Burned

reborn. Back in the real world is where he’ll be.”

“He can’t be there. He’s dead.”

“Okay, I’m not so good at understanding this Otherworld stuff myself, but from what I can figure, Heath left here so that he can be reborn and live another lifetime. That’s how he’ll see you again, Z.”

Zoey paused, stared blankly at him, shook her head, and then resumed her endless pacing.

Stark pressed his lips together hard to keep from saying what was tearing him apart inside—that she would’ve pulled herself together because of how much she loved Heath, but not for him. She didn’t love him enough.

Stark shook himself mentally. This wasn’t just about love. He’d known it when Seoras had first confronted him, asking whether he’d risk his life for Zoey, even if he lost her. “I stay with her,” Stark had told him. “Aye, laddie, as her Warrior fer sure, but perhaps not as her love.”

Perhaps not as her love.

Stark looked at Zoey and really saw her. She was completely broken. Her tattoos were gone. Her spirit was shredded. She was losing herself. Yet still he saw the goodness and strength within her, and Stark was drawn to her. She wasn’t what she’d been before—she wasn’t what she could be—but even shattered, she was his Ace, his bann ri shi’, his queen.

. . . Know there is no going back, for this is the law and lot o’ the Guardian pure, nae grudge, malice, prejudice, or vengeance, only yer unflinching faith in honor can be yer reward, nae guarantee of love, happiness, or gain.

Stark was Zoey’s Guardian, no matter what. He was bound to her by something stronger than love: honor.

“Zoey, you have to come back. Not because of you and Heath, and not even because of you and me. You gotta come back because it’s the right thing, the honorable thing to do.”

“I can’t. There’s not enough of me left.”

“There is now that you’ve got help. Your Guardian’s here.” Stark lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it, and then smiled down at her as he remembered. “Aphrodite made me memorize a poem for you. It’s one of Kramisha’s. She and Stevie Rae think it’s like some kind of map you might be able to follow to get yourself whole again.”

“Aphrodite . . . Kramisha . . . Stevie Rae . . .” Zoey whispered hesitantly, as if relearning the words. “They’re my friends.”

“Yeah, that’s what they are,” Stark squeezed her hand again. Since he seemed to be getting through to her, he kept going. “So, check out the poem. Here goes:

A double-edged sword
One side destroys
One releases
I am your Gordian knot
Will you release or destroy me?
Follow truth and you shall:
Find me on water

Purify me through fire
Trapped by earth nevermore
Air will whisper to you
What spirit already knows:
That even shattered
anything is possible

If you believe
Then we shall both be free

When he’d finished reciting the poem, Zoey stopped moving long enough to meet his gaze, and say, “It doesn’t mean anything.”

She started walking again, but she had a tight hold on his hand, keeping him with her.

“Yeah, it does. It’s about you and Kalona. He has something to do with you getting free of here.” Stark paused, and then added, “You remember you two are linked together, right?”

“Not anymore we’re not,” she said quickly. “He broke that link when he broke Heath’s neck.”

I sure as hell hope so, Stark thought, but what he said was, “Yeah, still, part of it’s already come true. You followed what you thought was the truth about him to find him on water. So the next line says: Purify me through fire. What do you think that could mean?”

“I don’t know!” Zoey shouted at him. Even though she was obviously getting pissed, Stark was glad to see the animation in her face that had been so blank and dead-looking. “Kalona isn’t here. Fire isn’t here. I don’t know!”

Stark kept a tight hold on her hand and let her settle down before he told her, “Kalona is here. He’s come after you. He just can’t get into the grove.” Then, without rational thought, he spoke the next words as if they came from his heart and not his mind. “And fire got me here. Or at least it felt like fire.”

Zoey glanced at him, and in a very matter-of-fact voice, changed the course of his life by saying, “Then it sounds like that poem’s for Kalona and you, not Kalona and me.”

Her words settled over Stark like a mesh of steel. “What do you mean, Kalona and me?”