Page 45

For a moment, I’m falling. Suspended in the void between heartbeats, holding my breath before the world comes crashing back.

Then I’m standing in a cell.

A cell full of mirrors.

Ice floods my veins as I take in the endless reflections. My face staring back, wide-eyed and ashen.

No. Nonononono —

I spin back to the portal, boots skidding on the ivy-choked floor. But there’s nothing there. Just another mirror, cold and implacable. Trapping me here in the splintered labyrinth of my nightmares.

In the cell where Lonnrach broke me open and carved out all my secrets, smiling as I screamed.

“I’m not here,” I whisper. “Lonnrach is dead. This isn’t real.”

My legs move. I hurry down the long, echoing line of mirrors, reflections fracturing into infinity. Running from the ghost of his laughter, the phantom drag of fangs, his touch as he tore open my mind—

I slam into a mirror, pain exploding through my shoulder. Glass spiderwebs beneath my fingers from the point of impact. But it doesn’t shatter.

I press my forehead to the cool surface, fingernails scraping the glass. Squeezing my eyes shut against the hot prickle of tears.

Breathe. Just breathe.

But the memories are rising up, thick and choking. The burst of agony. Lonnrach’s crooning voice in my ear.

I’m in your fucking skin, right beneath his mark. I’m inside your mind, gouged in so deep that he’ll need to kill you to ever be rid of me.

Death doesn’t end trauma. I can still feel him. The cold crawl of violation, the phantom fingers pulling at the seams of my mind. Unspooling me until there’s nothing left but tatters.

Nothing left but this cell where he sliced me open and stitched me back together wrong.

The Cailleach’s power is a living thing inside my veins. I reach for it with shaking hands. Let it pour out of me in a concussive wave and slam into the mirrors.

They shiver. Ripple like water, the reflections going strange and distorted. But they don’t break.

A sob builds behind my teeth. I draw on the magic again, deeper this time. Scraping my soul raw until the seams fray and crumble. Until flames lick at the insides of my skin and the world goes dark at the edges.

Again. Again. Again.

Blood splatters on the glass. Smears beneath my hands as I claw at it. The mirrors shudder and groan—and hold.

I stagger. Catch myself. My legs are shaking, barely holding me upright.

“You can still change your mind.”

I go still. That voice haunted every endless hour in this cell. “Turn around, Aileana Kameron.”

I can’t move. Can’t breathe past the ice in my lungs, the sickness clawing up my throat. This isn’t real. Lonnrach is in pieces on a dirty street. I watched Aithinne tear him open—

“ Turn. Around .”

There’s an edge to the words now. The promise of violence—pain, etched into the secret places of me.

I breathe in. Out. Clench my hands into fists and turn.

Lonnrach. His hair, pale as ivory. The elegant slash of his cheekbones, the curve of that mouth. But his eyes—twin pools of liquid sapphire. Cracked and glittering, depthless as the abyss.

The Morrigan’s eyes.

“I wanted you alone,” she says, and it’s obscene.

That voice, sliding out from between his teeth.

“I saw this room in his memories. All the delicious things he did to you here.” A considering pause, Lonnrach’s head tipping to the side.

Studying his—her—hands. “Too ambitious by far, this one. Too . . . demanding.” Her lip curls, a moue of distaste. “He didn’t even sing.”

I fist my hands. As if I can pretend the ugliness of this place isn’t filling up all my empty spaces like grave dirt. “You let us kill him.”

“I thought you might enjoy the gift.” She blinks at me. “Didn’t you like it?”

Bile coats my tongue. I swallow it down, fixing her with a hard stare. “My answer is still no.”

“Is it?” The temperature plummets, frost crackling across the mirrors. “Well, no matter. This form still has its uses. I wonder what secrets Lonnrach ripped out of you, hm? What precious morsels you fed him?”

I jerk back, my heart slamming against my ribs. No. Please no.

The Morrigan’s smile widens. “Yes, I thought so. All I need is a taste . . .”

No.

I reach for my magic. Deeper this time—it roars through my veins until my muscles seize and my vision goes crimson at the edges.

Until the blood bubbles between my lips, and I spit it on the floor.

I fall to my knees. Choking on the jagged shards of my scream as the power rips me apart.

Get up!

But I can’t. Everything hurts, the world narrowing to the rough scrape of ivy against my cheek, the erratic drum of my pulse. The taste of my mortality.

Footsteps shiver through the floor. Measured.

The Morrigan crouches down beside me. Her blue eyes stare at me, flat and pitiless.

“My sister’s power is tearing you apart.” A lover’s croon, gentle as a caress. “Find the Book. Use your power to give me back my body, and I’ll save you.”

I bare my teeth. Spit a mouthful of blood at her feet. “You have . . . my answer.”

“Foolish girl.” She seizes my wrist. “I’ll lock you up in a cell like this. A pretty pet, singing so sweetly in her cage.”

Her grip tightens. Grinding bone until a small, hurt sound spills out of me. Until I’m shaking with the effort of holding them back, holding myself together.

The Morrigan smiles. Slow and vicious.

Then she strikes. She crashes into my mind, scattering everything I am, everything I was. I fight against her hold, snarling like a cornered animal, but using the Cailleach’s powers left me weak. Vulnerable.

Open to her.

She feasts on all my secret shames. The dark wants I buried deep.

Kiaran and I, crashing together in the shadows. The heat of his mouth. All the ways he breaks me open, puts me back together. The taste of my name on his tongue.

The Morrigan drinks down my fierce, aching joy. The knowledge that this is all we have, all we might ever have. Snatched seconds, minutes, hours. Hoarded close. The inexorable slide toward a future where I wither and decay, and he remains forever untouched.

Unchanged, as I crumble to dust in his arms.

It hurts. God, it hurts. Each memory a serrated edge, carving pieces out of me. Stripping me down to the animal core of my want. My fear.

The fear of growing old. Of fading away.

Of being forgotten. Lost in the cracks of eternity, my name worn away by the grinding wheel of centuries. Until there’s nothing of me left. No trace, no shadow. There one day and gone the next.

Please. Please stop.

The Morrigan lifts her head. “There it is. The crack in your armour. The sweet rotten place, all full of worms.” Her eyes glitter, bright and fever-mad.

Drunk on stolen intimacies. “You want forever with him. To be the one thing Death can’t touch.

But your fragile mortal heart is already crumbling, little Falcon. It’s mouldering in your chest.”

Tears prickle hot behind my eyes, salt-damp. I blink them back, refusing to let her see.

The Morrigan leans closer. Curls Lonnrach’s fingers under my chin, forcing me to meet that terrible blue gaze.

“He’d raze cities for you. Tear the realms apart with his bare hands, paint the streets red to keep you.

To wrap you in his darkness and hold the years at bay.

” A pause, taut and humming. “Pretty monster, your consort. I wonder what he’d give me for an eternity in your arms?

What atrocities he’d commit to hoard your every breath?

What deal would he make with me, do you think, if I saved his consort? ”

I shake my head. He wouldn’t. But then—

I’ll drain cities. Raze armies. Reduce this whole rotting realm to a charnel field if that’s the price. To save you.

The Morrigan smiles as if she can hear that memory. She drops her hand, and I can breathe again. “One word, little girl. That’s all it takes.”

She stands and turns away. “Our time grows short. Find the Book, use it to give me what I want. Give me forever.”

I force out the word, scraped raw and aching. “No.”

She stills. A coiled snake poised to strike. When she turns, Lonnrach’s eyes are empty. Flat and pitiless. “You will. One way or another, I’ll have my yes. And when I do . . .” She trails off, letting the silence stretch. Tighten like a noose. “You’ll crawl to me on your belly and beg.”

Then she’s gone. Lonnrach’s body crumbling to ashes, scattering on a phantom wind. Leaving me alone in the splintered remains of my mind. In the endless reflections of this cell where I broke, shattered, died by pieces.

I slump to the floor. Curl in on myself, knees pulled tight to my chest. As if I can hold in all the ragged parts of me, keep the howling void at bay. But it’s no use. Knowing what I am—what Lonnrach made me—seeps in like rot.

In truth, I never left this cell. Not really. Some part of me is still trapped here, will always be trapped here. Shackled to the ghost of a dead fae, the phantom fingers peeling back my skin. Burrowing deep until there’s nothing left but tattered meat and splintered bone.

Until Aileana Kameron is a distant memory lost in the cracks of my broken mind.

I press my face into my knees. Breathe in the warm earth scent of Kiaran’s coat, the lingering traces of pine and petrichor. The warmth of his body against mine, the steady drum of his heart beneath my cheek.

I knot my fingers into the fabric. Imagine the solid weight of him, the coiled strength. I imagine the way he looks at me like I’m some impossible thing. Fierce and fearless, a blade forged for his hand alone.

Slowly, I lift my gaze. Blink through the stinging blur of tears, the shadows pressing close. And there, across the room—

Kiaran.