What about us and our wedding?
I’ll be back on time, I promise.
Wilder’s condescending laughter echoes through our connection.You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Leigh.
My muscles lock up.
Wilder. That’s not what’s happening?—
Why didn’t you tell me about Aradia and the rift?
Limbs trembling, I keep descending. Ravi must’ve told him everything.
You were busy with Soter;you would have been disappointed.
That’s bullshit. I always have time for you.
He does, but I am doing this for him. For us and our happy future.
Wilder, I need to do this.
I don’t like the idea of you traipsing around this world alone.
I roll my eyes. I’m no damsel.I will be fine. Besides?—
The branch beneath me splinters with a sharpcrack. Everything happens so fast, I have no time to scream. There is the sickening lurch of free-fall and the knowledge that this is going to hurt, and nothing more.
I hit the ground with enough force to knock all the air out of my lungs. My vision flickers in and out like a weak heartbeat. I can’t tell if my limbs are broken, but everything hurts. The pain makes my stomach turn with nausea.
Wilder’s voice screams my name, calling for me repeatedly. He grows more desperate the longer I don’t answer. I can barely focus on him. A cloaked figure looms over me. Its presence is somehow darker than the shadows around it.
“Hello, Leigh,” a voice like midwinter midnight says.
The world doesn’t fade to black, it collapses into darkness.
My psychic connectionwith Leigh snaps like a severed wire. The hollowness in my mind hurts worse than an open wound.
I can’t feelher at all.
Is she ignoring me? Or worse…?
Each of my breaths ends up shallower than the last. She wants me to leave without her. To help the Blades. Does she think I’d rather work with them than her? Soter has my job, and I gave it to him freely. Haven’t I proven that she’s my priority?
We are supposed to get married tomorrow. Being with her is the only certainty I have.
She’s my pulse. The reason I get up in the morning. How doesn’t she see that?
The future I’ve built—everything I’ve worked and sacrificed for—means absolutely nothing without her in it.
“What happened?” I ask Selene. She stands across from me beneath the trees. The lake is behind us, beckoning me back, while my heart pushes me toward Leigh. “Our connection just snapped.”
Selene pokes her tongue against her inner cheek. Is she ignoring me, too?
If I had my magic, fire would be crackling anxiously at my fingers, but it doesn’t seem to work in this realm. Without the constant heat coursing through my veins, I feel exposed,vulnerable. But worse is this icy emptiness seizing my heart, screaming that something terrible has happened to Leigh. Something I could have prevented if she had just been honest with me from the start.
My muscles tighten. “Did you not hear me?”
Selene fidgets. “I heard you, but I don’t know what you expect me to do about it. I didn’t know you could communicate with her telepathically. You’re probably linked because you’re both still alive, much like the ghosts are bound by death. What did she tell you?”
