Wyatt wanted me to live. But as much as I wanted it, too, I couldn’t knowing everything he’d given up for me. I’d lost Jesse and Ash. I’d lost Max and Danika. I’d lost Alex. I had nothing without Wyatt. Even the gift of life wasn’t enough.
He blinked and looked away. My anger deflated. We silently filled silver plates with food and crystal goblets with wine. I stayed on my side of the table and sat down on a long, granite bench. Wyatt sat on his side, still opposite me. He began slicing a pear into halves, then quarters.
I bit into the strawberry first. Its sweet juice splashed over my tongue, the most exquisite thing I’d tasted in days. I ate it in slow bites, savoring the flavor and texture.
“Why is this place called First Break?” Wyatt asked.
“The waterfall outside is not for show,” Amalie said. “Its waters mask a gateway, much stronger than the Sanctuaries guarded above, and it is why we settled here belowground. It is the main source of power for the Fair Ones. It is what allows the Gifted, such as yourself, their unique talents.”
“Do all Dre—do all nonhumans know it’s here?”
“Most can sense it, yes; however, only a select few outside of the Fey know of its precise location in the forest.”
“Is that why all the nonhumans move to this city? The power source?”
Amalie shook her head, a patient teacher. “First Break existed here centuries before a city was built in the valley; the gateway since before my peoples’ memory begins. Many travel, but they always return, as we have always been here.”
“They just haven’t been so obvious about it as in recent years.”
“Precisely.”
“Where does the gateway go?”
“Are you familiar with the writings of John Milton?”
“Mysteries?” I asked.
Wyatt snorted; I glared.
“No,” she said. “He wrote of the fall of man and the journey through Hell. Milton disguised his work as fiction, but he was not just a man. He was companion to a gnome prince who lived through that journey and thought to tell others about it. We considered masking the work, but there is no better place to hide than in plain sight.”
“So that pool is what?” Wyatt asked. “A gateway to Hell?”
“Precisely.”
I stopped chewing a mouthful of almonds and stared. Cold dread trickled through my body. Wyatt puckered his lips and scrunched his eyebrows. Amalie seemed unaffected. She sipped a goblet of wine like she’d rehearsed this conversation a hundred times and found it dull.
“What’s on the other side?” Wyatt asked.
“Creatures long ago banished from walking the Earth. The Greeks called them Titans. The Christians call them demons. We call them the Tainted. They are driven only by instinct and pure emotion—desire and rage, lust and need.”
“And you keep them from crossing over?”
“The Tainted cannot cross the Break on their own. They have no free will, you see, only instinct.”
I was definitely starting to see. I swallowed the almonds and chased them down with a gulp of wine—sweet and pungent—as Amalie continued.
“Someone with knowledge of First Break and its powers can summon the Tainted across it. Our duty here is to protect it from those who would try. Summoning even one across the Break could be devastating to this world.”
“These Tainted,” Wyatt said. “Can they be controlled by the summoner?”
“They are uncontrollable—pure beings of consumption and need. Once the Tainted enters its host’s body, it is unleashed and the host is no more.”
“Host?”
“They possess no physical form on the other side. They are energy and emotion. Part of the summoning is the presentation of a host.”
I dropped my goblet. It clattered to the table, splashing maroon liquid on the front of my dress, but I didn’t care. “That’s it,” I said.
“What’s it, Evy?” Wyatt asked, standing up. Alarmed.
“All of this, Wyatt. Tovin and the Bloods and me dying and you giving up your free will for it and them holding us prisoner. It all makes perfect sense now.”
Wyatt frowned, not understanding. I sought help from Amalie, and she nodded sagely. She’d known it all along; she was only waiting for us to figure it out. Damn her and bless her both.
“Tovin wants power, which means ensuring his dominance,” I said. “What better way to do that than by summoning a demon to possess a man whose free will he already controls? He’ll have a lethal weapon that can’t disobey.”
I’d heard the expression “all the blood drained from his face,” but had never actually seen it in person. The color bled out of Wyatt’s face, leaving him deathly pale. His black eyes shimmered, a stark contrast to the pallor of his skin. Even his lips turned white as he pressed them together. Nostrils flaring, he clenched his jaw so hard I thought his teeth might snap.
“We believe that is his plan,” Amalie said.
Her words seemed lost on Wyatt. He stared at the table, hands in his lap, his entire body rigid. I was on my feet and by his side before I registered moving. He vibrated with tension, maybe even fear. The demon would have his powers, as well as his body.
I touched his shoulder. He jerked as though stung. I turned his face toward me. He avoided eye contact, looking everywhere but forward.
“Wyatt,” I said. “Look at me, damn you.”
He did. Some of the tension fled, but he remained pale and trembling. His eyes were obsidian pools, never- ending and full of uncertainty. I had never seen him so vulnerable, not even when I died the first time.
My heart pounded. Because sitting next to him, at the turning point of this entire freaking mystery, I finally remembered my death.
Nothing as dramatic as I’d hoped for—no remembrance of important words or necessary information. Just flinching away from the light, as I’d always done when the closet door opened. Numb, unable to move, and without the energy to do so. I’d hoped to bleed to death before anyone found me like that, broken and ruined.
I remembered Wyatt kneeling over me, releasing my hands from the cuffs that bound them. Unable to feel my arms or legs. Looking into his heartbreaking eyes, seeing the measure of his devastation. Hating myself for causing him so much pain. My tongue had been thick, my mouth dry. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t say I was sorry or that I loved him. I only managed a high-pitched keening sound. I had gazed at him until his face went dark and the agony was finally over.
He had looked much the same as he looked in Amalie’s home—ravaged, betrayed, alone. I wondered if my own expression was that much different.
“I didn’t say anything,” I said. “When I died, all I saw was you, and I never said a word. You couldn’t have known what I did or didn’t learn, could you?”
His head turned slowly left, right, back to center. A simple shake. An even simpler affirmation that left me cold. We had both been betrayed and manipulated by people we trusted. I had been rustled out of my afterlife and fed lies disguised as good intentions. He had been fooled into a fate worse than death, tricked into playing a pawn in Hell’s chess game.
But we weren’t done playing, and Knights knew how to sweep in sideways. “This is not your future,” I said. “If Tovin ever said one truthful thing to you, Wyatt Truman, it’s that we belong together. Whether it’s in life or in death, we’ll prove that one thing right. You hear me?”
He blinked. Some amount of recognition sparked. Bright circles of color flared in his cheeks. The lines in his face smoothed out, and determination replaced terror. “I hear you.” His voice was thick, not as convincing as his expression. “I feel like such a fool.”
“Tovin played on your emotions and manipulated you from the start. It wasn’t your fault.”
His left eye twitched. “Don’t patronize me, Evy.”
