What if she was running from Amos?
“You never told me your name,” Abigail says, pulling me back to the present.
“It’s Bailey.”
“Bailey.” She tests the name, then nods like it passes inspection. “Well, Bailey...I know this is last minute and horribly shameless of me, but...” She bites her lip. “Do you think you could come to my wedding?”
Her wedding.
To Devyn.
I’m going to watch Devyn marry someone else.
Something in my chest folds in on itself, like origami made of hurt.
“I need someone to keep an eye on Amos,” she continues, oblivious to the small internal crisis I’m having. “Someone who knows what he is. I don’t want to worry the king—I don’t know how to explain Hewhay, and I don’t want to lie to him either. But if someone could just...watch. Make sure Amos doesn’t try anything.”
She looks at me with those rain-colored eyes, and I see it now—the fear she’s been hiding beneath the poise. The loneliness of being an otherworlder with no one to confide in.
I know that loneliness.
“I promise I’ll pay you handsomely once we’re married,” Abigail adds quickly. “Whatever you want. Name your price.”
I don’t want her money.
I want her to live.
I want to rewrite the ending I saw in that dungeon—Abigail’s body cold and still, her honey-blonde hair matted with blood, her rain-colored eyes open and staring at nothing.
I want to give her the future that was stolen.
Even if that future is with him.
Even if watching them together will be like swallowing broken glass and smiling through it.
“Okay,” I hear myself say. “I’ll be there.”
Abigail’s whole face transforms. Relief and gratitude and something that looks almost like hope.
“Thank you.” She reaches out and squeezes my hand. Her fingers are cold, trembling slightly. “Thank you, Bailey. You have no idea what this means to me.”
I squeeze back.
And I don’t tell her that I’ve already watched her die once.
I don’t tell her that the man she’s about to marry held me like I was precious, looked at me like I was the only thing in the world worth seeing, and then destroyed me in front of everyone who’d started to believe I might actually belong.
I just smile.
I’m getting really good at smiling when everything hurts.
Chapter Eighteen
DÉJÀ VU.
The term echoes in my mind as I wait in the corridor outside the bridal suite, right where I told Abigail we’d meet.
It seems like an eternity has come and gone since I first stood here, “relocated” to a new world and seeing her run toward me like a ghost.
