in to claim me.

I died like this once before, under the crashing waves of the sea. It’s almost a relief to let go. This time, there’s no current, nothing but a still pool without a bottom. Only the cold—choking, drowning, dying—

Consciousness returns in shattered fragments. Each shallow breath scrapes my raw throat as my chest struggles to rise. The back of my skull throbs in time with the erratic stutter of my heart. Sound finally pieces through—

Kiaran’s voice.

“—meron. Open your eyes. Come on, mo chridhe . Look at me.”

It takes a small eternity, but I pry open my lids. My vision adjusts to see Kiaran’s face hovering inches from mine, water beading on his pale skin and catching like diamonds in his hair.

“Still alive,” I rasp. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve fallen to my doom.”

He doesn’t look amused. “You impossible creature,” he says. “What happened up there?”

I flinch. Lie , instinct screams. He can’t know. Not yet.

I turn my face away from those piercing eyes. Swallow thickly. “Too much power at once.”

The harsh set of his mouth tells me he knows I’m being evasive. Without a word, he reaches out. Grazes his thumb over my upper lip. It comes away smeared red. Damning.

“You’re bleeding,” Kiaran says softly.

Then he’s jerking back as if burned, putting precious distance between us with a few powerful strokes. The loss of him, of his touch, is a pang beneath my ribs. With shaking fingers, I dab at my mouth and stare at the marbling of red diffusing into the water.

Barely a trickle. But for Kiaran, with that inhumanly keen sense of smell, it may as well be a scream.

“Your power being bound here,” I say. “It doesn’t make a difference? To your . . . instincts?”

He shakes his head. “Give me sixty seconds.”

The silence stretches. When I finally muster the courage to speak, my voice is little more than a whisper. “Are you . . . all right now?”

Kiaran knows the real question, the one neither of us can bear to voice aloud.

Are you in control? Or do I need to run?

“No.” The admission sounds like it’s been ripped out of him. “Keep talking. Give me something else to focus on.”

My gaze darts around us. The shadows seem to deepen at the edges of my vision, growing teeth. Slowly, I tip my head back to peer up at the distant coin of light winking high above.

“Do you think the others are all right?” I ask, more to fill the suffocating quiet than anything else.

“Sorcha’s alive,” Kiaran says, following my stare upward. “I’d know if she weren’t. I imagine Aithinne is with her.”

I nod, not trusting myself to speak around the sudden thickness in my throat.

Kiaran lets the silence stretch for a few moments before he prompts, “Don’t go quiet. Tell me what you see.”

I force myself to concentrate on our surroundings.

We’re floating in what appears to be a small cove, encircled by glassy obsidian monoliths rising from the placid water.

And there, across from us—a fissure splits the far wall, a deeper seam of shadow hinting at branching tunnels worming away into uncharted black.

“I see an opening,” I say. “Let me look.”

Bracing my palms against the pitted stone, I investigate. But the crack is barely wide enough to admit my shoulders.

It’d be a tight fit for me. Kiaran would never make it through.

I skim my hands over the slick walls hemming us in, seeking any chink or toehold that could guide us back to the surface. But the obsidian is smooth and impossible to scale.

We’re trapped.

“Keep talking, mo chridhe .” Kiaran’s voice is strained. “Just a little longer.”

“What, shall I bore you with my scintillating wit? Compose an ode to your cheekbones? A sonnet extolling your many virtues?” I glance at him over my shoulder. “Fair warning, I’m a terrible poet.”

“Another story. Anything.”

The ache behind my ribs sharpens. I sift through my scattered memories until I find something soft and hazy. Unmarred by the darkness and death always clawing at the fringes of our existence.

Something precious, just for us. When I find it, I cradle it to my chest. Gather it close.

“The fae king and the woman used to spar together in the dark morning hours, when the city slept and the monsters hunted.” My voice is low and measured.

“They fought under the stars, scaled Edinburgh’s rooftops.

The woman would steal glances at the king to watch him tip his chin to the sky.

She traced the lines of the king’s face and tried to memorise the exact shade of his eyes in the moonlight. ”

I swallow past the sudden ache in my throat, hot and tight.

“In those moments,” I continue, “she let herself imagine impossible things. Forbidden things. Like the rasp of his breath against her lips. His heart under her cheek as she curled into him. And she let herself wish for an eternity that would never be hers. For a forever stolen in increments.”

The air thickens. Becomes a living current between us, heavy with unspoken words.

“The king would have happily drowned with her forever, if she’d let him,” he says, so soft I have to strain to hear. “He was just waiting for her to admit she wanted him too.”

I part my lips, a confession hovering on the tip of my tongue.

When death comes for me again, inevitable and hungry, I’ll fight my way back. Because I wished for forever with you before you ever marked me.

Kiaran’s gaze remains fathomless and fixed on me. But before I can set that fragile admission free, a disembodied whisper brushes the shell of my ear.

I lock up, ice water replacing the blood in my veins. Holding my breath, I strain to hear beyond the drum of my pulse. There it is again—a sibilant hiss of sound, barely loud enough to discern.

Pressing a finger to my lips, I catch Kiaran’s eye. He goes still, a dark brow quirked in silent question. I scan the gloom, skin prickling with some primal awareness. Danger. Anything could be lurking in the depths. Watching. Waiting.

I can’t quite bite back a flinch when another guttural murmur reaches us, closer than before.

“Please tell me you heard that,” I breathe, not daring to pitch my voice above a whisper. Dread knifes through my stomach. “I’m not finally cracking, am I?”

“No.” He keeps his voice low. Taut with a new tension. “You’re not.”

A soft splash sounds behind me. To the left, the barest disturbance of water. I whip my head around to follow the noise, and pain lances across my cheek. Hissing through my teeth, I palm my stinging skin, and my fingers come away wet with blood.

And then, from the darkness, something laughs.