“Your grandmother would have done the same thing,” he said quietly. “She could never stand by and watch suffering, even when standing up meant suffering herself. It’s what made her perfect for the Root. And what made her too weak to survive this world.”
“She survived fine. She lived a whole life on Earth.”
“She ran away and died young, her power eating her from the insidebecause she refused to use it properly.” His voice hardened. “That’s not survival. That’s slow suicide.”
He manifested a chair from the floor—roots growing and twisting with sounds like breaking bones—and sat with elegant precision. “But we’re not here to discuss Josephine’s failures. We’re here to discuss yours.”
I stayed standing, even though my ribs screamed in protest. “I don’t have any failures yet. This is my first iteration, remember?”
“Is it?” His smile was cold. “Or is this just the first one you remember?”
“You look tired,” he observed as he tossed me a robe on the bed, his eyes taking in what I’m sure was a spectacular case of bed head and bags under my eyes. “The Heartspire takes getting used to. Most people never do. They usually go mad within the first three days.”
“Most people aren’t held here against their will with magical restraints suppressing their power,” I shot back, finally getting the robe tied despite the split lip making it hard to talk. My ribs ached with every breath.
“Aren’t they?” He tilted his head, and I noticed that his marks moved when he did—the golden corruption under his skin following the motion like it was always a half-second behind. “Every person in Wynmire is held by something. Duty, fear, love, prophecy. You’re just more honest about your chains.”
“Philosophical bullshit before breakfast? You really are a villain.”
He smiled, and I hated that it almost looked genuine, like he actually found me amusing rather than just a tool to be used. “Your grandmother said something similar when I first met her. Though she was more polite about it. She called me ‘exhaustingly metaphorical.’”
“Yeah, well, she didn’t have the benefit of knowing what a complete bastard you’d become.”
“Become?” He leaned forward, and the chair grew with him, adjusting to his movement. “I haven’t changed, child. I’ve always been exactly this. The only difference is that now I have the power to reshape the world according to my vision instead of merely dreaming about it.”
“And what vision is that? Turn everything into this?” I gestured at the writhing walls, trying not to flinch when one of the face-shapes turned totrack my movement. “Make the whole world into your personal nightmare palace?”
“No, my vision is to make the whole world alive. Connected. No more separation between the Root and the Bloom, between growth and decay, between the mortal and the eternal.” His corrupted marks pulsed with golden light, and I felt them reaching for mine again. “Your world—Earth—it’s dying. You know this. You’ve seen it. The gardens failing, the green things retreating, the slow strangling of everything natural and wild.”
I wanted to argue, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. Grandma Jo’s garden had been an oasis in an increasingly concrete world. Every year, fewer butterflies. Every season, less magic.
“So what?” I said instead. “You’re going to save Earth by corrupting Wynmire? That’s brilliant logic.”
“I’m going to save both by making them one.” He stood, and the chair dissolved back into the floor with a wet sound. “The barrier between worlds is already weakening. Your presence here proves that. But it’s been a slow decay, a gradual dissolution that will end with both worlds simply… fading.”
He moved closer, and I pressed back against the headboard despite myself, the chain rattling mockingly. My cracked rib protested.
“Unless,” he continued, “someone takes control of the process. Guides it. Shapes it into something new instead of letting it collapse into nothing.”
“Unless you take control, you mean.”
“Who else? The old courts, playing their political games while the rot spreads? The rebels, so focused on opposing me they can’t see the bigger picture? Or perhaps your precious Kaelren, too consumed by his own corruption to think beyond his next act of violence?”
“Don’t talk about him,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
“Protective of him still? Even knowing what I made him to be?” Auradelle reached into his coat and pulled out something that made my blood freeze and my markings burn simultaneously.
A locket. Not mine—I could still feel Grandma Jo’s, warm against my throat, hidden under my shift. But identical to it in every way that mattered.
“Recognize this?” he asked softly.
“That’s… how?”
“Your grandmother’s wasn’t the only one made. There were three, originally. Tokens of the first compact, when the barriers between worlds were established. One for Earth, one for Wynmire, and one…” He opened it with a click that echoed too loudly in the breathing room, revealing not a picture but a small, perfect seed that pulsed with inner light. “One for the bridge between them.”
My markings responded to the seed’s presence, flaring so hot I gasped and doubled over. I could feel them spreading—from my collarbone up toward my throat, down toward my heart—and everywhere they touched felt like being rewritten at a cellular level.
“Stop,” I gasped, my hands clawing at my chest. “Whatever you’re doing—”
