It takes a moment for his words to sink in, but when they do, I finally swallow my panic. "What do you mean?"

"The soldier who brought you back must've told someone what happened. He must've done something. I don't know what, but it's madness outside."

"Madness?" I ask, scrambling to my feet as a weight drops in my stomach.

"Everyone knows the spell. Everyone's using it."

"Everyone?" My voice falls away before the word is complete, as hollow as I feel. "How many people is everyone?"

"The whole town," Erick mutters as he tries to jiggle the needle around the lock holding me on this side of the bars. Frustration leaks through his tone. "People are scrambling to steal magic. They're fighting each other. They're testing their new powers. They're—" He breaks off with a growl as he tugs on the lock in vain.

I call on Mother, letting her magic flood my veins. As my palm turns red from heat, I reach through the bars, grip the lock, and melt the metal away to nothing. The door swings open and Erick stares at me with his mouth agape.

"Well, if I’d known you could do that…"

I shrug and step past him, grabbing his hand on the way. "Show me what's going on. I need to see. I need to make it right."

"Aeri—"

"Just show me," I cut in, ignoring the warning in his tone. I did this. I shared faerie secrets. I need to see what my actions have wrought. I need to know so I can fix it.

Erick tightens his grip and leads me through the dark corridors of the dungeon. My thighs burn as we climb. The permeating silence is broken by distant cries and calls, a frenzied sort of air, filled with crashes and booms and crazed laughter. Still though, I'm unprepared for what waits when we finally stumble through a door to the outside.

The sky is falling.

At least it looks that way. Glittering streaks of silver and gold and every other color rain down, sinking into the town barely visible on the other side of the castle wall. Magic leaks from the earth, from the air. When I breathe, my lungs ache from the absence of the Mother. When I open my mouth, a stale taste sours on my tongue. I drop to my knees and dig my hands into the soil, but the magic is already gone. The earth feels dead beneath my fingertips, present but not alive, no longer filled with the potent might of the Mother.

Her world is dying.

I've killed it.

"Hey!" a deep voice shouts.

I spin to find a man running toward us, his eyes filled with craving as they focus on my glowing skin. He opens his lips to speak.

Erick charges.

The man pulls a sword. I wonder if he doesn’t have magic yet, or if his first instinct is to grab his weapon, forgetting he probably now has a more powerful one beneath his skin.

So do I.

With my palms against the ground, I send a shock through the earth. The grass fissures and splits. The man stumbles, falling forward, and I call forth vines. They wrap around his frame, holding him firmly. Then Erick is there. He puts his hands to the man's head, gripping his skin.

"Forget us," Erick demands, something steely in his voice, something I've never heard. "Forget everything."

The man's eyes go blank and he freezes, as though his mind has been wiped completely clean. A bit of drool dribbles from the side of his mouth before slipping down his chin, and Erick gasps, jumping away. He stares at his fingers, then at the man now limp against the grass, then back at his hands, which have started to tremble.

I put my palm to his shoulder, and he flinches.

"What have I done?"

You didn’t mean it.

"What if I did?"

You were only trying to protect me.

A glowing halo catches my attention as it rises higher over the edge of the stone wall separating the castle grounds from the rest of the town—flames starting to lick the night. The rooftops are burning. The town is burning. My ears ache from the screams flooding the sky, a mix of terror and glee. He was right. It's madness. The people have gone crazy. If magic has made even my gentle prince a victim of his own power, there's nothing we can do here, not on our own.

I look over my shoulder toward the opposite side of the castle wall, beyond which there's only darkness and the barest hint of evergreen pines. I'm not sure if I can bring a human through a portal, and I certainly can't leave him alone in the middle of this chaos, so I go with option three.

We need to get to the forest. We need to find the priestesses and the priests. They'll be able to help us. They'll know what to do.

"The stables have already been raided," he tells me, shaking his head.

So we go on foot.

"Okay." He nods, gaze clearing now that we have a plan. "Okay, I know the safest way to get to the forest. There's a place where we can sneak over the wall."

He takes my hand and pulls me with him, away from the chaos and back through the castle gardens, where the air at least smells a little sweeter and I can pretend the world isn’t crumbling all around me. Life always feels the slightest bit better surrounded by flowers. My fingers graze the edge of a hydrangea bush as we round a corner. The petals cry out for a taste of the Mother, for the fuel that's been so carelessly yanked away, for a hint of the force that gives them deeper life. I let my magic flood into the ground and air. I let it seep from all my pores and sink into the plants aching for the connection they've lost. As we race down stone pathways carved between the hedges, a haven blooms behind us. Dahlias and marigolds and daisies. Lilies and phlox. I give my spirit to the land, praying the Mother can feel my gratitude, my regret, and my silent promise to see her world returned.

When we reach the wall at the farthest corner of the garden, I realize what Erick means to do even before he reaches out to grip the vines. The stones are blanketed in swathes of ivy, stems spotted with barren patches clearly rubbed raw from overuse. This is how he sneaked out to meet me at the cave.

Erick climbs quickly, familiar with the route. When he reaches the top, he turns to stare down at me and extends his hand. I lift my foot and grip a vine overhead, then pull myself from the ground. Glancing down, I spot another foothold. When I look back up to find a place for my hand, I notice Erick is no longer focused on me. He's watching something behind me and his arm has fallen limp. As dread floods his eyes, it fills my gut.

I spin, holding tight to the wall as I glance over my shoulder.

It’s the little girl from before. The flower that was tucked behind her ear now sits cradled in her fingers as she stares with childlike wonder at the garden blooming all around me.

"Sylvi," Erick calls, tone a mix of warning and warmth.

She looks at him, then drops her gaze to me. Her eyes shine with an envious gleam that makes my pulse race. Her lips move.

I can’t hear what she says, but I don’t have to.

I turn back to the wall and climb as quickly as I can, even though I know in my heart that it's too late. Invisible claws rip into my skin, tearing through my muscles and veins, scratching at my arms and legs, so every bit of my body flares hot with pain. I glance up at Erick, scrambling to reach him, to touch him one last time. Every inch is pure torture. I scorch, on fire, as a foreign presence pulls at my heart, trying to split it from my soul.

"Aeri!" Erick shouts down at me, seeing the panic in my eyes. "Aeri!"

He leans over the ledge, reaching down to me. We're only a few inches away, so close to freedom. Another wave of pressure bashes into me, so tangible I gasp. He searches my gaze for some hint of what's happening, and I realize he doesn’t know, doesn't understand. I'm a being made of nature. The words that rip the magic from the earth can also tear the power out of me.

And they are.

Sylvia saw my magic, and she wanted it for herself. The spell carves into me like a knife, severing the magic from my skin and gifting it to her.

My power and my life drain away.

She's just a child. I'm sure she doesn’t understand what she's done, and I empathize. Before tonight, I was a child too. I saw a man I wanted, I saw a love I couldn't live without, and I took it, no matter the consequences. Now the weight of those actions makes me feel old. All the talk of balance, all the lessons the priestesses willed me to hear, they finally sink in now that I'm staring death in the face—now that I'm staring my choices in the face.

Worse, there's nothing I can do.

With my last ounces of strength in this borrowed body, I leap, reaching up with my arms. Erick wraps his fingers around mine, catching me in midair.

I love you, I whisper into his mind.

His eyes go wide.

I know what he hears in my final words, exactly what I meant him to—goodbye.

"No!"

I smile sadly.

"No!"

My vision fades into blackness. My legs dissolve into leaves and branches as my magic seeps completely away, sailing across the garden to sink into a human soul instead. I return to my natural state, no longer in the body Mother's magic provided.

"Aeri!" His voice is distant, but I still hear the plea, the panic, the cry. "No, don’t leave me. Don't go."

I wish I could stay.

I really do.

For him. For Nymia. For all the dreams we dared to dream, and all the changes we hoped we'd live to see. For all the mistakes we made and all the lives those mistakes will cost. For the world I love and the gods I hold so dear.

But I can't.

"I'll fix this," Erick whispers with gritty determination. His promise is the last thing I hear before my ears seal shut. "Whatever I have to do, I'll find a way to fix this. To save you. To save them. I promise."

My final thought before all awareness fades is a distant, wistful question, wondering what flower I'll turn into, what bloom resides in the center of my soul.

Then I'm gone.