“That passage was not from this world.”
I nearly stop breathing.
“Like you.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“And me.”
Shock turns me numb as I listen to Devyn tell me of his past. And one I could never have imagined even in a thousand years.
"Ten years ago, I walked through a door that shouldn't have existed.”
He's not looking at me now. His gaze is fixed on the window, on the fading light, on something far away.
“I woke up here, and everything was different. Everyone knew my name, my face, my history—but I had no memory of any of it. I just had...this." He gestures vaguely at the estate around us. "A kingdom I never asked for. A role I didn't choose."
I can barely breathe.
"Hewhay's," I whisper.
“Yes.”
“But when I told you about it...you acted like you didn’t believe me.”
“Because you could be lying about Hewhay’s.”
“Why would I even lie—”
“Hewhay’s is not the only way to come to this world. Or any other world for that matter. But unlike Hewhay’s—the other methods require you to pay a price. In blood.”
Chapter Ten
THEY TAKE ABIGAIL'Sbody away just before dawn.
I stand in the corridor with Mrs. Lyme, watching men in dark suits carry something wrapped in white through passages I'll never walk again without remembering. Devyn is somewhere ahead of them, making calls, giving orders, handling the unthinkable with the same cold efficiency he handles everything else.
Mrs. Lyme talks.
I don't know if she's filling the silence or if she's decided I need to know these things. But she talks, voice low and steady, and I listen. Stories about the king. Things I never knew. Things the world outside these walls will never know.
I file each one away like photographs in an album. Evidence of a man no one else seems to see.
A phone buzzes. Footsteps approach. One of Devyn's men appears at the end of the corridor, and whatever he says makes Mrs. Lyme's face go pale.
"The Court of Stakeholders," she says in a low voice. "Emergency session. They're convening now."
Now. Not tomorrow. Not after we've slept, or showered, or had time to process that there was a body rotting beneath our feet for weeks.
Now.
The car is already waiting.
Devyn appears beside me—I don't know from where, he just materializes the way he always does—and his hand finds the small of my back, guiding me forward. He hasn't spoken to me since we found her. Hasn't looked at me, really. His jaw is tight, his eyes fixed ahead, and I can feel the tension radiating off him like heat from a furnace.
Mrs. Lyme follows us to the car. She's still talking, quieter now, leaning close to my ear as we walk.
More stories. More evidence.
