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Q uin’s cloak is drenched and the silver ribbon he wears spins and swirls in front of him on an icy breeze.

He stays kneeling there in a courtyard on King’s Island in a downpour, all night. All day.

“Please, don’t force this marriage.”

The king marches up to him, crouches, hands gripping his son’s arms. “Who’s stolen your heart?”

Quin clutches his father back. “Just, please . . .”

“You need to produce an heir.”

“I don’t want to marry her.”

“It’s not about wants. It’s about musts. Needs.”

“I’ll never sleep with her!”

“We’ll see!”

The memory blurs, and I stumble to the violet oak. It’s been almost three months now, and I can’t stop myself. Every night I retreat into Quin’s memories. Every night I torture myself, wishing...

I lean against the trunk, my breath hopping between a laugh and a cry as I look over all the doors I’ve passed through this night. Maybe just... one more .

This is that fateful day on Frederica’s estate. Three years after Maskios left Chaos at the swamp.

Every time I visit this memory, my stomach twists.

It hurts, yet I can’t help but come back.

I stagger across Frederica’s courtyard to Quin.

He’s shouting, but I know now he’s not really shouting at her.

“He’s the one behind Father’s death, he’s not stopped trying to kill off my brother—I just got word of yet another ambush!

He’s only keeping me around until my son’s named heir.

He’s using Mother against me. He’s blackmailed and bribed most of the ministers in my court!

Why? Why is he like this? How can I be rid of him? ”

“Be calm. This won’t help any—”

Quin swings his cane against a flowerpot and it smashes. He slams his eyes shut. “Sooner or later, it’ll be my son underground,” he chokes on a whisper.

I move around this version of Quin, taking him in.

He’s almost the same Quin that posed as Calix Solin, my Maskios, but.

.. there’s an anger in his gaze that wasn’t as pronounced before.

He moves like he’s swathed in shadows, and to protect himself he’s formed a hardened shell.

When he’s angry, this Quin will roar and snarl.

When he’s touched, he will school his face and feelings as if he isn’t.

This is King Quin.

“I won’t let them suffer—”

I swallow down an ache and this time, instead of just watching, I reach out and touch Quin’s gritted jaw. “I’m sorry for all the pain you’ve gone through. I had no idea you were carrying the weight of an entire kingdom on your shoulders.” And here Chaos is, running up behind him, about to add more.

In a giant bound of blonde, Chaos leaps onto Quin’s back. Quin freezes and spins around. “Who dares—”

The second Quin sees who it is, a bolt of light penetrates all his hardened layers; briefly, just briefly, I see Maskios. I see a jump of brightness in his eyes. I see a slight tremble.

This is why I keep coming back here.

Quickly, too quickly, it’s gone.

“This won’t do your face any favours.”

Quin doesn’t shake him off. He lets Chaos cling to his shell like maybe, for these few moments, he wants that shell to be cracked open. “What about my face?”

“Good looks don’t last. No woman fawns over mean lines.” A flower appears before his nose. “Soulbloom?”

Later—after the small earthshake, after Chaos heals the rabid dog—Quin stares at his face in the mirror that hangs in his chamber.

I wish he could see my reflection close behind him.

“Don’t get involved. You cannot. Leave.” He closes his eyes and his throat bulges.

“He’ll hate you if he knows who you really are. ”

I shake my head. “When he knows who you really are, how could he?”

Quin steels himself and stamps downstairs with his cane. Perhaps all along he was preparing to leave, and then that akla comes desperately seeking help for her master, and Chaos is there, determined to help no matter the consequences.

Quin strangles the head of his cane and his eyes flicker before he surrenders. Perhaps he too is telling himself, just one more moment .

Then he’s escorting Chaos down the river to the cottage in a sea of lavender; he’s admiring Chaos as he heals the hurt Skeldar farmer. And later, he’s gripping his seat inside his carriage, commanding his aklo with eyes closed in defeat: “Send him a soldad.”

I leave the memory and fall to my knees at the violet oak, where I’d later pick up that soldad—the soldad that sealed our fate together, that made it impossible to separate.

The soldad that forged a path for me into the royal city; the soldad I tried to destroy, forcing Quin to abduct me from his brother; the soldad that stripped off one of Quin’s masks.

The soldad that he still stamps.

I feel the ground shake. Violet leaves tremble above me. From somewhere a great distance away, I hear a muffled, “Cael, wake up. Cael. ”

It’s not time yet.

I need... just a little longer. One more door. Two. Maybe a few. Time runs differently here, I just need a few more minutes...

Ignoring the shakes, I dash through a series of rune doors.

Thinker’s Hall and Quin’s gold-threaded underwear; Pavilion Library as he holds his breath and lets Chaos read his pulse for the first time; the dance academy where Chaos unashamedly pretends to be Calix Solin—oh, how Quin laughs!

“Cael? You have to eat breakfast.”

I’ll skip it for more time here.

I dive behind the rune door where Quin drapes his cloak over Chaos when they’re trapped underwater.

I see him at an antique jewellery stall at the market after the amorous spore incident, requesting the owner track down a rare clasp.

I see the moment on the rooftop during the lovelight festival, when Quin realises Chaos likes his brother.

I see his crushing pain as he gallops to save Nicostratus from assassins.

I see his resolve to never see Chaos again.

I see him break it, entering the final exam as Chaos’s patient with a desperate plea for him not to enter the royal city.

“Cael?” the voice outside the dromveske calls. “I’m off to get a bucket of cold water...”

Fine. Until then . . .

I relive the disaster of the royal city—all of it, from the wyverns to sneaking out into the capital to poisoning the king to ‘dying’ and awaking in his arms.

I see all of it through the eyes of a man trying and failing to keep his distance.

I see—no, I feel— the tender moment Quin gives in; the moment he knows he’ll be forever imprisoned in these feelings, the moment his shell is pierced and that younger Quin can be glimpsed again: it’s the moment in Kastoria, when he wakes from his coma to Chaos sleeping at his bedside, holding his hand with ferocious desperation.

I feel it all. I’m a shivery, wretched mess by the time I stumble back to the violet oak.

I’m a shivery, wretched mess every morning.

I scan the glade. No shaking yet. No sign of the impending downpour.

I’ve time to try one more. The one I’ve still yet to open.

It’s brighter than all the others, with a mesmerising river-pearl sheen to the door.

Like there’s something magical that can barely be contained beyond it.

I reach out and shiver at the ticklish thrum coming through the ancient wood. Please budge this time.

I push. And push. Every time, the same result.

Some doors are like this—hard to open. Some secrets need to be locked away.

I swallow, fingers trailing over the thrum.

“What do you need to lock away?” I glance at the last rune door and back at the pearly one.

This memory is surely the day we save Nicostratus from the crusaders, the day my meridians are destroyed, the day I believe my dream dies and I stare all my hurt into Quin’s soul and say I should never have saved him.

I stumble back on a sigh. Maybe this is why the memory is here, yet impossible to open. Those feelings are part of our journey, but too raw. Volatile. That thrumming that I can still feel vibrating through the ground could be the storm from the hurt I caused.

I yank my hand away from the door, my stomach sinking.

Perhaps it’s best I don’t relive this. And yet...

I walk away, but like always I glance back at the glowing wood, frowning.

Eventually. Eventually, I’ll—

The sky swooshes open with the deafening sound of water lurching out of a pail and dropping all at once.

The air is suddenly cold and thick with the wave rushing towards me from above.

At first the violet oak sags under the weight of the water; I gulp in the scent of wet earth and timber before the wave smashes over me.

I swim to the exit—

And lurch into a sitting position on my mattress, hauling in air.

Casimiria is holding the offending pail with a grin.

I squeeze water from my hair. “How many times have I said it’s enough to douse the dromveske. You don’t need to drench my body too.”

“Yes,” she says, a twinkle to her eye. “But it’s more fun this way.”

“Mother and son. Both merciless. ”

Casimiria barks out a laugh. “Merciless, but with meaning.”

She sets down the pail, her expression sobering. I have a feeling I know what she’ll say. I hurriedly rise off the bed and lift the wet blankets. “I’ll hang these out.”

She bars my way.

I try to duck.

She catches me by the scruff. “You can’t only live in memories, Cael.”

I grip the blankets, suppressing the urge to retort, why not?

“They’re the past,” she continues gently. “Not what’s real now. Not what will be real in the future.”

The punch of those words knocks the air from my lungs. The dromveske is only a gift of stolen moments. Stolen moments are not forever.

How can I tell her I can’t help myself? How can I tell her I’ve been inside the memories so often now that I’m seeing Quin everywhere, in everything.

Like a ghost, he appears around me. In the water of the pond; in a passing aklo; in anyone with a cane.

My mind conjures his face so clearly, I’ve even reached for him, only for the illusion to shatter.

Even looking at Casimiria now, I see him.

I squeeze my arms around my wet blanket and force a grin. “You’re right. And it’s all your son’s fault.”

She laughs but I can see she does it to spare me from the full weight of her words. “Looks like he’ll be in some trouble when he returns.”

“So much you’ll have to hold me back. ”

“I’ve grown quite attached to you these last months,” she says, moving for me to finally pass. “So if it’s a small beating, I’ll even help you.”

My laugh borders on a hiccup. “Not for this one. This confrontation I’ll have to do myself.”