The scrabbling of claws against his door woke him from a deep sleep. It was interposed with a vigorous knocking. He’d only just nodded off what felt like minutes before.

“Jewel,” he murmured, still half asleep. “If you have woken me for naught . . .” Then it dawned on him that the wolf had never knocked on a door in her life.

Groaning, he dragged on a shirt and flung open the door. Jewel immediately jumped up on her hindlegs, her paws landing against his chest, and he winced at her claws. He grabbed her forelegs. She was oddly agitated.

“Whoa, lady. What is it?” Now he noticed a figure behind Jewel. He blinked. “Mistress Winter? Is everything—”

“Sephone’s room is empty, Lord Adamo.” Sephone’s mother spoke desperately, her eyes filled with anguish. “I thought she must have gone down early to breakfast, but—”

Alarm shot through him. “Could she be—”

“I’ve searched the house. But”—her voice faltered—“I didn’t have to.” She gestured helplessly. “You must come and see.”

Jewel went before them to Sephone’s room. The door was open, and as Damae Winter had said, the room was empty. He crossed it in three strides, his eyes raking the carefully made bed before coming to rest on the dressing table. His heart rose to his throat as he saw the empty bottle, the arm cuffs, and the rings he’d given her to return to his family. And another vial he didn’t recognize.

“There are three letters,” Damae said miserably. “One is addressed to you, Lord Adamo.”

He took the envelope she handed him and quickly broke the seal. His pulse hammered as he scanned the letter; the ink was dry, but smudged.

Tears?

Dear Dorian,

By the time you read this, I will be far away from here. I’m sorry to leave without saying a proper goodbye, but after everything that’s happened, it is probably for the best.

Asa Karthick visited me last night. He and his alters are already here in Nyx. He has offered me a deal, and I accepted. If I go to him, he will leave Nyx alone—

You fool, Dorian thought wildly. How could you trust him after everything he’s done? He kept reading.

—and thousands of Letheans will live. It is not a choice at all, really, since I am dying anyway. I’ve given you back your rings, and I hope you will be able to return to Maera soon. I promise I will do whatever I can to undermine Lord Draven. Perhaps I will even be able to turn Asa to our side.

The paper shook in his hands.

I’ve been such a fool, Dorian. All this time you have offered me your friendship, and I rejected it because I wanted something more. Something I know now you can never give. I’ve had time to reflect, and I think I understand myself better now.

You have a powerful gift. I have always been so drawn to it, and to you, because in your presence I am not so afraid or so cold. And I mistook that for love. When I think back on it, I’m ashamed of how I acted and how I pushed you away. Forgive me, please?

Please give my love to Jewel, and I hope you are reunited with your sister soon. We will probably never meet again in this world, but with all my heart, I hope that you will have a long and happy life.

Your friend,

Persephone Winter

P.S. Thank you for the snow blossom memory. You were right. It isn’t the same as a real family, but at least I will have something to remember them by forever.

He stood, trembling, the partially crumpled letter clutched in his fist. I’ve been so blind.

“Two guards are unconscious downstairs.”

He started at Damae Winter’s voice. He had forgotten she was there. She was just behind him, holding a letter.

I will follow you to the end, Dorian.

Cass had snorted derisively. Your end, or his?

Whichever comes first.

He gathered himself. “Downstairs, you say?” Perhaps there was still time to save Sephone. He set down the letter.

Retrieving his boots, mantle, and staff from his room, he strode back into the hallway, where he met a hastily dressed Cass.

“What’s all the commotion?” the lumen asked. Seeing Sephone’s open door and her mother’s tortured expression, he stilled.

“She’s gone,” Dorian told him, since Jewel was already starting down the stairs and every second counted. “Asa Karthick offered her a chance to sacrifice herself in exchange for Nyx, and she agreed.”

If Dorian had ever doubted Cass’s loyalty to Sephone, or suspected him of being a fellow conspirator along with Asa, the alarm in Cass’s face laid every suspicion to rest. “She’s gone?”

“She left you a letter.” Damae Winter came up and placed it in his hands.

Dorian ran down the stairs; Cass caught up to him just as he reached the bottom. The lumen was pulling on a coat and now stuffed his letter into one of the pockets.

“She can’t have gotten past the guards—” Cass broke off as they saw the man lying prone in the middle of the floor.

“She got past two of them.” Dorian bent and inspected the man. He was breathing evenly, but unconscious. He would be of no use to them for a few hours, at least.

The second guard was lying beside the front door. Someone was already there, kneeling next to him, and Dorian recognized Spartan. The lad stood when he saw them, his young face blooming with sympathy.

Spartan indicated the guard. “He will take a while to come to.”

“Sephone has gone to your brother,” Cass informed him abruptly.

“I know.”

Cass’s eyes lit suspiciously. “What do you mean, you know?”

“I met Sephone’s mother in the hallway, and then I came down and saw the guards. I guessed what she’d done.”

“And have you had any recent contact with your brother?” Cass’s tone was close to threatening.

Dorian hastily placed himself between them. “Cass, enough. Every moment we waste is a moment we cannot recover.”

The lumen glowered at Spartan, then relented. “There are more guards watching the house from outside. Aren’t there?”

There had been five at least—or so Lady Xia had told him. Could Sephone have escaped that many of them on her own? But if she hadn’t succeeded in doing so, surely they would have raised the alarm by now.

Bas and Bear suddenly appeared, followed by Sephone’s father. Odiseas’s expression was a mixture of apprehension and despair. A grim-looking Bear held his crossbow.

Dorian ushered them past the fallen guard and out the front door, where the street was chilled and empty. There was no sign of any guards, or fallen bodies that would indicate a struggle had taken place.

“Bas and Bear, you go that way with Odiseas. Spartan, Cass, and Jewel, come with me. Jewel, see if you can sniff her out.” As the others obeyed, he set off down the street, moving as fast as he could while scanning the dead-end streets on either side of them. Jewel’s nose was rooted to the ground.

Cass kept pace beside Dorian. “She’s taken the Reliquary.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she hid it in the chest in her room, and the chest is empty.”

Dorian groaned inwardly. “She could have left hours ago.” It was nearly dawn.

Cass’s voice was tight. “You’ll get it back, Thane. Your precious Reliquary, that is.”

Was that all Cass believed he cared about? Biting down on a cutting reply, he picked up speed, Jewel loping ahead of them. But they hadn’t gone far when the wolf came upon a figure in a side alley. Dorian skidded to a halt, taking the staff from his belt and snapping it to its full length. Cass drew one of his blades.

One of Xia’s guards had been tossed against the wall. There was a bloody scrape across the man’s throat, more blood soaking his shirt.

“Dead,” Cass announced as he squatted, inspecting a bloody smear across the cobbles, and pointed to a pool of blood. “He was murdered here, then dragged to the wall.” He exclaimed softly and picked up something from the bloodied area, suspended from a long chain. “Sephone’s pendant.”

The necklace was covered with blood, and Dorian’s heart pounded as he took it from Cass. He rubbed the resin window clean with his thumb, seeing at once the four white snow blossoms trapped within.

“Perhaps he was trying to save her,” said Cass, studying the dead man. “He wouldn’t know she was giving herself up willingly. One of Asa’s men would easily kill him for his trouble.”

Still clutching the necklace, Dorian searched the ground, noting the disturbed dust and grime, which bore the faint imprints of several boots. He bent and plucked a clump of white-blond hair from the ground. “Nay, look, Cass. See the marks of a scuffle? She didn’t go willingly. She struggled.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Thane. If she was giving herself up, why would she fight back? She’d already decided to go with Asa Karthick.”

Spartan spoke up. “Perhaps it wasn’t Asa who captured her.”

“Or maybe she changed her mind at the last minute.” Cass seemed determined to believe in Asa’s guilt.

Dorian shook his head as dread weighted him. “We both know her better than that.” He turned to Spartan. “We must continue the search. I’ll follow Jewel’s nose as long as there’s a trail. But you find Lady Xia, and alert her to Sephone’s disappearance. Ask her to send men to help us search and keep the city gates closed. When that’s done, return to the house and tell my men and Sephone’s parents of our findings.”

Spartan nodded. “Yes, of course.”

Cass watched the acolyte as he sprinted away. “Considering the boy’s dubious parentage, you just sent him on a very important errand.”

Dorian ignored the comment. “Let’s go,” he said, whistling to Jewel. “There’s no time to waste.”

The day was nearly over by the time he returned to Sephone’s parents’ house, exhausted and heartsore. The trail had gone cold barely two hundred yards from the dead guard, and Jewel had halted in the middle of the street, wearing the lupine equivalent of a frown. She had sniffed and pawed the ground, then whined. But she went no further.

It was as if Sephone had been whisked away into the air at that spot.

At least that suggested she was still within the city. Xia had done as Dorian had asked and forbidden any person to leave Nyx for the time being. Lord Grennor’s soldiers were scouring the streets for any trace of Sephone, but so far, they had found naught. When Dorian finally went to Xia himself, he was surprised to see guilt on her face.

“I’m sorry, Dorian,” she had apologized. “I thought there were enough men guarding the house, and Grennor needed more men for the walls—”

“You dismissed them,” he snapped.

“Reassigned them,” she corrected. “As I said, I am truly sorry. I believed she was safe, especially with the rest of you to watch over her.”

He wanted to rage at her, to vent some of the fury that had built up in him, but his mind understood. Sephone was no more valuable than any other inhabitant of Nyx—at least not to the Letheans.

But to him . . .

“Was it you?” he demanded. “Did you hand her over to—”

She drew back, offended. “Of course not.”

He eyed her skeptically. “You said that she could help the cause, and you planned—”

She stopped him. “I would never abduct an innocent woman. You know me better than that, Dorian.”

And he did.

Deciding to leave Xia with her guilt, he had returned to the house with Jewel. The others were gathered in the living room, Sephone’s parents huddled together beside the fire.

Cass’s gaze met his, and the rage brimming in his eyes was almost comparable to what Dorian had felt toward Xia. “Have you found anything, Thane?”

“Not yet.”

A tear spilled down Damae’s cheek, and Odiseas assured his wife, “We’ll find her, love.”

Her reply was muffled. “We only just got her back, Odis, and now she is gone again!”

Dorian turned to his men. “Any leads?”

Bear slowly shook his head. “Nay, my lord. It is as if she has vanished from the face of the earth.”

“Sephone wrote that Asa Karthick was already here in Nyx. That means he’s been here this whole time, and none of us have seen him. Or any of the alters with him. How is that possible?”

“My brother is a clever man,” Spartan said. “And a patient one. He would have waited until the time was right.” He looked at Sephone’s parents with gentle eyes. “He must have known Sephone would do anything to save those she loved from death.”

Even if it meant her own. Dorian was beside himself. How had he allowed this to happen?

“If Asa has her, he won’t kill her,” Spartan went on. “She’s far too valuable to him for that. And my father wouldn’t allow it.”

That thought twisted Dorian’s stomach. Draven had taken Lida and Emmy from him, and now he had possibly stolen Sephone.

My father is building a dynasty, and Asa is the cornerstone of his vision . . .

But something wasn’t adding up.

“Sephone is a powerful mem,” Dorian pondered. “She must have realized that whoever abducted her wasn’t in the service of Asa Karthick. Surely she would have overcome at least one of her captors.”

“There were several boot prints in that alley,” noted Cass. “They may have overpowered her through sheer strength of numbers.”

Dorian began to pace, thinking. “That man hadn’t been dead for very long. They left him there in the alley for us to find, along with Sephone’s necklace. Why?”

“It would have been difficult to hide that much blood,” said Bas.

“Perhaps they didn’t have enough time,” put in Cass. “They must have known that either we or Asa’s men would be right behind them.”

“It still doesn’t explain how they abducted her so easily,” Dorian pointed out. “Those two guards she overpowered are still out cold. And remember what she did to Asa outside of Idaea? Her gift is even stronger than it was then.” No matter that she could no longer control it.

He paused. Had Sephone been unable to use her gift? Had she possibly been prevented from accessing it? Had she been overpowered? A sudden suspicion soured his stomach, and his heart sank.

Dorian slowly faced the group. “Who is the only man missing from our search this morning?”

A fire lit in Cass’s eyes. “Brinsley.” He spoke the name like a curse.

“And who was the only man who knew—”

“You called for me?” a voice spoke amiably from behind them.

They turned as Jewel growled. Sephone’s brother, still in his nightclothes, was leaning idly against the newel post of the staircase.

“What’s all the bother and fuss? No one could sleep through this din.”

Cass lunged for him, but Dorian was quicker. Crossing the room in swift strides, he grabbed the front of the man’s shirt as he drew his knife with the other hand, then pressed the blade against Brinsley’s throat. Within seconds, Cass’s blade angled against the other side of Brinsley’s neck. Neither Odiseas nor Damae moved to help their son.

“Where is she?” Dorian ground out. “What have you done with her?”

Brinsley’s face was impassive. “Sephone, you mean? I think the better question, Lord Adamo, is what have you done with her? I haven’t seen my sister since yesterday.”

“You were the only one who knew how her gift could be neutralized,” Dorian growled.

“Only because you told me.”

Cass pulled back slightly, frowning at Dorian. “Is this true, Thane?”

“Aye.” Despair wormed through his insides. “I did.” He glared at Brinsley. “Because I was drunk. And unspeakably stupid.”

The look in Cass’s eyes was almost too much to bear. Never mind that Cass had been intoxicated more times than he could count. At least he had never broken Sephone’s trust.

Dorian was the reason Sephone had been captured. Because he had betrayed her, even if only accidentally.

Cass was already focused back on Brinsley. “Tell us the truth,” he warned, “or my gift will make you wish you had never been born.” Red light pooled in his open palm, the strands thickening until it looked as if a giant flower had sprouted from his hand.

Brinsley only shrugged. “I’m not afraid of you, lumen. But since I’m tired of this little game, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

His eyes went to Dorian.

“You know,” he began almost conversationally, “your name was the last word my sister said before she lost consciousness.”

With an oath, Dorian immediately dropped his knife and encircled the man’s throat with both hands. Cass let him.

Unexpectedly, Damae Winter cried out. “Where is she? Where have you taken her?”

“I don’t know where she is,” Brinsley said. “And I haven’t taken her anywhere. My part in the whole business is over. She could be halfway to Calliope by now for all I know . . . or care.”

“Why did you do it?” Dorian’s fingers tightened around the man’s throat. Cass looked as if he wanted to impale him with his blade. “How could you?”

“No reason, really,” Brinsley choked out. “I did her a favor. Whoever has her now will be far better to her than this Asa Karthick you’ve all been rabbiting on about. I didn’t see his face. I don’t even know his real name.”

“How do you know he won’t harm her?” Dorian pressed, slackening his hold slightly to get the answer.

“Because he wants her for her gift. He won’t dispose of her, for obvious reasons. Although, considering what my sister’s presence has done to the two of you,” he smirked, “maybe he’s done you both a favor.”

Breaking Dorian’s hold, Cass knocked Brinsley to the floor and began to pummel him. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Nay!” Dorian dragged him off Sephone’s brother, Bear and Bas assisting. Spartan remained by Sephone’s parents, watching. Though Odiseas’s throat clenched, he didn’t intervene.

“He doesn’t deserve to live,” Cass seethed.

“He doesn’t,” Dorian agreed tersely, “but we need him alive. Right now, he’s our only clue to Sephone’s whereabouts.”

Satisfied he wasn’t going to kill Brinsley, Bear let him go.

“Pathetic,” muttered Brinsley, glowering at Cass from the tiles.

Dorian bent over him. “Why did this man want Sephone’s gift?”

“Why else, Thane of Maera? To wield your precious Reliquary.”

Dorian tensed. He hadn’t shared that piece of information with Brinsley. “How do you know about the Reliquary?”

Brinsley’s bleeding mouth curved smugly. “I wondered why you had bothered to drag a mem halfway across Caldera and back again. When the hooded man approached me and told me about your little quest, it made perfect sense.”

“The hooded man?”

“That’s what I call him, anyway. I’ve never seen his face.”

“That’s who has Sephone?”

“Aye.”

Dorian recalled the man Sephone had seen in Idaea . . . the one who had saved his life. That man had been an enemy of Asa Karthick. Why would he take Sephone?

“Did you know, Lord Adamo, that there are very few mems remaining in Caldera?” Brinsley moved to sit up. “Memosine enslaves them, Lethe persecutes them, and Marianthe . . .” His eyes gleamed at Cass. “Marianthe is so obsessed with its pleasures that it hardly knows what to do with them. Nevertheless, there are so few left that it comes as no surprise that the merchant Cutter pursued Sephone as eagerly as he did. Her gift is unlike any I have ever known. And I have met several mems over the years in my line of work.”

Dorian straightened and gritted his teeth. “I’m waiting for you to make your point, Brinsley.”

Brinsley got to his feet and dusted himself off. “The point is that for any man who wishes to write his own destiny, the Reliquary and my sister are a tempting combination. For there is no mem alive who can manipulate memories as she can, and no other relic which can make the changes permanent, albeit at a cost.”

“What cost?” Cass growled.

Brinsley’s tone was almost airy. “The ultimate cost, my fine friends. In truth, I didn’t know this until my conversation with that hooded man. But considering what has happened now, you may be interested to know that the Reliquary’s power can only be accessed at a price. Whoever wields it must offer their lifeblood in exchange. Or the blood of another. Usually, it is the alter whose power it enhances, but a substitute may also be used—a third person. Whatever the sacrifice, there must be blood.”

Dorian’s own blood drained from his face. “You’re lying.”

“What reason would I have to lie?” Brinsley looked at him, undaunted. “Did you never wonder why the Reliquary has room for three people?”

A long-recurring nightmare filled his mind: Sephone at the mercy of the Reliquary, its wires snaking up her arm toward her throat . . . and her heart. Her skin losing color, her breath coming short . . .

A past conversation with Spartan replayed in his head.

I have never looked inside this chest, but I do not need to. The Mysterium’s teachings are clear: The use of the Reliquary carries a cost . . . a curse. No man or woman can withstand it.

No ordinary man or woman, he had replied. I’m an alter, Spartan. A calor. Your warnings do not apply to me.

Dorian spun to Spartan. “Did you know?”

He shook his head—sadly, Dorian thought. “Nay. I knew there was a cost, as I told you from the beginning. But I did not know the exact nature of the magic binding the relic.”

“Then if she’d taken my memories . . . my past . . . it would have killed her. No matter that both of us are alters.”

“It would seem so.”

Dorian turned and found Brinsley watching him—his eyes sharp and uncomfortably perceptive. Sephone’s brother withdrew a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and brandished it at him, and it was all he could do not to snatch it out of the man’s hand.

It was Sephone’s letter to Dorian—the one he had foolishly left behind in her room.

“Why should that bother you so much, Lord Adamo,” Brinsley taunted, “when Persephone is already dying?”

Damae Winter uttered a sharp cry and teetered into her husband’s arms. Bas cursed under his breath, and even Jewel whined piteously. Spartan looked grave, but it was the expression on Cass’s face that caught Dorian’s attention.

The lumen staggered and leaned against the wall for support. “Dying?”

Was every secret Dorian held to be laid bare in this moment? He thought of withholding the truth—this secret was Sephone’s, after all—but then decided against it. It was those here now who most deserved to know.

“Aye,” he said. “As far as we can tell, it is a curse that affects all mems. Every time Sephone uses her gift, the poison in her veins advances a little more. Eventually it will kill her, as it would have eventually killed Cutter.”

“And you knew this, Dorian?” Cass took a step away from the wall.

Dorian nodded reluctantly. “Aye, I found out, and she asked me not to tell anyone.” He looked across the room to Odiseas and Damae, who was weeping in her husband’s arms and seemed to have aged years. “Not even her own family.”

“When?” Cass pressed. “When did she find out?”

“In Idaea.”

He swore. “And she said naught to me?”

“She thought she could use the Reliquary to save herself.” Dorian swallowed. “We both did.”

Cass’s eyes shot daggers at him. “You knew this . . . and you still asked her to use the Reliquary on your past. You . . .” In two steps he was in Dorian’s face, flinging a series of choice words at him.

Dorian stayed where he was, unmoving. “I deserve that.”

“Nay. You deserve far worse,” Cass snapped and punched Dorian in the face. He stumbled backward. Though he saw the next punch coming, he made no attempt to duck or dodge it. Pain exploded across Dorian’s face, and black spots appeared in his vision.

Blood trickled from Dorian’s nose as his men hastened to defend him.

Dorian waved them back. “Leave him alone.” He gestured at Brinsley. “Bas, Bear, lock him in his room and guard the door.” They grabbed the man before he could move and set about dragging him upstairs.

Cass was right. He did deserve far worse—more than even Regis had deserved.

“Cass”—the lumen looked faintly mutinous—“if you could please see to Sephone’s parents.”

“Always giving orders, aren’t you, Thane?” came the retort. But Cass did as Dorian had requested. The lumen spoke with them for a moment, and at a word from Odiseas, helped him support Sephone’s mother to their room.

Dorian watched them. To be facing the second loss of one child and the treachery of another . . . for a moment, Dorian forgot his own pain in the shadow of theirs.

Only Spartan remained now.

“I am sorry, Dorian.” The acolyte’s eyes were warm with sympathy. “I know what she means to you.”

Could Spartan really see that which had been hidden away? Dorian sank against the wall, pressing a handkerchief to his nose.

A true friend would never leave you to die . . .

He had said that about Regis. And yet he’d done exactly that to Sephone.

“I never thought I was like the rest of my countrymen,” Dorian said after a silence. “But I have been living in a dreamworld, Spartan, and only now have I woken up.”

“You have seen your true self. And the world as it truly is.”

He was filled with self-loathing and shame. “And I hate them both.”

Spartan came closer and looked into his now-swelling eyes. “You feared you would lose her, as you lost your wife and daughter?”

Dorian gazed at him, a small part of him dismayed that Spartan would bring Lida and Emmy into this. But then he remembered that this was Rufus Karthick’s son and Asa’s brother, and he was no stranger to the turmoil of grief.

“Aye,” he admitted. “It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, has it not? I feared I would lose her, so I kept her away. And now she is lost to us all.”

The compassion in Spartan’s eyes was almost his undoing. As it was, a tiny sliver of light forced its way through the heavy clouds of his internal torment, piercing the darkness behind his walls and scattering some of the shadows. There was the smallest shifting of the hardness inside him, as if somebody had found a loose thread and had begun the long, daunting task of unraveling him.

He hated the sensation. He clenched his jaw. “I will fix this.”

“And if it is not for you to fix?”

The trickle of blood stanched, he wadded up the cloth and looked directly at the boy. “I was the one who betrayed her. I must be the one to bring her back.” He wouldn’t leave her to die.

“And what then?” Spartan watched him closely.

“The Reliquary. Could she be healed through its power?”

Spartan nodded gravely. “Aye, Dorian. But if Brinsley is telling the truth, and I believe he is, it would cost the life of another. One life surrendered freely so that another may be saved.”

Heartache, and the cravings that follow, can kill a man. But if he can forget himself, there is a chance for his soul.

“I understand.”

Leaving Jewel with Spartan, he headed for Sephone’s room. Entering, he closed the door and leaned against it. From there, he could see the dressing table with its dead blossoms and the twin gold rings. They should have made him think of Lida and Emmy, but all he could picture was Sephone.

Hadn’t he been trying to do that for months? To forget? But now that Lida and Emmy’s memories were fading of their own accord, he couldn’t help feeling as if he was somehow failing them once again.

If your fates were reversed, they wouldn’t have forgotten you so easily.

He tasted blood in his mouth and welcomed it. He would have black eyes by morning. But Sephone was gone, and they had no idea where she was or who had taken her. What was worse was that he had been prepared to die for her. He had fully believed that, of the two of them, she would be the one to outlast the siege of Nyx.

But she had beaten him to it. On the very eve of her departure, she had sacrificed herself for them. For him. Did she believe she still owed him for the day on the ice?

What was it Cass had said in the cave outside Idaea?

She’ll never leave or betray you.

But she had. She hadn’t betrayed him, but she had left. Permanently. Her written words drifted through his mind.

You have a powerful gift. I have always been so drawn to it, and to you, because in your presence I am not so afraid or so cold. And I mistook that for love . . .

He was a grown man of thirty-one, but he had never felt so much like a child as he did now. He found himself weeping, and suddenly, inexplicably, he recalled his dream of the meadow where day had turned to night.

A loud knocking at the door again startled him back to reality. He rose stiffly to his feet and swiped his hand across his face.

He opened the door to Bear, who stood there looking discomfited.

“My lord,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry to disturb you, and I’m afraid I don’t bring the best of news.”

“What is it, Bear?’

“Lady Xia has sent you a message. We are under attack by alters. The city is burning.”