Sharp. Piercing. The same pain they’d felt days ago, when Bailey first arrived in this world. The pain that meant Hewhay was moving, shifting, rewriting.
They checked their watches simultaneously.
Time had moved backward.
Again.
“Six days.” Wolfe’s voice was grim.
“Abigail is still alive.” Skye’s tone was musing, calculating.
Quinn said nothing. He only looked at Devyn, pale eyes steady, no need to voice what they all knew.
Still-alive Abigail meant still-engaged Devyn.
For better or for worse.
The other kings left. Not physically—years of bearing Hewhay’s mark had unlocked certain abilities, and one of them was this: their souls could see and speak to each other without being in the same place. The forest dissolved around Devyn as they withdrew, leaving him alone with the trees and the mist and the weight of what he’d done.
He should be glad.
His old life was back. Uncomplicated. No wife who made him laugh, who made himblush,who defended him like a warrior and hid under blankets like a child. No soft violet eyes looking at him like he might be worth trusting.
No weakness.
But all he could think about was her.
I had no choice,he reminded himself.A broken heart heals. A broken neck doesn’t. Being spurned by your husband is always a better fate than having your life taken by something that wears a man’s face but isn’t one anymore.
He’d done the right thing.
The right thing had never felt so much like dying.
DEVYN TAPPED INTO HISkingdom-wide surveillance network the moment he returned to the estate.
Cameras first. A quick confirmation that Abigail was alive—there she was, in her father’s manor, trying on wedding accessories with a maid. Breathing. Moving. Unaware that in another timeline, her body had been discovered in a dungeon, cold and still and marked with symbols that made even hardened soldiers look away.
He should stop there.
He didn’t.
His fingers moved across the controls, pulling up feed after feed, searching for the telltale sparkle that marked where Hewhay touched the world. The shimmer was subtle—like heat risingoff summer pavement, like light catching on water that wasn’t there. Most people couldn’t see it at all.
But otherworlders could.
Otherworlders like him.
Like Bailey.
He found her near the local market.
His heart—the heart he’d spent years convincing himself he didn’t have—clenched so hard he couldn’t breathe.
She was wearing a wedding dress. White silk pooling around her feet, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, her face pale and confused as she spoke to—
White.
She was wearing white.
