I barely have time to realize I’m not in my head—I’m in hers—and then I lift my chin and stare proudly at the priest.
“Make it swift,” I whisper. “Let me see my family again.”
And the priest nods behind his feathered mask and steps behind me.
I don’t see the knife.
But I feel it as it slashes across my throat and spills my lifeblood to the ground of the Hallow.
I sit up with a gasp, palms slapping against the cold stone floor of the Hallow in Ceres, even as the Mother of Night’s laughter echoes in my ears.
You could know him, Iskvien….
A line of fire burns across my throat, but when I clamp my hand there, there’s no blood. Merely the ghostly sensation of a knife being drawn across my skin, and a part of me realizes she gave me one last gift: The gift of her final mortal memory.
Every inch of me shakes, and I can’t hide the tremble in my hands.
My mother, the otherkin, my father….
I don’t even know what to believe anymore.
Except that I am dripping wet and my clammy nightgown clings to my skin. “Definitely not imagining it,” I whisper to myself.
“Not imagining what?”
Soft footsteps echo up the last few stairs of the stairwell as I shove to my feet, and then Thiago slinks into the light, his eyes watchful and a frown on his brow as he watches the last of the Hallow’s glyphs fade.
“Vi?” There’s a wealth of questions in that one word. “What are you doing down here? Why are you wet?” The muscle in his jaw throbs. “Where have you been?”
“I was trying to find answers.”
“Answers to what?” he snaps, gesturing me to step free of the Hallow, as if he’s afraid to step over the lines marked in the floor. “You went to her, didn’t you?”
“I need to know how to defeat my mother,” I whisper. “And I thought… the crown—”
“Forget the fucking crown,” he explodes. “What in the Underworld were you thinking? The Mother of Night has trapped you once. You don’t have the power in her world. If she locks you away down there….”
I push past him, my bare feet slapping on the cold stone and my heart racing in my ears. “Something is happening to me and I don’t understand it. You can’t explain it to me. But she can. And maybe, just maybe, if I learn to control these new gifts, I might be able to save Lysander.”
Thundering down the stairs I head toward our rooms, hearing his feet behind me.
“I said Lysander will wait,” he calls. “Hexes take time to unravel.”
I spin on him. “Do you not think I know that? Me? I feel like I fight for every memory I unearth. It’s been months and I’m still unravelling myself, Thiago. What if he never recovers?”
He pauses in front of me. “He will recover. It took him years to break free of the Grimm’s hold over him. He can break through your mother’s twisted little games.”
I lean my back against the wall. “I hate seeing Baylor like this.”
“Promise me you will be patient,” he says. “Promise me you won’t go to see her again.”
Our eyes meet.
“I can’t make that promise.”
“Vi, she can trap you there forever.”
I press the heels of my palms to my eyes. “She doesn’t want to trap me. She wants to be free. She said—”
“She’s a monster!”
We are all capable of becoming monsters for the ones we love….
“And so am I.” I wrap my arms around myself.
Heat flares in his eyes. “Is that what this is about? You’re not a monster. You’re—”
“Half Old One,” I point out. “If you think her a monster, then what does that make me?”
The muscle in his jaw flexes. “It makes you my wife. And it’s not her power and heritage that makes her dangerous. You’re nothing like her, Vi.”
He doesn’t understand. Not truly.
“Promise me you will tell me before you contact her again. So I can get you out, if she won’t let go of you.”
It’s a reasonable deal, and if I wasn’t so tired I wouldn’t have pushed him so far. “I promise,” I whisper, reaching up to kiss his cheek.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Come,” Thiago says, three days later, lifting his hand to mine.
I glance up from the candle flame I’ve been making dance over the tabletop. He insists I learn to control my newfound powers. “Where are we going?”
“I want to show you something,” he says.
“What?”
He rolls his eyes. “Can I not have one surprise?”
Lights suddenly shatter in the night sky, painting the world through the window in a kaleidoscope of color. My heart kicks faster, but there’s no alarm on his face, only a smile.
“What’s going on?” I rush to the window, leaning closer to the glass.
Another night-blooming flower blossoms in the sky above us, hissing sparks crackling down over Ceres’s harbor. The city below us is fall of people. All the squares writhe with banners and colored ribbons. Market stalls seem to have flourished from nowhere.
I’m not aware of any major holidays. Imbolc is behind us, and the next equinox is weeks away.
A warm presence encircles me from behind, Thiago’s lips brushing against the back of my neck. “They’re celebrating their queen.”
My head turns to his, but there’s a quiet sort of joy in his eyes.
“Want to join them?”
I’ve been locked away for days. “Please.”
He tugs a mask from within his shirt. “Then you’ll need to wear this.”
Masked dancers fill the streets.
I’ve never seen anything like it. The people of Hawthorne Castle don’t celebrate like this, as though they’re sharing our joy.
“Come on!” Thalia cries, dragging me through the gates of the castle and into the throng. The entire court was gathered in the keep’s bailey, and Eris even threw a handful of mistletoe over the top of me.
Silver paint highlights Thalia’s cheeks, and her silver gown is cut low enough that
