It’s mine. I failed six months ago, and my quintet paid the price. If I had only planned better, fought harder, done so many things differently…
Just like when I was a teenager, silently berating myself over my shortcomings, Lillian’s voice drifts back to me.
You’re too hard on yourself, little raven. Failures are not failures, they’re lessons—and you’ve always been a fast learner. When you set your mind on something, nothing stands in your way. You were born with such strength and glorious potential, I only wish you knew.
Lillian.
More of her careful words from the past slowly come back to me, sending a new awareness through me. I straighten, glancing at Everett.
“Lillian. Is she…?”
“She’s alive, here at Everbound,” he says, tightening his arm around my waist and tugging.
Suddenly, I’m sideways in his lap so he can hold me close, bundling the blankets closer around me. The slightest hint of wariness pulls at my gut, reminding me that he’s had his skin all over mine for a while now, but it’s easy to ignore.
In fact, it’s nice to be held like this, my face now pressed into his neck as he places tender kisses on the top of my head. He insists that he’s changed, but he’s still being so fucking gentle with me.
“I need to see her,” I tell him.
“Tomorrow.”
He twists, taking me with him until I’m lying with him curled protectively around me. We’re both still naked. When he stretches out an arm to turn off the light beside the bed, his bedroom is plunged into peaceful, pleasantly chilly darkness—but I’m comfortable tucked against him like this, as if he’s been absorbing my warmth through the blanket so he can give it back.
It’s soothing, but I shouldn’t rest yet. “Where in the castle is Lillian? I need to talk to her?—”
“Tomorrow,”he repeats, a warning note in his words. “You’re exhausted. I need you to rest so I don’t go fucking insane along with the others.”
“I can’t sleep right now,” I protest quietly, trying to muffle a yawn.
“You can and you will so that you’ll be well-rested enough to see Lillian for breakfast tomorrow.”
Breakfast with Lillian? Gods, I can’t wait to see her.
She was the only person I trusted growing up in the Nether, and I’ve missed her ever since I left. I want to insist that we go now, but it’s been one long fucking day. I still haven’t had time to process everything properly, but exhaustion is weighing heavily on my eyelids.
“Maven,” Everett murmurs against the top of my head.
“Hmm?”
“I need you to do something for me.”
Those words send a pang of remembered pain through me.
“Anything,” I parrot through a yawn.
“Don’t ever fucking leave me again.”
I close my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
10
CRYPT
It startsas it always does.
I walk unseen through a crowd of motley, nondescript auras. They’re bland compared to the aura surrounding the riveting girl on the stage, the one I’m drawn to. Her aura is the very same enticingly rich, shimmering dark mauve that brought me back to Everbound in the first place.
When I step into the mortal realm and see her face to face for the first time, I’m changed.
