Hope ignites within me. The first time I stood in the garden, this didn’t happen. The blood tide rose, and Donovan drowned. No one intervened. Did I change the future by meeting with the coven? Even though I couldn’t tell them the truth about my premonitions, have they come to defend me somehow? To save Donovan and change the course of history?
More than anything, I want to see if they succeed. But as the chains of fire weave through the air, I’m sucked back into the real world once more.
Inside the ring of flames, Donovan kneels on the stones, with me in his arms. As I watch, he lowers his head and presses his mouth to mine, as if his kiss can wake me.
The moment his lips touch mine, the floor beneath us buckles. Cracks spiderweb outward, with us at the epicenter. Bursting through every fracture and crevice, blue light gleams. It’s every color at once: sapphire and navy and cobalt and aquamarine. Haunting and tempting and somehow impossibly familiar, itcallsto me.Mine,it whispers.
And I only have one answer.Yours.
Donovan’s jaw drops, clutching me tighter, his face gone pale. And I realize what the blue light reminds me of, with itsshifting shades and undeniable allure: his eyes. It’s like a piece of the light is inside him, revealing itself the only way it can.
What in the?—
Inside my head, Cooper speaks, his voice heavy with resignation.Like calls to like,he murmurs.What is done cannot be undone.
The undertow grabs hold of me again, sucking me back into the world of the premonition, leaving the light behind. I land with a thud, my eyes fixed on the circle of hooded witches. An impossible amount of blood drips from their arms onto the ground, flowing toward me, rising like the tide. The chains of fire haven’t bound them. Instead, it’s as if the witches are encased in an invisible bubble. The chains climb it like ivy, searching for a way in, but they can’t penetrate.
But maybe I can.
Donovan’s talking now, gesticulating, demanding to know what’s going on. No one answers him. And I know we’re out of time.
I run for him, the blood tide swirling around my ankles, the coppery scent filling my lungs and the train of my dress dragging behind me. Screamingnoandwaitanddon’t.
I have the unmistakable sense that the leader is staring at me, though I can’t see his face. I can feel his gaze on me, cold and calculating, as he gestures to the Blood Witch next to him. “You,” he says. “Now.”
Their face obscured by their hood, their eyes sunk in shadow, the witch lunges for Donovan, knife held high. And I leap for them, straight through the invisible bubble, knocking their blade out of their hand as we tumble into the sea of blood.
For an interminable, awful moment, my head goes under. Then I’m up, gasping for air, grappling with the witch. Their robes weigh them down, and I scramble on top of them, my hands around their neck, dragging them beneath the surface.I haven’t felt rage like this since I lit the monster on fire. It electrifies every part of me, imbuing my muscles with more strength than I ought to have.
I don’t care what I think I saw on Donovan’s arm. They’re not going to kill him before I have answers.
The witch fights, twisting beneath me, slippery with blood. Their hood slips back, baring their face. And then I gasp, shock and fury reverberating through my limbs in equal measure.
The man beneath me—the Blood Witch who was about to take Donovan’s life—is no stranger. I’d know his blue eyes and the sardonic twist of his mouth anywhere.
Cooper.
Chapter
Forty-Four
Oh my God.I worried that he was in league with them, but this is so much worse.
He’s one of them.
“You traitor,” I spit at him. “How could you do this? You lied to me!”
But the blood-soaked garden is already retreating, Cooper slipping through my hands. I’m sucked back down the aisle as the tide creeps higher and higher. Just like last time, the chairs are adrift in it. Just like last time, Donovan sinks beneath the surface, gasping for air, reaching out to me as he drowns.
Back through the door I go, and this time, it slams shut behind me. I sink into my body, sitting up in Donovan’s arms with a gasp that shakes both of us.
“Rune?” His voice cracks. “What the hell just happened? I thought—I thought you?—”
I look up into those depthless blue eyes. Unlike before, they’re anything but opaque. They’re dark with an emotion he isn’t even bothering to hide. Fear—for me.
Aside from Charlotte, no one’s ever been afraid for me like this before. No one’s ever cared enough to bother.
But does that even matter, if he’s working with the Blood Witches? If he bears their mark, a mark he was only pretending not to recognize in the gazebo?
