CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Now

I am hung at the edge of nothingness. I am laid beside a glass-smooth sea with my arm outstretched while my reflection in the water reaches up. Then I rise to the surface, emerge with a gasp. The waves wash me forward and I’m draped against the slick-smooth rocks at the edge of a tide pool.

The sky is pastel, hazy and lilac. Past the shore, a row of trees is overlaid by a corridor hung with gilt-edged frames. This is the halfway place where Therion dragged us from our forest ritual.

I look around hurriedly, searching for Alastair and Camille—the three of us tumbled into this world together last time. But now I am alone. I think of them back in the mortal plane, beneath the marble sculpture. Hugo’s blue-veined fingers, trembling from withdrawal, as he offered the bottle of wine to us. They aren’t going to die. Forgive me. I was the only one who didn’t drink.

Hugo has subdued them and forced me here, using my connection to Therion as he attempts to complete the banishment.

Everything is still, too still. It feels like death. It’s nighttime and the air is warm, sticky with salt. Above the sea is a low-hung moon, impossibly purple, stark as a daub of oil paint. My swan boat lulls on the waves, tied to the iron ring of a pier post with a long silken rope.

I drag myself from the water and scramble past the rocks. I’m dizzy and clumsy, falling countless times as I hurry across the beach. When I reach the shoreline, my knees are scraped and my palms throb. I stumble past the line of sand and into the forest.

The woods are a fierce bouquet of springtime blossoms: trees all in bloom, petals filling the air. The path ahead is stippled by the teardrops of fallen flowers. It’s hollowly dark, with a whispering fog stranded through the trees. The mirrored corridor lies dark and empty. I cup my trembling hands around my mouth and call, “Therion?”

No answer comes. I call to Therion again but there is only my voice, echoing into the mist. Then, a few paces ahead, I see a crumpled, pale shape. Hurrying toward it, I find a swan: twice as large as any of the birds I’ve seen in the sky above Verse, all pallid feathers, a charcoal-dark line across closed eyes. Splayed on the earth, the creature is unnaturally still. Wings outspread as though in flight, neck arched at a ruinous angle.

Sobbing, I try to gather the swan up from the forest floor. I heave the unconscious creature into my arms, staggering as I use all my strength to bear his weight. I can feel the faint beat of a heart beneath the feathers, and through my tear-blurred vision, the creature shifts. For a moment, I am embracing Therion. He gazes at me with fear-bright eyes. Then he is a swan again, curved against my body, as cold as an ice floe in the frozen north.

What has Hugo done?

Helplessly, I pinch at my wrist, wanting to reassure myself that I am still here. If Therion has been destroyed, then surely I would be lost, too. But rather than grounding me, the sting of my nails against my skin only makes me feel more frantic. The nearest mirror reflects the troubled blur of my features. A wide-eyed, tear-streaked girl with the enormous, feathered weight of her bridegroom in her arms.

Hugo sought to use my connection to Therion to banish him entirely. We are still here—for now; caught, lost. But I can feel his heartbeat weakening within the heavy weight of his swan form, feel him sunk and blurring, as though his connection to this world is little more than a fraying thread, about to snap.

Frantically, I imagine Hugo back in the gardens at Saltswan. Alastair crawling toward me. Camille sprawled on her side, her lips stained with wine.

We are in danger—all of us.

Carrying Therion, I run deeper into the forest. The gilded frames and ghostly trees slip past as I hurry down the corridor, struggling with Therion’s weight. Toward the enormous mirror at the end, which was, last time, the portal home. The frame is empty, the space beyond only shadows. A door leading into an unlit room filled with endless secrets. It’s the only way I can think of to go back.

Before I can change my mind, I step through.

A rush of salt water rises up to meet me. I manage to gasp in a single breath, tighten my hold on Therion, then we are dragged beneath the surface of the sea.

The ocean swallows us with a greedy, bubbling rush. Caught by the current, we’re dragged down, down, down. I kick my legs, open my eyes to stinging blackness, and let out a desperate cry. Brackish water fills my mouth and I thrash, wild and panicked.

Just before the dark closes in I am caught up in strong arms. I turn on instinct, clinging to my rescuer. I feel warm skin and a rapidly beating heart. Sodden feathers between us.

Once again, Alastair Felimath bears me away from the hungering sea.

He carries me—and then Therion—across the beach and to the far edge of the shore. Lays us both out, side by side, beneath the trees. We are still here: in this strange, other world. I bow forward, my whole body coiled tight, and cough out endless amounts of ocean. Alastair strokes back my hair, murmuring reassurance, though his hands are trembling. “You’re safe, Lark. I’ve got you.”

“Therion,” I rasp. “Is he—?”

Distantly I am aware of motion and warmth, Alastair with his hand laid on the space between Therion’s wings. I hear him speaking in Tharnish, the poetry of his words so incongruously beautiful in this horrible moment. I recognize the phrase as the same one that guided our forest ritual: “Tear away the veil at the heart of the woods.”

The light in Alastair’s eyes glows brighter, bloodied tears spilling over his cheeks. I watch as he begins to blur, as though he is allowing some of himself to pass into Therion, strengthening him, drawing him back. The ground is covered by billows of mist, gossamer as a bridal veil.

Piece by piece, the swan’s outstretched wings and the elegant, curved throat begin to change. Becoming a boy with tangled, feather-wreathed hair and sand-gritted skin. I reach for him as he rises to his knees. Therion catches hold of my hand. He touches my cheek, his fingers trembling, his claws skating over my skin.

His eyes are bright as bonfire embers, lit with fury as he gazes at me. “Who did this to you, Lacrimosa?”

“It was the boy—the boy from the Salt Priests—the one who tried to banish you.” My throat is corroded by salt. I cough, trying to clear the ache from my lungs. Alastair draws closer to me. His arm goes around my waist, fingers clutched protectively in the fabric of my skirts.

I look around frantically. If Alastair came through, then is it possible that Hugo followed him? But the shoreline is mercifully empty, the three of us the only ones here. “Hugo used me to try and harm you again. To finish the ritual. He wants revenge.”

“Revenge,” Therion echoes. There’s something blackly curious in his gaze, and he arches a brow. “For what?”

I sit back on my knees. The earth is cool and loamy beneath me as I think of Hugo, how sorry he looked as I spiraled away into the dark. His sister lost to the waves, a Salt Priest sacrifice. “Don’t you know the terrible things the Salt Priests have done in your name? They killed his sister in a ritual, hoping for a vision of you.”

Therion’s hand is on my thigh. His claws flex, an instinctual motion, pressing sharply into my leg. I squirm at the sudden sting. He glances down, noticing what he’s done, and with a solemn expression, he loosens his hold. “I am not responsible for their cruelty.”

“But you let it happen.”

“You are all born with free will. I am a god of the salt and the woods and the sea. I cannot control mortal lives like they’re puppets on a string. I could no more stop them than you could, and what they wanted of me … it was not in my power to give.”

It all seems so achingly pointless—the loss, the cruelty, the suffering. “You answered my brothers when they called to you.”

Therion touches my cheek again, his thumb tracing an arc against my jaw. “The Salt Priests seek to harness my power and bend it to their own means. They do not wish to honor the local gods but to claim them. They harness our magic, and they burn it up until we’re forever lost. Like a handful of ashes scattered to the winds.”

Beside me, Alastair’s mouth is drawn into a scowl. I wonder if he’s thinking, like me, of the atmosphere at the compound, the grim altar, the desolation. Everything gray and loveless, as hopeless as a ruin.

“What your brothers asked of me was not the same as the Salt Priests,” Therion continues. “They came to me with tenderness. They wanted my help, not to make me their captive.”

“Still, it isn’t right.” I scrunch my fists into my lap, overcome with frustration. All of us are caught up in such a tangled web. “And now Hugo is going to destroy us all.”

Alastair takes my hands between his own, holding me tightly. “I won’t let that happen, Lark.”

I look to Therion. “We need to go back.”

Therion wavers. The godlike planes of his face shift and stir, feathers softening, broad wings dimming. Replaced by the boyish lines of his mortal guise. He gazes at me with open, earnest fear. “I am afraid of what will happen if we are parted again, Lacrimosa. What that boy did on the night of our betrothal, and what he did just now, has weakened me. Drawing you here was the only way I could keep myself from vanishing. I—I need you.”

I twist my betrothal ring, looking out toward the inky sea. The silver caps of the waves are scalloped as feathers. I feel the weight of him against my chest; when I blink, his motionless swan-form is marked on the backs of my eyelids like a moon on a clear night.

He is on the edge of oblivion, our bond the only thing holding him tethered. I’m so afraid of what might happen if I return: If Therion is banished, if we are still connected, then I will be dragged out of existence alongside of him. Both of us will be lost. But Camille is on the mortal plane, left at the mercy of Hugo. To keep everyone safe, I have to return to my own world.

And to do that, Therion will have to join me.

The feathers at my wrist rustles with the motion of my hands. I stare down at them, then turn slowly to Alastair, examining the amber gleam of his changed eye. Remembering Camille, her brief orange irises and the snowy down of feathers in her hair. Each time we’ve slipped from our world to here, we’ve returned with a piece of something other. Some piece of Therion that has marked us like a scar.

“When you came for me, earlier, to try and draw me here, you used Alastair’s body to speak with me.” I lay my hand on Therion’s folded knees. “If I were to allow you to possess me in the same way, then return to my world … what would happen?”

He exhales a long, slow breath, as he considers what I’ve suggested. “What I did to Alastair was only temporary. It was like a projection: I never wholly left this place. But if I possessed you and we returned together to your world … we would always be together. Physically, in the same plane of existence. Unlike when I stepped into Alastair’s consciousness, our connection would be permanent.”

“But would it save you?” I persist.

Alastair tightens his grasp on my hands. “You can’t do this.”

Therion casts him a troubled glance before he goes on. “Yes,” he says, “it would save me. I’ll no longer be caught here, being dragged toward nothingness. I will not vanish, and you will not be pulled from existence due to our connection. Our bond will not be broken, and the terms of our betrothal could still be honored—but in reverse. I will share your world until the end of the salt season. Then, perhaps, I can attempt to leave you, for a time.”

“You don’t sound very certain.”

His mouth tips into a rueful smile. “I’m afraid this is not a path I’ve traveled before.”

I shake back my tangled, dripping hair. I shift closer to him. “I am willing to risk it, if you are.”

“Lark,” Alastair says again. “Please, you can’t. If Hugo discovers the two of you are in one form … he’ll hunt you both down. You’ll never be safe.”

“None of us are safe now, either.”

“I know.” Alastair regards me, sorrow in his mismatched eyes. His hand slides, slowly, to cup my cheek. He bends to me, our foreheads touch. His breath casts over my mouth as he says quietly, “I will do it. I will take your place.”

“No,” I protest. “You can’t.”

He kisses me, cradling my face between his hands. “I’ve let him in already. That night in your cottage—I wasn’t sure it was real, but I chose to let him take control of me when he came.”

I remember the blur of their features in the kitchen, being dragged back into the lamplit room. Alastair’s changed eye. How angry he was, afterward, as he stormed away. “But you hated me, then.”

“I loathed you,” he laughs, but the way he says it makes it sound like a caress. “But more than that, I loathe myself, for what Hugo has done. Because I insisted on your debt. Because I haven’t been able to stop him harming you.”

I let out a shaky breath, my cheeks wet with tears. “Alastair, you know I don’t blame you for that.”

He looks toward Therion. “Will it work? Our bond is not the same as the one you share with Lark, but I accept you wholly, if it means she will be safe.”

Therion is contemplative, quiet, then he dips his head in a slow nod. “Yes. I can use you, if that is what you wish. As long as we return with Lacrimosa and the three of us are on the same plane of existence, our bond will remain, and no one will be lost.”

Alastair gazes at me with a fierceness that is so stark and real, I could clutch it in my hands. Petals have fallen from the trees and stuck in his hair; with his intent, solemn gaze, he looks like a creature from a folktale. He is a selkie kept too long ashore, a boy who recites the words of a dead language like they’re made of gold.

“I want this,” he says again. “I want you to be selfish, Lark. And I will be brave.”

This, I realize, is his chance for the redemption he so desperately craves. A way to protect Camille, to protect me, to be as heroic as an ancient figure marked on canvas with oil paint or in the typeset lines of an epic poem.

“You are brave,” I tell him. “As brave as Naiius.”

He blushes, his mouth crooked into an embarrassed smile as he shakes his head. His thumbs draw worshipfully over my cheeks. He kisses me again: my mouth, my jaw, my closed eyelids. “Let me help you. Let me invite Therion in once more.”

Slowly, achingly, we draw apart. Therion observes us with a solemn laugh. “You’re both so human,” he says fondly. He touches a claw beneath Alastair’s chin, gently lifting his head so he can gaze into Alastair’s eyes. “I owe you my thanks. For allowing me in, and for saving me—saving us both—tonight.”

Therion takes my hand. He turns it, palm up, like an offering. Together, he extends our hands, one laid atop the other, to Alastair. Everything turns slow as a dream. Alastair’s fingers brush over mine, tracing the line of my palm, the feathers at my wrist. A shivering light spills out from where we touch, like a shower of sparks from a bonfire.

Therion traces his claws down Alastair’s cheek. He bends close, in a rustle of feathers, and presses his mouth to Alastair’s parted lips. I remember the feel of being swept up by him at my betrothal as I knelt at the altar in the depths of the mine. That same tremble is in the air now.

Slowly, the two of them shift and blur. I watch as Alastair’s mortal features take on an otherworldly cast: the brightness of his changed eye spreads to envelop his entire gaze, translucent feathers shiver at his temples like a crown. Beside him, Therion slips in and out of my line of vision like a specter, a shadow.

“There,” he says, and his voice is still clarion clear. “It is done. We are yours, Lacrimosa. Both of us.”

He takes my hands and draws me to my feet. In this world, we are still three, and I am bordered by Alastair and Therion, one hand in each of theirs. We drift away from the shoreline, leaving the beach behind as we go deeper into the woods.

The corridor of mirrors rises around us, but each obsidian panel remains blank save for one. A large, oval-framed mirror reveals two figures, standing side by side. Another is half-hidden in profile behind them.

I’m dressed in a long, white gown. My hair is falling to my waist in golden waves, crowned by my bridal veil. And Alastair—he looks like the image I saw when we were last here. As though it was a premonition. Amber eyes and a petaled crown. His dark hair has the sheen of feathers, an oil slick shimmer that catches the light when he dips his head toward me.

I look up at him, at his amber eyes, the familiar lines of his elegant face. “Do you still loathe me?”

“No,” he laughs. The otherworldly features shown by the mirror are still part of him, but when he smiles his mouth is crooked and charming, all boy, despite the ways he’s changed. “Quite the opposite. I’m horribly in love with you.”

I think of myself at Marchmain, trying so hard to be what Damson wanted. How I fought for space alongside her and Jeune as she set me aside, moving on to a future that was no longer mine. She weighed and measured all my failings and then she discarded me. Yet to Alastair, I am worth saving. Someone he wants to be brave for.

A warmth spreads through me, a thing too delicate to be named. “I am horribly in love with you, too, Alastair Felimath.”

Therion reaches to us both and draws us close. “So human,” he says again, amused. We continue down the hall, and I snuggle between him and Alastair, my arm around Therion’s waist and my head against Alastair’s shoulder.

Therion is right. My love for Alastair and Camille is so fierce and human it feels like burning. For them, I am a row of salt lanterns all ablaze, a wreath of flowers woven beside a summer bonfire, the taste of strawberries and sugar, my name written between the margins of a book of ancient poetry.

I will do everything I can to keep them safe.

We walk in silence until we reach the end of the corridor. The enormous mirror, where I saw the vision of my birth, is now an empty frame. Beyond its scrolled, gilded edges, I can see a distant landscape. It’s far away, like a scene viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. Saltswan sits atop the windswept cliffs, a single light burning from a high-up window.

We join hands and approach the frame, and together, we step through.