Rose pressed her hand to the stone wall of the crypt. For a moment, nothing. Then strange sigils flared to life beneath her palm, glowing faint and golden. Stone ground against stone as a door formed where there hadn’t been one.
It clicked. Swung open.
No bodies.
No bones.
Instead, the crypt opened into a chamber filled with books, ancient cauldrons, bottles of potions glimmering in the low light, and artifacts I couldn’t begin to name.
I exhaled. The answers were in there. They had to be.
I wandered deeper into the chamber, trailing my fingers over cracked spines and dusty artifacts—glass jars filled with dried roots, bundles of herbs tied with twine, potions that shimmered faintly in their bottles. I’d never been inside the crypt before, and the air hummed with old magic, the kind that felt like it was watching me back. For the first time in days, something insideme flickered—hope, small but real. Maybe Tinker Bell was right. Maybe the answer I needed was sitting on one of these shelves… if I could figure out which one.
“What are we looking for?” Rose looked around the crypt.
“I don’t know,” Tinker Bell said quietly. “But I believe the answer is inside here.”
A pulse of energy swept through the chamber, brushing over my skin like a cold breath. When I looked up, a mirror towered against the far wall—huge, dark, carved with strange runes. It definitely hadn’t been there before. The glass quivered, catching motion where none existed. For a split second, I swore I saw Rose and Tinker Bell move inside the reflection… even though they were standing perfectly still beside me. A chill crawled up my spine. The mirror wanted attention. My attention.
“Find me.”
The voice. His voice.
I looked back at Tinker Bell and Rose. Tinker Bell had pulled out a book; Rose was reading over her shoulder. Neither of them had heard it.
My pulse stumbled. So it really had been just me. The mirror wasn’t callingus. It was callingme. And that terrified me more than the voice itself.
I stepped closer. My fingers stretched toward the glass without my permission, trembling, aching to touch.
“Alice, don’t?—”
My fingertips brushed the surface.
I plunged into darkness—cold, endless, screaming wind tearing at my hair, my clothes, my skin. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stop falling.
And somewhere far below, his voice rose up to meet me.
“Found you.”
Chapter Two
Darius
A woman screamed.
I stopped, scanning the forest. Nothing but twisted trees and silence. My men were out tracking the queen’s movements—wouldn’t be back for another hour at least.
The scream came again, closer now, sharp enough to split my skull.
I looked up.
A blonde woman was falling through the sky, arms and legs flailing, plummeting straight toward me.
What the fuck?
I stretched out my arms and caught her. The impact slammed me back into a tree, bark biting into my spine.
She was still kicking, still fighting, all elbows and fury.
