He reached out, and I knew with absolute certainty that if he touched me, I would cease to exist in any meaningful way. I would become something else, something that served his will, something that—
A hand grabbed my arm and yanked me backward, through space that folded wrong, through air that tasted metallic with otherworldly glow. I tumbled through the ruins of my grandmother’s kitchen and landed hardon moss that definitely hadn’t been there before.
“Run,” said a voice like distant thunder. “Now.”
I looked up into silver eyes—the guard from before. Up close, he was even more inhuman. His features were sharp enough to cut, all angles and edges like someone had carved him from moonlight and shadow. Dark hair fell across his face, and there were markings on his skin too—but his were different. Darker. Carved rather than grown, silver-black lines that looked like scars lined with luminous silver.
“I said run!” He pulled me to my feet with strength that made my bones ache.
But there was nowhere to run to. We were caught between worlds—the kitchen floor beneath my feet one moment, soft moss the next. The house and garden had become the same confused space, realities merging and separating in waves that made me nauseous to watch. Earth plants fought for space with things that had no names in any human language, and the walls kept flickering in and out of existence.
“Who are you?” I gasped.
“Someone who doesn’t want to see you become Auradelle’s puppet. Now move!”
He dragged me toward the elm tree—or rather, toward what the elm tree had always truly been. The ancient door it had been masking. A door carved from wood that had never grown on Earth, standing free in space without frame or wall, opening onto darkness that had texture.
“I’m not going through that!”
“You are if you want to live.”
Auradelle’s voice echoed across the chaos: “Kaelren. I should have known you’d interfere. Still playing the hero, even after all these years?”
The guard—Kaelren—turned back with a smile that was all teeth and danger. “Still playing the tyrant, even after the Bloom rejected you?”
Auradelle’s perfect face twisted with rage. “The Bloom chose patience. I chose action.”
“You chose genocide.”
“I chose survival.”
They moved at the same time, faster than my eyes could follow, their battle tearing through the merged space around us. Darkness met light in an explosion that turned the air solid for a heartbeat. Kitchen cabinets shattered behind me—or were they trees? I couldn’t tell anymore. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only watch as they fought with magic that shouldn’t exist.
Kaelren fought like a storm—all fury and chaos, shadows bending to his will like eager pets. Auradelle was precise, surgical, each gesture sending blades of light that cut through reality itself. Where their powers met, things unmade themselves, existed and didn’t exist simultaneously.
“The door!” Peeble buzzed in my ear. “While they’re distracted!”
But I couldn’t move. The mark on my collarbone burned like molten gold pressed into flesh, the lines carving themselves deeper, solidifying. It felt like being rewritten from the inside out, like every cell was remembering something it had forgotten.
“I can’t,” I gasped.
“You can. You must. The door won’t stay open much longer.”
The door was flickering, its edges starting to fray. Through it, I could see glimpses of somewhere else—a forest that had never known axes, water that ran upward, stars that hung close enough to touch.
Kaelren went down, bright light wrapped around his throat like a noose. Auradelle stood over him, crown writhing with satisfaction.
“You always were too emotional,” Auradelle said. “It made you weak.”
“And you were always too cold,” Kaelren gasped. “That’s why you’re alone.”
Something in those words hit Auradelle like a physical blow. His perfect composure cracked for just a second, but a second was all Kaelren needed. Shadows exploded outward, sending the prince flying.
Kaelren rolled to his feet and looked at me with those impossible silver eyes. “Go! Now!”
“But—”
“GO!”
